Anybody who has ever been to a rock concert can tell you: Lasers and weed go together like peanut butter and jelly. “If only,” many a stoner has undoubtedly mused. “There were some way I could use a laser to smoke my weed…” Well, my red-eyed friend, we’ve already got a laser bong. Now there’s a laser vape. Meet Luminary’s The Beam, a handheld, pocket-sized vaporizer that uses a class-1 laser you can actually see to heat weed extracts. I thought for sure it was a gimmick. Turns out, it’s rather ingenious for a first-generation product.
Let’s start with the basic. From the outside the Beam doesn’t look much different from other handheld vaporizers. It has a black metal body that measures, 4 x 2 x 1 inches and weighs 7 ounces. It disappeared into the front pocket of my (fairly skinny) jeans without issue. If you pop out the bottom compartment you’ll see a little cylinder cartridge in a holder, and that’s where you put your goodies. It’s a modular system so you can swap in thicker concentrates or thinner oils (more on that in a minute). The device has just one button for turning it on/off, adjusting temperature, and firing the eponymous beam. On the other side is a glass window where you can actually see the blue laser beam streak through the vapor-filled chamber, and yes, it is very cool looking.
Luminary Beam
It’s finicky but who cares? There’s a LASER.
Pros
- Delivers incredibly smooth and delicious vapor
- Long battery life
- It’s got an awesome frickin’ laser that you can see working
- Doesn’t get hot to the touch
Cons
- Not super intuitive to use, you’ll need the instructions a first
- A bit tricky to load, and no in-body storage for the metal tool
- Limited to oils and concentrates
But let’s back up here: Why a laser, aside from looking totally bitchin’, man? There’s actually a functional reason for it. Most concentrate vaporizers (including all the disposable pens and such) use metal wires or coils to heat up the oil. This can cause a number of issues, including metal residue and corrosion, uneven heating (and burning), terpene (the compounds in your weed that gives it its flavor and some psychoactive effects) breakdown, and a notorious and unpleasant metallic taste. This cartridge system doesn’t have any metal in it (which also means no e-waste). It’s just pure light hitting your product of choice against a black ceramic tile. The result is you get unadulterated flavor, even heating, and very smooth vapor (especially at the lower temperatures).
Opening the box is at first a little overwhelming because it’s pretty packed with accessories. There’s a metal tool for loading and stirring, a silicone sleeve thing (that I later learned is to hold the metal tool), some cleaning tools, one cartridge for oils (of the runnier variety), one extra cartridge for concentrates (of the stickier variety), instructions, and a USB charging cable. The vaporizer itself has one cartridge already in it. You going to want to read those instructions, because the worst thing I can say about this device is that it isn’t very intuitive to use. As I was going through it I found myself feeling very grateful that I was sober, but once you get the hang of it, it’s actually pretty easy.
For the concentrates cartridge, use the little metal tool to scoop up some thicker concentrate about the size of a grain of rice. Then you play your own little game of Operation to try and get that goop down onto the tiny black ceramic plate in the middle of the white ceramic cartridge. It’s certainly a bit fiddly. You’ll scrape the goop off on the sides of the little window, but the laser can’t really get to it there, so you’ll want to use the pokey end of the tool to try and push the stuff down into the little hole. Then you reinsert the cartridge into the base plate and fit it back into the vaporizer. The concentrates cartridge has a silicone cylinder at the base of it, which is just for holding more concentrate, making the whole thing a bit more portable.
The oil cartridge is a bit more work up front, but then it stays ready to use for a while, more like a vape pen. You screw the top off and load your oil into the (food-grade) plastic cylinder at the bottom (I was told this will be upgraded to borosilicate glass in the next version). This is for runnier oils, that typically come in a syringe, so loading it in is easy enough, and it’s designed to hold 0.95 grams of material (Luminary is partnering with some farms to release pre-filled cartridges soon). Then you screw the top back on which looks similar to the concentrates top, but has a longer “wick” that dips down into the container below. I say “wick” because that’s how it functions, but it (and the black plate in the concentrates cartridge) is actually a type of ceramic, similar the heat tiles on spacecraft, which nets this thing two extra cool-points.
Once your cartridge of choice is loaded, with the device turned off, you hold down the power button to cycle through the different power levels. It starts on white, which is the hottest at about 400 degrees. Then it cycles down to green (lowest power), then blue (medium power). Again, this isn’t intuitive, but it’s fine once you get the hang of it. For the next version, I’d recommend it start at green/low and go up from there rather than starting at the top. Once your power-level is set, you press the button three times rapidly, and the device buzzes to let you know it’s powered-on and ready. Then you just hold down the button, and inhales as the beam blasts into your substance of choice for as long as you hold it down.
