Puffco Proxy Review

The Puffco Proxy is Puffco’s most recent release. A modular portable vaporizer unit (released in June of 2022) which comes equipped with a 3D concentrate chamber and ultra lightweight glass pipe. The Proxy will function with 3rd party glass, both designed by Puffco, Puffco approved artisans like Ryan Fitt or anyone who can design an accessory to accommodate the Proxy’s modular mold. Overall the Proxy offers great terpene flavor profiles and much mellower hits than the Puffco Peak Pro. So let’s dive in and review the Puffco Proxy.

While the Proxy utilizes the 3D chamber technology  rolled out last year as an upgrade to the  Puffco Peak Pro, it is a very much different vaporizer and experience from the Puffco Peak and Puffco Peak Pro. Reviewing the Puffco Proxy so shortly after inception is possibly doing a disservice as the evolution is likely to take a few months before we see the full range of Puffco’s new vaporizer. While we already love the Proxy for the mellow hits and more portable design, like an open sourced software Roger wrote the base code and others will develop off of it. We are solely reviewing the Proxy for how it comes as of it’s Summer 2022 release. We will soon be reviewing the Proxy with the Puffco water attachment , the Proxy Bub. 

The Puffco Proxy is $299. If you use our link below you can buy  the Proxy from a Puffco authorized vendor which offers full warranty as well as a 60 day trial period and lifetime trade-ins on your purchase. Given the Puffco Proxy does not sync to Bluetooth there is a high probability for counterfeit devices being sold by non authorized vendors later on down the line, so do make sure your vendor is Puffco authorized. 

The device feels appropriately priced given it is a new release from a top brand and  functions as a high end ultra portable e-pipe much like the PAX 3 or Crafty+ do for herbs. Critics have commented the original Puffco Peak is only $250 and it provides a more premium experience. While this is true, that is an Apples to Oranges comparison. The Peak is a different vaporizer from the Proxy and does not offer the portability or versatility nor the same vapor experience.

The Puffco Proxy comes in a nifty little accommodating travel case reminiscent of what a travel razor or other personal electronic device would come in. Besides a cool little magnetic compartment to store your extracts, the case is minimalist and serves the function to which you need to both travel with and protect your Puffco Proxy. I would have imagined a tad nicer case for a $300 electronic device as even G Pen has been designing more durable hemp cases for much cheaper vaporizers.

The Proxy will take on a second life with additional delivery systems other than the OEM dry pipe and until we see these evolutions there is not much need to place a large amount of manufacturing budget  into the standard Proxy glass pipe and packaging it comes with. We might even see the Proxy modular e-banger sold by itself without the sleek glass pipe once it is heavily adopted. If there is one thing for certain,  Puffco aficionados love to customize their Puffco Vaporizers. 

The Proxy Vaporizer comes in three main parts. The base of the Proxy is made of a rubberized Silicone and contains the internal battery,  RGB lighting, control button, vapor path and USB-C port. The base is the power source for the entire device and if you get more hands on with the Puffco Proxy you will see it is pretty much the entire vaporizer which can be input into other eco-systems such as the Puffco “Bubs”  Proxy water pipe adapter.

The 3D chamber inserts inside the Proxy base and is made of external alloy with a glazed ceramic interior. It comes equipped with a silicone carb cap jacket and glass insert which can be taken out to make way for a 3rd party directional airflow insert.  The 3D chamber boasts heating elements both on the bottom and sides which adjust heating patterns throughout the session to optimize the vaporization of the wax, live resin or oil which is being vaporized. 

The OEM out of the box delivery glass pipe system appears at first to be a standard glass pipe. It feels much better in the hand than it appears. The OEM Proxy pipe is lightweight, durable and medical grade. Not being a design engineer, I am uncertain exactly what kind of process is used to get borosilicate glass this lightweight and durable, but it feels if Apple designed a standard glass pipe, this would be it. 

The neatest thing about the Proxy’s build is that the 3D Chamber and base are essentially the vaporizer and any glass that can accommodate the base’s dimensions will function to session with the Proxy. Theoretically you can just inhale directly from the Proxy’s vapor path on the side, but after trying this and getting a mouthful of hot  vapor it is not recommended.

The Puffco Proxy was top secret and had been in research and development before the release of the Puffco Peak Pro 3D Chamber. The 3D Chamber which was designed to upgrade the experience on the Peak Pro was originally intended  for the Proxy, but was spun off when it was seen how it could accommodate and enhance other Puffco Vaporizers. 

