How Is the IQOS User Experience?

Today I want to share my answer to this question with friends who want to quit smoking.

Around 2016, I started trying to quit smoking. At first, I relied on e-cigarettes and vaping devices. I gradually went from being a beginner to tinkering with all kinds of devices, e-liquid, coils, and so on.

During that process, I still wanted to smoke regular cigarettes. I would occasionally smoke them, but with willpower I basically stayed off cigarettes until July, and then everything started over.

I began smoking regular cigarettes again. Afterward, I thought about why I failed. The main reason may have been that the flavor of vaping devices was always still a step behind real cigarettes. Another very important point was that the aerosol wasn’t warm like cigarette smoke.

So from the perspective of quitting smoking, vaping devices may still be unable to suppress the urge to smoke real cigarettes. No matter how long you use vaping devices, at some point, you may suddenly choose to go back to regular cigarettes.

Then in January 2017, I started using IQOS. Let me first talk about my current situation. Compared with vape e-cigarettes, IQOS has one very obvious effect: it stops me from thinking about smoking regular cigarettes.

I also tried going back to cigarettes when my IQOS ran out of battery or when I had no tobacco sticks left. But as someone who had smoked for more than ten years, for the first time in my life I actually felt that cigarettes smelled bad.

That burnt, ashy smell gave me none of the satisfaction of relieving a craving. So after that happened many times, if I forgot to bring my IQOS or it ran out of power, my choice was simply not to smoke.

Even if I didn’t smoke at all, I still didn’t want to go back to regular cigarettes. So basically, I can say that I’ve successfully quit smoking.

But at first, the IQOS experience was only average. It doesn’t have the sweet aroma of vaping devices. Even though it feels more like a real cigarette than vaping devices do, if your goal is to quit smoking,

I recommend IQOS. That warm aerosol and strong throat hit are simply a lifesaver for long-time smokers. At first, when you’re not used to it, the taste may feel a little strange compared with cigarettes,

kind of like the feeling of grain burning. But trust me, maybe that’s actually the taste of the tobacco leaf itself. Once you get used to it, you’ll definitely understand what I mean.

After getting used to it, you’ll definitely be able to notice the bad smell in regular cigarettes that doesn’t belong to the tobacco itself. The result of using it is that you can completely get away from regular cigarettes,

and if you consciously try to quit, the frequency and number of times you use it will also decrease.

To make it easier to accept in the beginning, I recommend choosing menthol tobacco sticks.

IQOS may be the truly viable solution for quitting smoking.