The new Tera vaporizer from Boundless Technology takes input from their users to create one of the most potent and powerful portable vapes currently out. With powerful, removable and replaceable batteries, a bevy of mouthpiece options and universal waterpipe adapter, the Tera represents one of the most complete kits on the market. Does the experience of vaping with the Boundless Tera live up to the stat sheet? Check out our full review below.
The Tera's Body & Design
The exterior of the Tera is a significant departure from earlier vapes released by Boundless Technologies. The Matte black finish offers the utmost discretion for the discerning user. Relatively unadorned, with the exception of a small Tera logo on the front, the unit stays incredibly sleek.
Piggy-backing on the blacked-out colorway, the contoured design fits perfectly in the hand. The Tera is a little larger than some other portable vaporizers, but still easily palm-able due to the curves cut into the body. A stripe of ridged texture provides additional grip, and the unit feels sturdy and solid. The Tera vaporizer feels premium from top to bottom.
A magnetic connection secures the door covering the dual 18650 batteries. On the Top of the Tera vaporizer, you’ll find three buttons with glossy finish. These buttons control all essential functions for the Tera. A small LCD screen rests on the top of the Tera, to see all settings at a glance. For convenience, the orientation of the display can be rotated 180 degrees to be more easily read while using the unit.
The Tera comes supplied with two interchangeable mouthpieces in the box. One is a swivel-style unit, similar to those on the original CFV and CFX vaporizers. The other is a glass mouthpiece. Both attach firmly to the Tera via secure magnetic connection. The swivel mouthpiece functions well as a portable mouthpiece, while the glass mouthpiece is great for home use, when utmost flavor is the objective.
Weighing in at a little over a half pound (9.9 ounces), the Tera vaporizer feels quite well built. This seems like a vaporizer that will stand up to years of daily use and won’t give you a heart attack should you drop it from a reasonable distance. The added weight may make the Tera a little less pocketable but is definitely worth it for the peace of mind it provides.
Top Tier Performance from the Tera
One of the marquee features of the Boundless Tera is its use of two removable and replaceable 18650 batteries. This is the first dry herb vaporizer to harness this kind of power. This allows for quicker heat up times and longer-lasting battery life. The ability to swap out your batteries with a fresh pair comes in super handy when you lose juice mid-session.
True Convection Heating
The Boundless Tera boasts true convection heating, which will efficiently bake your herbs with minimal wasted product. If you’re unfamiliar with convection heating, it is a method of heating in which the air around your herbs is heated. The air is then drawn over your herbs to catalyze the vaporization. This is preferred by those looking for the best flavor as it is virtually impossible to burn any of your dry herb.
Another benefit of true convection heating, such as that featured in the Boundless Tera vaporizer, is that it is an “on-demand” vapor system. What this means, is that your herbs are being vaporized while you are taking a hit and minimal herb is being wasted in-between draws. With other systems, your herb is constantly in contact with full heat, which will result in waste.
The heating is handled with a ceramic heating element that doesn’t come into direct contact with the heating chamber or bowl. The heating chamber where your herbs are loaded is crafted from aluminum, which aids in the heating process. As your herb is heated with every draw, the chamber will also retain some heat. This eliminates some of the large temperature fluctuations that can occur when hitting dry herb vaporizers. This leads to greater temperature consistency for more efficient sessions.
Isolated Airpath
This portable dry herb vaporizer features an isolated air path, which keeps the airflow away from any internal components. This prevents unpleasant tastes or even harmful byproducts from mixing with your vapor. Crafted from stainless steel, the Tera’s airpath is resilient while also possessing great thermal retention properties. The intake can be seen on the bottom of the unit, in usage it provides a nice, easy draw. This will come down to personal preference, but in my opinion it is a very desirable trait.
Interchangeable Mouthpiece System
The interchangeable mouthpiece system allows for easy swapping of intake methods. Aside from the swivel mouthpiece and glass mouthpiece, the Tera includes a water pipe adapter that will fit a wide variety of bongs and glass. Adding the Tera to your bong or water pipe will really make this thing sing, allowing for even larger, water-cooled rips.
Finishing Touches
Rounding out the performance of the Tera are some nice finishing touches. The unit provides haptic feedback, which vibrates to tell you when the vaporizer has turned on or off, as well as when it has reached your desired temperature. This feature is extremely handy, as you don’t have to guess when your unit is ready to vape. The final aspect is the incredibly fast heat up time. While I’ll touch more on the heat settings and modes below, the Tera is more than capable of reaching its max temp in around 30 seconds. This allows for quick hits whenever the feeling strikes you.
Operating theTera 2
With any new vape, I try and take it out of the box and operate the unit without looking at the instruction manual. If I am successfully medicated without the use of the manual, the vape passes the ease of operation test. If I am not, it fails. Luckily the Tera is definitely a vape residing in the former category.
With three buttons to control all operations, the Tera is incredibly user friendly. The dedicated buttons feel solid and allow you to adjust any setting, even without looking at the unit. This makes the Tera great for pocket operation, or night stealth missions.
Boundless Tera Temperature Settings
The Boundless Tera features two key operation modes. One is concentrate mode, and the other mode is dry herb mode. While they utilize the same powerful convection heating that the Tera was designed around, there are a couple of differences.
