Due to the fog generation technology used in traditional handheld smoke machine, they have quite a few major drawbacks:

  Low energy efficiency - traditional portable fog machines use a large heating unit; the energy is not focused and radiates heat in the environment. Also, a lot of the energy is used by the portable hazer on heating up and turning the water content into quick displaying steam. In other words, the fog generation technology used in traditional handheld hazers is not energy efficient. This also means if it is a battery haze machine, it will need a large and heavy battery that doesn't provide much run time.

Low liquid efficiency - Also due to the design of a traditional small hazer’s heating unit, it required water to act as an expansion agent to push out the smoke. Since water steam will quickly dissipate, they don't really add much to the smoke produced by the mini haze machine. Because of their water content, more traditional handheld haze machines usually use up gallons of liquid per session, making such small smoke machines not very liquid efficient.

SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA portable smoke machines are based on coil-based smoke generation.

Unlike the smoke generation technology used in traditional small haze machines, the heating part in coil-based smoke generation is much smaller. That means less power consumption and energy waste while using the small smoke machine. However, before its implementation in our small hazers, coil-based smoke generation technology was mainly used in vape and e-cigarette in the past, but many technicians, including our team, have attempted to modify it to create a portable haze machine. In the initial stages, the problem was soon revealed to everyone who has tried, as not only the performance is far from ideal, but it’s also not reliable, breaks very easily, and just overall unsafe to use.

Mini haze machines that are made with vape parts have a very limited output power. Due to the low feeding power, it can only support 20-30 seconds of burst before they start to overheat.

Furthermore, the problem only got worse when you tried to add volume control to the handheld hazer, as the chamber must be able to supply the right amount of fluid during low and high smoke output. To solve all those problems, we completely redesign the chamber of our battery fog machine from the ground up. After 6 years of development and 2 patents, we have finally come up with a handheld haze machine design that can achieve what our team calls - dynamic fluid control. The patented chamber design of our portable fog machine will feed the fluid according to the output power and burst time.

When the power setting of the battery hazer is turned up, the chamber will feed more fluid to match, striking a perfect balance with maximum power and minimum oil split. But we didn’t stop there. The breakthrough came to us during the design of our battery haze machine when we realized that we could separate the creation of smoke and the shaping of the smoke.

Most traditional mini fog machines only serve one function. A portable hazer only does haze, while a handheld fog machine can only do fog. A huge part of it was due to the limitation of the smoke generation technology used. Due to their water content, the smoke can only be expelled out in a burst. With our coil technology, the smoke generated by SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA battery smoke machines are essentially stationary, which makes smoke-shaping possible. Our team spent 2 years working with professional photographers, cinematographers, and gaffers to create smoke shaping accessories for all kinds of smoke effects while using our small hazer. The smoke shaping accessories in our SmokeGENIE Pro Kit and SmokeNINJA Full Kit are the results of such research.

Being a mini haze machine also means it is portable and easy to conceal, and we think this is important when designing a handheld smoke machine. Coil-based fog generation technology compared to older technology being used in traditional small smoke machines, is like LED technology to Incandescent light. Coil-based technology used in our mini fog machine is much more energy and liquid efficient than the fog generation technology used in traditional portable smoke machines.

The technology used in a traditional battery smoke machine requires water as an expansion agent. The water dilutes the fog liquid in the battery fog machine, increasing the consumption dramatically. Since it also takes a lot of energy to turn water into quick dissipating steam, traditional mini smoke machines normally use a large battery but can only support a short run time.

By taking out the water, the liquid used by SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA battery haze machines are more concentrated than liquid used by a traditional battery fog machine. That means more output with much, much less liquid can be achieved. Both of our small haze machines are based on coil-based smoke generation technology that only heats up at the precise location where smoke generation happens. Our portable haze machine consumes much less energy than traditional mini hazers, and only requires a small battery(s) for long output. To take it a step further, instead of proprietary or non-replaceable batteries like traditional battery smoke machines, both our SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA handheld haze machines use standard type 18650 batteries. This not only significantly reduces the cost for maintenance, but it also means it takes less than 10 seconds to replace batteries for our handheld fog machine. This completely eliminates any down time, and saves precious time for everyone on set.

What’s more, our patented technology allows SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA portable hazers to be powered by a much smaller battery, and consume much less liquid than traditional battery hazers.

Difference in smoke generation technology:
The key to safe smoke is temperature regulation. If ingredients in fog liquid are safe and ideal, the smoke generated from a traditional, small fog machine should be safe too. But since traditional, small hazers have a large heating area that makes it very difficult to control the temperature, it is very easy for it to get overheated. Once the fog liquid is overheated within the small haze machine, it can decompose into toxic chemicals. This is also the source of the awful smell that most people associate with traditional portable haze machines. Both of our small hazers - SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA, use coil-based smoke generation technology. The heating area in our battery smoke machine is much smaller and therefore much easier to regulate. It took us 2 years to develop this proprietary technology for our SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA portable fog machines.

The built-in protection system will stop smoke generation whenever it detects the temperature in the heating area of the portable hazer is higher than the ideal temperature for smoke generation. This makes the smoke generated by SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA handheld fog machines much safer than the smoke from traditional handheld smoke machines.