The 3D Chamber utilizes heating tracers  1.)  to maintain the temperature of the chamber while inhaling and 2.) to adjust the heating parameters. The 3D chamber on the Proxy heats from the side while inhaling and not the bottom to preserve your wax or oil while inhaling and to provide better flavor given there is no degradation to the extracts on the bottom part of the chamber during inhalation. One thing I’ve enjoyed about this 3D heating technology versus that on the Carta 2’s Intelli-Core Atomizer (which also boasts 3D technology) is how much more preservation the Puffco 3D chamber provides making a small pin head sized amount of extracts last longer with better flavor. 

One of the developments we are most excited for is the Proxy Flower Chamber. While we know it is in the works, it has yet to be officially released by Puffco. We assume the flower chamber will be alot like the flower chamber the Carta uses to make the OG Carta and Carta 2   Vaporizers herb compatible. We remain critical of vapes which say they can do both and to date have only had good results from the Hydrology 9NX for both herb and concentrates. Puffco is the best in the concentrate space so this does make Proxy flower chamber more anticipated and from someone who knows and loves vaporizers would love to see how it stacks up. I just cannot see it being something of Storz & Bickel quality and we recommend getting a vape for flower and one for concentrates if you like doing both.

UPDATE: The flower chamber is actually for lighting your herb (combustion) and will not be a vaporizer accessory. I do wonder how this will affect the Proxy pipe with residual flavor. We are staunch anti-combustion folks over here, but on the flip side it is a breath of fresh air to see Puffco not trying to do it all with attempting to make the Puffco Proxy a dry herb vaporizer. Puffco has designed two interesting & discreet  smoking apparatuses in the Budsy and Cupsy, and while we don’t like blazing up our herb, others may and this is what the Proxy flower chamber will offer – basically just making your Proxy glass into a fully functional herb pipe.

The Puffco Proxy takes about 30 seconds (give or take a few seconds depending on what heat setting you have selected) to hit temperature. Once the Proxy hits temperature the session will last 45 seconds. You can draw before that as cold loading is recommended. 

If you did pack a rather large amount of extracts, pressing the home button two  times will provide a 10 second additional boost via boost mode. In the Proxy manual Puffco says to never hit boost more than 3 times in a row or the unit will overheat. 

The Proxy is not designed for multiple back to back sessions and will overheat if you are trying to keep the puppy going for a simultaneous 3-4 minute session. If your Proxy does overheat it will display the red LED light for 5 seconds.  

The Proxy provides a very different experience from the standard Puffco electronic dab rigs in the Puffco Peak and Peak Pro. The vapor is tastier, more mellow, less smooth (likely due to dry hits) and lasts longer. A small little pin sized amount of extracts was giving me 3-4 enjoyable mellow hits. This would have been gone in one or two draws with a standard rig. I can even fire it up after the 45 second session is complete and get another 1-2 little faint hits from the remnants. 

I have liked using this during the day time as well for the ability to more or less micro dose concentrates; something that is a hard sell to do with any electronic rig vaporizer which is intended to deliver a large quantity of vapor all at once. 

Given I have not used the Proxy with any other eco-systems I cannot assess how it performs as an e-rig or heavy hitter. I am fully enjoying these chill little puffs and they are much more flavorful and quality than a more budget vaporizer like a honey straw or portable wax pen.

Another feature I enjoyed when reviewing the Puffco Proxy was disco mode. Pressing the home button three times quickly while your Proxy is engaged in a session will enter disco mode. Disco mode solely provides a multi colored RGB light show. This is like mood lighting on the Puffco Peak Pro. Disco mode does not enhance or adjust the session in anyway but by providing different lights. 

Ironically I stated I didn’t care about any of these lighting features when reviewing the new Carta 2 Vaporizer and talked down the importance of the LED presets. That was until I found the LED preset I loved and now will not session without it. The Proxy disco lights just enhance what is already a great experience.

The Puffco Proxy comes with four temperature presets and  is a very low heat concentrate vaporizer. This is something that lends itself to enhanced flavor and smoother vapor. This design is well thought out as taking down dry hits at 800°F would cause most to cough up a lung. The Proxy’s range is from 490°F – 545°F.

• Blue – 490 °F 
• Green – 510°F 
• Red – 530°F 
• White – 545°F 

To super boost your Proxy temperature to 630°F to clear out any residual puddles or simply because you want to get the most concentrated hit, press the home button 5 times when in white temperature range. This will raise the Proxy to it’s highest possible temperature which is not part of the standard 4 settings.

