You know those ideas you get when you are really high? The ideas you think could actually be something. You stay up all night smoking more weed, planning every little detail only to wake up the next morning and realize you can’t remember half of what you planned. The great highdeas.
This isn’t one of those highdeas. This vision burns much brighter. So bright in fact that you need safety glasses to properly utilize the technology SilconCali is producing. The Bay Area startup is building a more exciting future and they’re doing it by combining the mechanics of a conventional glass bong with app-enabled, laser technology and other exciting approaches to firing up a bowl.
B-LAZE Laser Bong: Never Smoke a Boring Bowl Again
The flagship technology from SiliconCali is the B-LAZE Laser Bong; a hand-blown, glass bong lit by LEDs that uses a laser to ignite the bowl while leveraging other automation to optimize the experience. The battery-powered laser bong uses wireless induction charging to recharge the device using an electromagnetic field from a charging dock. The B-LAZE is a highdea so incredibly inventive that only true stoner ingenuity could bring it to life.
So why would you ever need a laser bong? To find out why you would ever need a laser bong and what inspired its creation I sat down for a chat with SiliconCali founder and B-LAZE creator, Justin Zelaya.
“It’s simple!” Zelaya explains. “I was tired of boring products.” He wanted to create a fun, unique way to enjoy cannabis but more than anything this project is about creating an exciting future. It’s less about getting high or jumping into the booming cannabis industry.
Not long ago, Zelaya was operating a headshop-technology shop hybrid in San Francisco’s renowned Haight Ashbury. In a city known for disruptive technology, in a neighborhood rooted as the epicenter of the counterculture. What better place could cannabis and technology collide so fantastically?
Zelaya’s passion for the project and company comes from his enthusiasm for all things tech. He’s a self-taught electrical engineer who wanted to learn how to build drones. So he studied ways to engineer everything from microcontrollers to batteries and more. He explains that “learning how to make drones taught me how to build pretty much every electrical component I could imagine.”
To secure funding and build a proper foundation for the company Zelaya got his idea backed by bitcoin billionaires. Which is necessary because combining modern laser technology with traditional functional art glass is no small feat. Innovation like this takes heavy investment in time, energy, and resources. The different glass designs alone cost thousands of dollars and countless hours devoted to building functional versions of different concepts.
Zelaya has spent the last year and a half iterating on different design prototypes. He shared his vision with fifty or sixty different glassblowers before finding one willing to give it a shot. All of them saying similar things. ‘It’s too complicated.’ ‘It can’t be done.’ It wasn’t until he met N3rd Glass that he found someone to work with. “N3rd was the first to say, ‘It won’t work, but what if we redesign?”
Since finalizing the initial the design with N3rd, SilconCali has turned to Santa Cruz Glass to efficiently scale production and help them bring the B-LAZE to market. Zelaya does some of the glasswork, too. Adding abrasion, sandblasting, and other final coldworking details during the final stages of production.
How Does the Laser Bong Work?
Just like any other bong… sort of. You load the bowl with your flower of choice like you normally would but then instead of sparking a lighter, you use the mobile app to fire the specially-tuned laser. But not before you put on the safety glasses that the B-LAZE comes with. Once the laser is engaged the bowl slowly spins thanks to a small set of gears; spinning and combusting the material as it turns. Using a wider optical setting you can diffuse the pinpoint heat of the laser to effectively vaporize flower.
How hot the laser actually gets is somewhat impossible to answer because it only gets as hot as the material it interacts with. The heat from the 2w laser is designed for flower and programmed to target cannabinoids specifically. The color and consistency of your flower can affect the way the laser works. Zelaya gave the example that red lasers don’t burn red material well. Luckily for us, good weed is mostly green and purple.
It’s not a lightsaber either, so it won’t slice your limbs off but you still should be careful with it. The laser can sting if it hits your skin and the bright spectrum of light is not good for your eyesight. Hence the need to use safety glasses.
Using the mobile app, you can fire the laser and control its color, choosing from over six million color combinations. You can adjust the speed the bowl spins and with constant updates to the firmware more features are on the way.
When asked how to clean it, Zelaya claims it’s the first thing people want to know and that keeping the piece clean is simple. It is essentially the same as any other bong except you don’t ever want to put it under running water to flush it out. Instead, drain the water chamber from the small cap on the bottom of the bong and give it a simple rinse with isopropyl alcohol or whatever cleaner you prefer for your glassware.
To Infiniti and Beyond
With a bong so technically advanced, the only thing left to do is tackle the final frontier, space. Zelaya was excited to share that in a way they are already working towards that future.
Currently, you can only fire the laser on the B-LAZE using Bluetooth technology. But soon you’ll be able to engage the laser using WiFi. To take it one step further, SiliconCali is building a satellite internet hub for their new facility that will allow them to centralize all signals being sent to and from laser bongs from around the globe.
So, anytime a B-LAZE is fired the activation signal will be sent to satellites in space and beamed back down to the precise location of the laser bong. That means even if you’re a world apart you’ll be able to fire a friend’s laser bong with the tap of your phone screen by beaming the signal off satellites as they orbit the planet. Which basically gives you the most futuristic way to enjoy cannabis. What a time to be alive!
Innovative Additions
Beside bong tokes from space, SiliconCali is making ongoing updates to the B-LAZE as well as designing other new, exciting laser-powered products. Some of the new features they are working on include full gimbaling of the bowl which will you more control over where you want to fire the laser as well as play with shapes and messages as you burn your herb
Other application and firmware updates like voice command are on the horizon, too. Zelaya’s excitement peaks as he imagines coming home to a pre-packed bowl and saying the command, “SIRI, light my bowl.” His laughter trailing off as he describes some additional games and data capabilities he’s building so that you can compete with friends for the longest rip and other data measuring competitions.
Right now, the required safety glasses block out the intense laser beam altogether, but soon the mobile app will give you the ability to view the laser in full color directly on your phone’s screen.
Currently, the laser bong is not designed for concentrates. That would require a different and more powerful laser but SiliconCali is already working on a version that will make laser dabs a reality.
Development is also underway to essentially turn any bong into a fantasy future bong with the use of their plasma bowl — a plasma-powered bowl piece that functions like the B-LAZE and fits most standard size glass fittings.
Want Your Own Laser Bong?
You can preorder your own B-LAZE on the SiliconCali’s website and for $2,400 you can get one of the 45 originals from the first production run. After they’re gone new models will be released but this is your chance to get the laser bong as it was originally designed. You can also find them in a few headshops sprinkled throughout the states.
If you want to check out some of the features for the B-LAZE you can download the app for free in the Google Play and Apple App stores. Download it now to control the laser bong and new devices as they get released.
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