Sure, if you weren't competing with every other vape out there that has things like variable voltage settings (at least 3), a pre-heat feature, the ability to turn on/off with 5 presses, or to turn off automatically after 5-10 minutes without use, a low battery indicator, a charging indicator, a broken coil indicator...

Hmm, seems like you need a lot more than a battery, heating coil, button, and single transistor.

There is also a battery management system as well.

M0 processors are dirt cheap, especially in bulk.

They probably have a BMS library that takes a few Kb of flash.

The time it would take to make the design cost effective wouldn't be worth it.

Slap a less than a dollar mcu and be done with it.

Disclaimer: I don't smoke anything, so I don't know any details.

Wouldn't a button connected to a heating coil be a fire hazard? Is there no automatic shut-off based on temperature? If you add enough safety features, it might end up costing about the same as an embedded SoC.

I used to be into vaping and a big mechanical vape fan. I still have all of my old mech vapes! Those were what you’re thinking of—a button, a conducive body, and a coil or two mounted to a post. You pop an 18650 in, no transistor or resistors needed. You adjust your wattage by changing the way you wrap your coils, and your wire gauge. Generally I’d like to run around .2 ohms, which pushes about 18-20 amps out of the 18650s.

These are NOT devices you want in the hands of regular people lawl. I’ve had friends in years past love how my setup was and get similar vapes for themselves. I’ve seen a burned-down backpack (RIP, all of his adderall XR), a table almost catch fire, and burnt carpet. No explosions because I told people “don’t get one of these, but if you’re not going to listen to me, for the love of glob make sure it’s vented.”

Anyway, yeah no way anyone should have these except electronics enthusiasts. Even with locking rings, they can just start firing if the person using it isn’t super careful. Nice batteries rated for 30a pulse are 2USD more than the garbage batteries that love to vent or explode.

You add in a transistor, that’s not gonna do anything. You add in a couple more things for protection and your cost is higher than it would have been by getting one of the chips in OP’s article, and you don’t have a nice interface for adjusting wattage and checking battery level and charging via USB and all that fun shit.

i disagree with the single transistor. overcharge prevention requires something more (i am not a batteriologist don't ask me what. i'd do it with a tesla coil because that'd look cooler)

There is a little more to it, pressing the button 5 times turns it on and off. Three times often lets one cycle through power settings. But yeah, anything more than a very minimal programming is frankly suspicious.

It could be a lot is used to get the charge right idk.

Yeah, as per the analysis I did in another post, even a 555 and a couple of transistors to just blink an LED is more expensive than putting a microcontroller like this one there.