One of the biggest surprises was how smooth the vapor on the Puffco Proxy was. Dry dabs through your standard E-Rigs can be harsh and unpleasant. The Proxy is not your standard E-Rig however and provides much more low key mellow vapor with greater flavor. This in part is due to flavor loss which happens when vapor is filtered through water (whether if be an herb vape or concentrate vape) 

The hits do become harsher after the first 2-3 but the amount of draws you are able to get from just a tiny pin head sized of extracts is pretty incredible.

The Proxy also permits for smaller sized  puffs. This is not something which water filtered E-Rigs can provide. We have reviewed many vaporizers and given tips and tricks on how to get optimal vapor. However the best vaporizers do not require tips and tricks to do so, you can just pull accordingly. The Proxy allows for big hits or small draws as you see fit without any draw resistance.

Given the requirement to manually power down and only 4 heat settings, it would be nice to see an app in the future. I know the app space has been a great point of contention between tech companies and vaporizer manufacturers with Focus V still getting their Carta 2 Vaporizer app ironed out nearly a month after retail release. 

I have discussed how vaporizer apps are over rated and not needed in the past and companies like Davinci trying to add features like know your dose technology on their  IQ2 Vaporizer app are total overkill. However when you just have a single home button like on the Puffco Peak Pro or Puffco Proxy an app really helps give greater insight and control. I am sure we will likely see an app function in the future if Puffco ever brings us a Puffco Proxy Pro.

While no one was expecting a removable battery, one of the biggest bummers about the Proxy is no automatic shut off. The unit will stay in standby and can be turned on again to session with two presses of the home button. This is a feature that was highly criticized with the original Peak and was hard to get accustomed to. When I first got my Puffco Peak I would charge it up, do a few sessions and if I forgot to power the unit down would come back to it in a few days to find it totally dead. It does appear the new Proxy has an Auto-Sleep function. Being aware of the lack of automatic shut down I have been turning it off post session so cannot comment on if the battery stays kosher over many days when in standby.

Another downside to the Proxy is it does not permit for excessive back to back sessions. The battery life is going to be alot less than it would on the Puffco Peak Pro. By it’s small design alone only so much battery can fit into the Proxy’s modular base. 

Three flashing red lights signal the battery is low. You can get about 12 sessions (45 seconds once at temp) on a single charge in the higher settings before the Proxy begins to indicate the battery is low.  You can use the Proxy until the unit is totally dead to get the last few drops, so it is nice the low battery warning is included as kind of a wrap up of your session or get charging alert. 

After just an hour charging the Proxy was showing a full battery when clicked three times (the function to check the battery level). Unfortunately there is not a way to know which side of the spectrum as the battery life indicators only show three colors for low, medium and high.

When using the Puffco Proxy and not counting the sessions with pen and paper , it does feel like the battery life is not as good as when we reviewed it and were getting 12+ sessions per charge. I do feel like the battery wanes prematurely after charging it and this can be a bummer since I have been using alot outside the house.  The automatic standby mode the Proxy enters between sessions is not supposed to tax the battery life, but does feel a tad like the OG Peak where you could not tell if it was off or in standby mode and the battery tended to drain faster than you would have thought if you forgot to totally power it down.

While we have dinged the Proxy for lack of automatic shut off and no app, where it shows the most promise is in the  modular design. Modularity is defined as the quality of consisting of separate parts that, when combined, form a complete whole. Here you can take the base and plunk it into another pipe that has the accommodating Proxy dimensions. This feels as if Roger (Puffco’s CEO and lead visionary) wrote some open source code and is letting others design and build around it. At the time of this review it has only been a week since Puffco released the Proxy and if you look to Puffco’s Instagram  you are already  seeing so many glass blowers create artisan pieces to accommodate the Proxy. We have even hypothesized that Puffco could soon just sell the base by itself without any delivery systems;  community contests for best accommodating piece, etc. But at the end of the day, it is Puffco reinventing an easier and more efficient way for vaping extracts with the driving engine being the Proxy base. It has the makings of yet another blockbuster innovation from the halls of Puffco.

Being smaller than the Puffco Peak and other E-Rigs does not mean the Proxy is a great  portable vaporizer. Still needing a pipe for a delivery system and the overall size of the base take away from that pocket portability which has made wax pens like the Puffco Plus and PAX Era so popular. The Proxy is not an ultra portable vaporizer by any means and you will still need to utilize a travel case if you wish to bring the Proxy on a road trip or camping. Then you have to factor in only 15 sessions on a single charge and the fragile nature of a glass pipe, which while sturdy is still glass and prone to breaking, etc. So before you head off to see your favorite band you are likely going to want to just take your 510 pen.