In Dry Herb mode, the temperature is completely controllable to the degree by the user. The operating temperatures can be set anywhere from 140-428 F. In concentrate mode, the Tera operates at one temperature, which is also the highest temperature, 500F.
How to use the Boundless Tera
With all necessary functions available with a designated button, operation of the Tera portable dry herb vape is very easy.
- Five clicks of the “fire Button” (the largest button) Turns the Tera on, the unit will vibrate to alert you
- Three clicks of the fire button will toggle between concentrate mode and dry herb mode
- Use the left and right buttons to precisely set your temperature from 104-428F (Dry herb Mode only)
- Hold the power button for three seconds to initiate the heating cycle
When the Tera has reached temperature, it will vibrate to let you know that it is ready vape --so hit it!
Boundless Tera with Dry Herb
The Tera is particularly suited for dry herb usage, due to its convection heating system. This type of heating is perfect for extracting all the benefits from your chosen herbal blends, without wasting any herb or delivering burnt flavors. To get the best results, follow the below procedure:
- Grind herb finely (this will help aid in the convection heating)
- Remove the Magnetic chamber lid of the Boundless Tera
- Pack your herbs tightly into the aluminum heating chamber
- Do Not overfill
- Replace the magnetic lid and turn the Tera on
- Select your desired temperature (we recommend starting around 380), and hold the fire button 3 seconds to initiate heating
Boundless Tera with Wax Concentrates
The Tera is one of the few full-convection portable vaporizers that has concentrate compatibility which is more than an afterthought. Featuring a dedicated function for concentrates, the Tera unlocks higher temperatures which are needed to release the full flavors and effects of your wax concentrates.
If you are familiar with dabbing or wax pens, the type of vaporization achieved with the Tera vaporizer will be a little bit different than what you are accustomed to. While most other concentrate wax pens use conduction heating which, rapidly heats your concentrates, the Tera brings your wax to temperature over a longer period of time. This conserves your wax and preserves flavor.
When wax is instantaneously heated, it can deliver clouds more readily, however it is far less efficient and often burns your wax releasing unsavory flavors and wasting concentrate. The Tera uses conduction heating, so a dab is slowly vaporized over a longer amount of time. While the clouds may not be immediately as dense, a standard dab will generally be vaporized over a period of 5 or so minutes. This delivers purer flavor as the terpenes are not being damaged, it is also less irritating to the lungs and sinuses.
To get used to vaping wax concentrates with the Tera, begin by loading a dab around the size of a grain of rice onto the stainless-steel pad. It’s best to start with a smaller amount any time you are working with a new concentrate, to get a sense of how it will vaporize. While you can load larger dabs, we would recommend erring on the side of caution. You want to avoid any kind of leakage.
How to Use the Boundless Tera with Wax
1. Remove the mouthpiece from the Tera to reveal the heating chamber
2. Place a dab on the stainless-steel pad, try to aim for a dab between the size of a grain of rice and a pea
3. Place the stainless-steel pad into the heating chamber of the Tera
4. Replace the mouthpiece cover
5. Turn the Tera on with 5 clicks of the fire button
6. Press the fire button 3 times to switch to concentrate mode
7. Hold the button for 3 seconds to initiate heating
8. When the Tera vibrates, you’re ready to vape
Boundless Tera vs Crafty Vaporizer
With the premiere feature set and slightly higher price point, the Tera is squarely aimed to compete in the echelon of popular vaporizers like the Crafty vaporizer from Storz & Bickel. While the Crafty has long been the gold standard for portable dry herb vaporization, the Tera offers its own bag of tricks which may make it more appealing to some customers.
The biggest and most obvious difference is the Tera’s use of removable, universal batteries. This not only extends the battery life of the Tera but allows for the batteries to be replaced.
The Crafty features a fixed, proprietary battery which cannot be removed or replaced. This means that you cannot change batteries on-the-go, should you need juice for a longer session. This also means that should the battery fail after the warranty provided by Storz & Bickel, the whole unit could become non-operational.
Sporting a vivid OLED display, the Tera has a leg up on the Crafty in operational functionality. While the Crafty provides a Bluetooth app which displays all functions and allows the user to create custom heating paths, some users may prefer the ability to read the functions without unlocking their phone.
It is important to note that the Tera does not feature any sort of Bluetooth functionality. Which may be a disappointment to users who like to program heating paths that automatically increase as you vape. Some users may also prefer the optimized presets of the Crafty for ease of use opposed to the precise temperature control of the Tera.
The Boundless Tera also comes with the aforementioned glass mouthpiece and waterpipe adapter. These options are not available on the Crafty. So, if using your dry herb vape with a water pipe is your priority, this may be a factor in your decision. The Crafty is only compatible with its proprietary swivel mouthpiece and there is currently no water pipe adapter offered.
All in all, this will largely be a choice of preference. While Storz & Bickel have been dominating the portable dry herb vaporizer market, it’s exciting to have some new competitors in the space. Are you a Crafty vaper? Does the Tera offer enough to replace your Crafty?
Conclusion
The combination of features, relatively small form factor and powerful, replaceable batteries make the Boundless Tera a serious contender in the space of premium portables. Full convection heating delivers great flavor with both dry herb and concentrates and the refined finish will appeal to those looking for a more luxury vaping experience. If you’re looking to graduate up to a high-quality vaping experience or even looking at vapes like the Crafty or others in the $200+ range, the Tera is worth serious consideration.