The short version: conduction heats your herb by touching it against a hot surface, convection heats it by pushing hot air through it, and hybrid does a bit of both. That’s the whole difference, really. Everything else is about what those three approaches feel like when you’re actually using the thing.
People agonise over this far more than they need to. A good conduction vaporiser and a good convection one can both give you a cracking session. But they behave differently, and once you know how, picking the right one for your habits gets a lot easier.
Conduction: herb on a hot surface
In a conduction vaporizer the chamber walls and base get hot, and your herb cooks against them, like a pan on the stove. Pack the bowl, set a temperature, wait for it to heat up, and draw.
The upsides are real. Conduction units tend to be cheaper, simpler and quick to get going. There’s not much to them, so there’s not much to go wrong. The DynaVap M is the classic example, though that one’s flame-heated rather than battery, and plenty of cheaper pocket units are conduction too.
The catch is even heating. Because the heat comes from the surfaces, the herb touching the walls cooks faster than the stuff in the middle. So you’ll often want to stir the bowl halfway through a session to even it out. Pack it tight and grind it fine and that helps, but a good stir is the difference between a meh session and a proper one. Conduction also keeps cooking your herb while it’s sitting hot between draws, so it can go through material a touch faster.
Temperatures sit in the usual range, roughly 180 to 210°C for most people, but the reading on the screen is the chamber temperature, not necessarily what every bit of herb is feeling.
Convection: hot air through the herb
Convection works the other way. A heating element warms the air, and that hot air gets drawn through the bowl, giving up its heat to the herb as it passes. Your herb doesn’t sit against anything scorching. It only cooks when air is actually moving through it.
That on-demand quality is the big selling point. Stop drawing and the herb basically stops cooking, so you waste less and you get more control over the session. The flavour is usually cleaner too, especially on the first few pulls, because the heat is gentler and more even across the bowl.
Pure convection has its own quirks. Some units make you draw slowly and deliberately to give the air time to do its job, and a rushed pull gives you a thin, cool hit. Battery convection portables also tend to cost more and can chew through charge, since heating air on demand is hungry work. The old Arizer units lean convection, and a lot of the better desktop vaporisers are convection through and through.
Hybrid: a bit of both
Most modern portables are hybrid, and for good reason. They warm the chamber by conduction so the herb’s already at a working temperature, then convection from the airflow finishes the job and evens it out. You get quick readiness and decent flavour without babying your draw.
The Mighty and the Crafty from Storz and Bickel are the obvious examples, and they’re popular precisely because the hybrid approach is forgiving. You don’t have to nail your technique to get a good result. Stir once or twice on a long session and you’re laughing.
So which one suits you?
Here’s the honest breakdown.
Go conduction if you want simple and cheap, you don’t mind a quick stir, and you mostly vape on your own. It’s the least fussy way in, and a tidy conduction unit punches well above its price.
Go convection if flavour is the thing you care about most, you like sipping a session slowly, and you want tight control over how much you use. You’ll pay more, but the cleaner taste and the on-demand feel win people over.
Go hybrid if you want the easy life. It’s the safest pick for most people, and it’s why the big-name portables nearly all do it. Quick to use, forgiving of sloppy technique, good flavour. Honestly, if you’re not sure, this is where I’d point you.
None of these is the “best” in the abstract. The best one is the one that matches how you actually vape, and now you know which is which. If you’re weighing up a unit, our dry herb vaporizers collection breaks down which devices use which heating style, and there’s more on getting the most out of yours in vaporizer maintenance.