The low temperature settings and glazed ceramic make cleaning the Proxy’s 3D Chamber a breeze. I have done over 25 sessions with my Proxy and the 3D Chamber is still pearly white. This was with the same brand of extracts I used to review the Peak Pro 3D Chamber and Carta 2 Intelli-Core atomizer –  Both of which chazzed and needed to be scrubbed with sea salt.  The Proxy chamber has remained clean as a whistle with a simple Q-Tip wipe post session.

For longevity reasons, it is recommended to Q-tip out your  chamber every session, this is just par for the course whenever you are using a concentrate vaporizer. 

I cannot keep the Puffco Proxy out of my hands. And while it was just released,  the Puffco Proxy has seen it’s vocal critics in the Puffco Community who have not met the new addition with the same reception their signature Peak Pro received  from their core fan base. This is exactly why I say it will win over a new brand of consumer.  The Proxy is a much different experience almost akin to taking some sips of a high end herb vaporizer. Puffco’s core audience [and those of electronic dabs rigs] are generally speaking, the hip younger crowd. They want something that is new age in design while at the same time delivering peak effect in a matter of seconds with one or two hits. That can be the Proxy if you rip it through a rig (and yes there are rig adapters being made) but if you are not going to use it as an e-pipe to kick back and relax with  AND in the rig and just opt for the rig option; You are better off buying the Peak or Peak Pro. 

We are excited to see to what extent the New Puffco Proxy evolves. It could take some time, but personally feel this is yet another game changer from Puffco which will set the standard to which imitators follow.

If you are looking to try a concentrate vaporizer that delivers high quality tasty, fresh and easy to obtain sips of vapor without putting you over the edge, I cannot recommend the Puffco Proxy enough.

The Proxy provides a totally different experience from your standard electronic rigs of which Puffco themselves if not invented at least brought mainstream. If I have not mentioned it already, I am not a huge dabber and mainly stick to the Mighty+ or other session herb vapes. Since the Proxy release I have almost exclusively been using it daily in it’s standard form and here is it how it stacks up to my beloved herb vapes.

I love how a small little rice grain sized dab can give me multiple hits. The downside to that is 1.) the Proxy only stays on for 30 seconds at a time and 2.) It is highly advised you wipe out with a Q-Tip after each sessions.

Yes you can extend the session by ten seconds by entering boost mode (pressing the home button twice before the session ends), but you are not supposed to do this more than 3 times or the unit will overheat. With an herb vape I am accustomed to having the unit on for 2-3 minutes at a time while I take multiple hits. I can turn it on eat chips and salsa, and pick my session herb vape back up for another hit 45 seconds later and keep doing this a few times over. With the Puffco Proxy I need to make the most out of the 30 seconds and then turn it back on if I forget to enter boost mode. I want it to be a session vape and stay on for at least a minute, but the unit can just not do that.

My second gripe is that I can load it up for on the go, but wanting to have 2 or 3 sessions with it causes me to not wipe it clean between sessions. This can cause wear & tear on the Proxy 3D Chamber. To avoid this I would need to pack smaller dabs and bring around my concentrates with me along with a loading tool and load as I go. This however takes away from the huge edge the Proxy has of being portable. If I have to carry a jar, loading tool , Q-Tips around with me in support of my vaporizer, then it becomes not so much of a portable vaporizer.

With the Peak Pro or other e-rig like the Carta 2, when I session it is at my table or on my couch.  I have all the needed ritual goodies (hot knife, Q-tips , ISO wipes) easily accessible as I am not having a toke while walking my dog or getting ready to go surf.

My last gripe is not being able to adjust temperatures mid session. While I have been using my Proxy non stop, part of me is unable to nail down the sequence of buttons I must push. I end up turning the thing off mid session unnecessarily just to get to the temperature select setting starting point.

Ultimately no vaporizer is without it’s flaws and the Proxy has handedly won me over. I 10/10 would recommend buying one and I can’t remember the last time my herb vapes sat idle for this long or I bought as much live Rosin from the dispensary before. Maybe it is a self fulfilling prophecy of the Puffco Proxy review; After a few uses I was like man this thing is going to win over alot of suburban soccer moms and other habitual users who would otherwise not take huge dabs from an e-rig.

Besides creating superior extract vaping experiences, Puffco excels at great branded content, something we have given them accolades on with keeping customers engaged and excited with a constant drip of new releases and media to accommodate. This Puffco Proxy video clip does not say a word, yet summarizes oh so well our Puffco Proxy review.