The Birth Of Variable Wattage: The Darwin Mod
While some modders were concentrating on turning the screw, adjusting the voltage and finding the sweet spot for the tanks and cartomizers that were available, some were looking to make the transition to full digital capabilities. Rather than taking pot luck with the voltage until you found the sweet spot, the focus shifted to finding a wattage level you liked and having the vape mod make calculations between the battery and the coils.
When the Darwin mod from Evolv came into existence, it knocked many people for a loop. It looked like nothing that had been seen before and honestly there has been very little since that comes close to its appearance. With a side mounted 510-connector that doubled as an on-off switch, this was a beast that had its own “look and feel”. Looking like a cross between a wi-fi adaptor and a mp3 player, this little demon was a force to be reckoned with. In its own way, it was a thing of beauty. When you get past the connection arm/ on-off switch, the Darwin was a slim line sleek addition to the vape-box family. The backlit LCD display gave users the ability to see the resistance of their coils while using the scroll wheel to adjust the wattage. The device took note of your wattage and adjusted the voltage accordingly, it was capable of firing between 4.2 and 12.7 watts, with the majority of users finding their happy place in the mid range of its capabilities.
To put it bluntly, this was the first commercially available set it and forget it vape mod. As soon as you set the wattage, it stayed put, even if you changed the atomizer that was attached to it. There was no need for complicated calculations in your head to find the optimum vaping range, you started off at a low-wattage setting and increased it by turning the wheel until you hit that sweet spot. There was no need for taking the atomizer off to check the voltage, the screen read out the wattage, voltage and even told you when the batteries were getting low. There was no need to buy additional batteries as the Darwin had its own built-in 1800 MAh (milliamp hour) power source, with micro USB charging that claimed pass through abilities.
Its biggest limitation was outside of its own control. As modders began bringing new and improved tanks into the marketplace, that side mounted on-off switch turned out to be its downfall. As the tanks got wider, the connector could not be folded down and the sleek, streamlined device could no longer be safely stowed in many people’s pockets.
While this technology may seem alien to our current vaping standard, if you look in your hand right now, most of the technology used in your vape mod stemmed from these innovations. The Darwin was greatly useful as most vaper’s were hitting around 2-2.5 ohms. This was before the Sub Ohm craze hit the market, so low-wattage devices were all that were needed.