As a handheld hazer:
Since PG has a lower vaporizing temperature, it is easier to decompose when overheated. VG has a higher vaporizing temperature, and its smoke is known to be safer than PG smoke. Traditional mini hazers use a high PG formula. Since the liquid used by traditional small hazers have a high water and PG ratio, the smoke dissipates quickly. Hence, traditional portable fog machines must operate continuously to maintain the haze scene. Not only is this energy consuming, it also means that a lot of vaporized PG will be dispensed into the environment by the small fog machine. Harmful chemicals can also accumulate if the heating unit in the mini haze machine is not properly regulated.

The cloud formula used by SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA portable smoke machines has a high Vegetable Glycerine (VG) concentration, which gives the haze a much longer hang time than traditional battery smoke machines. A one-minute spray of our SmokeGENIE battery haze machine can haze up a 50 sq.mt studio for a period of up to 30 minutes. Due to the extra-long hang time of our handheld haze machine, a lot less vaporization is needed to achieve and maintain the same level of haze effect. Combined with PMI’s patented handheld hazer chamber design and proprietary software protection, this makes our SmokeGENIE a far safer option than the traditional small smoke machines on the market.

PMI’s small fog machines embrace modular design. Our team has thoroughly adopted a module design concept in both SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA battery smoke machines to reduce the maintenance cost and the longevity of the products.

With batteries being one of the easiest damaged parts in a small haze machine, instead of proprietary batteries, PMI has chosen to use 18650 lithium batteries in its mini hazers. The choice of 18650 is one of the most wildly available lithium batteries on the market today, and comes at a good price. This drastically reduces the cost and difficulty in maintenance for users of our battery haze machines.

Due to the limitation of the vaporizing technology used by traditional handheld smoke machines, its fog liquid has a higher water content. This type of fog liquid is often referred to as “Water-Based formula”. Since water steam will dissipate in the air after a few seconds, the water mainly functions as an expend agent in traditional handheld haze machines. When the fog liquid goes through the heating tube in a traditional mini fog machine, the PG & VG content turns into smoke, and the water turns into steam, expands, and pushes the smoke out. Shortly after the burst, most of the water steam will dissipate. It would be fair to say that the “effective ingredient” in a traditional handheld fog machine’s fog liquid is the VG and PG. With research and the advancement in vaporizing technology, SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA portable smoke machines can function with ZERO water content. The Cloud formula used by SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA battery smoke machines is essentially a water-based formula, but without any water. While using our mini hazer, having no water content means the liquid is 100% “effective ingredient”. Same amount of Cloud formula can generate 10-20 times the smoke compared to fog liquid used by traditional handheld smoke machines. Due to its high VG concentration in Cloud formula, the haze made with SmokeGENIE portable fog machine has an extra long hang time of 30 minutes.

To put this in perspective: ONE minute spray of SmokeGENIE portable hazer at highest power consumes around 0.5ml of Cloud Formula, and ONE minute of spray by our small hazer can haze up a 50 square meters aircon-ON studio for 30 minutes. This means you can maintain the haze in a 50 square meters studio for an hour with just 1 ml of Cloud Formula when using our small haze machine!

To ensure the safety of our users, the formula used by SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA battery smoke machines are food-grade. Besides being much more fluid efficient, having no water content also makes Cloud Formula much more portable with our handheld haze machine. Instead of a gallon of fog liquid, now you only need to carry a small 100 ml bottle in your backpack to finish a whole day of shooting with our small fog machines.

All 3 founders of PMI have a background in special effects design, where mini smoke machines are widely used. So, it is safe to say, we are very familiar with the principles and operations of traditional portable fog machines. While traditional handheld smoke machine are used by technicians, they have a few major drawbacks that make them not viable for being a commercial product:

Maintenance:
Since traditional small haze machines are limited by their liquid storage capacity, they have to be maintained after each session. To make matters worse, traditional portable haze machines are difficult to maintain and lots of time is required if a technician needs to repair them. Users also need to do a full maintenance on traditional handheld smoke machines after each session, if they want it to work again in their next shooting.

Reliability:
The 2 parts that are mostly likely to go wrong on a handheld fog machine are the battery and the heating unit. Due to the limitation of the fog generation technology used in more traditional battery smoke machines, their heating unit is not temperature-regulated, making these battery hazers not very reliable and often break down on set. Everyone who has had experience working with traditional small hazers knows that it is much better to have more than enough units on set. Since a traditional mini hazer is easy to break and difficult to repair, experienced technicians often prepare an extra unit or two, which are ready on the side just in case the battery smoke machine breaks.

Output & Run Time:
Due to their small form factor, traditional mini smoke machines can only output a small amount of smoke for just a few seconds. Very often, the mini fog machine won’t be able to get to the output level desired, and the output time is usually just enough for one session. In a highly-stressful environment like in live events or productions, it is never good enough to have “just enough” portable fog machines on hand. Time is the most expensive cost in production, and you simply cannot afford to reset everything after each take.
Due to our patented design, our SmokeGENIE and SmokeNINJA small fog machines have 1/3 the output of a 1500w portable smoke machine, which far exceeds the normal output levels of traditional small haze machines. In terms of run time, our SmokeNINJA handheld haze machine has a 1-minute continuous run time, while our SmokeGENIE battery haze machine has 10 minutes of continuous run time.