One of the benefits of the laser system is that it’s instantly on. Other handheld vapes (like the excellent DaVinci ICQ) can take up to a minute for their little ovens to heat up. A laser is either on or off. It can take a few puffs before the goop melts onto the black plate and it really gets going, though, especially the oil cartridge, but once it’s going it’s about as fast as an instant-inhale vape pen. The glass chamber glows blue, and if you blow a little of the vapor back into the mouthpiece, the laser shows up bright and clear, which has some real wow-factor.
And what’s the verdict on how it works?
Oh my goodness it’s tasty and smooth. For the oil cartridge I used some fairly liquidy live resin from Jetty Extracts, and I found that the low setting was incredible. It tasted delicious, almost like fresh flower, and I really felt like I was getting all those subtle little terpenes in there. It also hit so smoothly that I wasn’t sure if I was getting anything until I exhaled, and a big cloud came out. I also tried it at the medium power level, which produced a thicker cloud, but it was a bit more harsh and chokey for my sweet, innocent lungs. I turned it up to white (in the name of science) and it tasted noticeably burned. I didn’t really enjoy the flavor and it made me cough, too (though, in fairness, I’m not a big smoker or vaper), so I preferred keeping it on low.
For the concentrates cartridge I mostly used some more viscous live resin (upwards of 80-percent THC) from Raw Garden, which is known for making extremely pure concentrates, as well as some Live Resin Diamonds (92 to 96-percent pure) I had lying around from a previous review. For those, the medium/blue setting seemed to be the sweet spot. Again, the flavors were absolutely delicious, and the cloud I exhaled was unexpectedly thick, not to mention potent. The vaporizer vibrates every two seconds while the laser is engaged which helps you gauge your dose. That’s smart, because it hits so smoothly you might very well over-shoot your first couple of times and become one with your living room furniture.
It’s recommended that you take the time to clean the various components fairly frequently. Most important would be the glass lens that the laser shoots through. Obviously, if that gets cloudy that’s going to reduce the amount of light (and therefore heat) that gets to the goods. It comes with a couple foam-tipped swabs (Q-Tips aren’t recommended because cotton fibers may block the lens), which you dib in rubbing alcohol and use to wipe any residue off. It’s also recommended that you clean the cartridges and cores, also with alcohol, every couple of weeks or so, depending how frequently you’re using it.
It’s worth noting that this is a first-generation product (they’ve shipped the first 500 to early backers, and the next batch of 1,000 is in pre-order now, shipping 4/20/2025), and as such there are definitely some things that could be improved. I already mentioned that the oil cartridge’s reservoir will soon be glass, which is good, since the less plastic that come in contact with your concentrates the better. Personally, I’d like to see a second button added, so you’ve got a separate button for temperature control. More granular temp control would be cool, too (the DaVinci mentioned above can be adjusted in one-degree increments).
I’d really like to see them figure out a way for the metal scooping/stirring tool to be housed within the body of the device itself, too. The silicone sleeve it comes with to attach the tool to the outside of the device adds a fair amount of bulk, and your pockets would get very sticky/stinky since it doesn’t cover either end. Luminary is at least in the late-stages of developing an accessory that will help alleviate some of that. Currently in late-stage prototype is a next-gen version of the concentrates cartridge called the “EverDabber.” This would work a bit more like the oil cartridge, where you load a larger reservoir, but once you do you can click a wheel to load the concentrate from the reservoir into the little chamber that ignites. It will dispense in 25-milligram increments, which should help you monitor your dosage, too. This will be an optional accessory, likely launching in the next few months. (Luminary is working on a cartridge for dry herb, too, but that’s likely much further out).
Those gripes aside, this thing is unexpectedly great. I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just me, though, so I brought it to a party where I could test it with three friends who are much heavier smokers. They were loading up a very large bong when I interrupted them and asked if they wanted to try the Beam. I had the oil cartridge in place and the temperature set to low, and all three of them absolutely loved it. They said it was delicious and crazy smooth. All three said they don’t normally like oils or concentrates, but this was so good they all wanted to know how much it was. When I told them that it’s $200, they all thought it was well worth it, and I do, too.
Beyond looking cool (which it absolutely does) the laser works really well. It heats up fast, it tastes great, and it’s very easy on the throat and lungs. I’m definitely interested in checking out the EverDabber accessory, which will make fiddling with the metal tool a less-frequent endeavor, and I look forward to seeing what they cook up for the next generation, but for now, this is the smoothest portable concentrate vaporizer I’ve ever used. Plus, y’know… frickin’ lasers…