Smokeless cigarette trend started off as a fad but have now grown to a popular alternative to smoking. If you haven’t heard of them before, they are also called e-cigarettes or electric cigarettes. Basically they are little devices that let you puff on a moist nicotine vapor without any actual smoke. They look and feel like regular cigarettes but they post way less health risk because you are not putting smoke in your lungs.

A lot of people wonder how these things work. They’re actually pretty simple. They involve just three components: a battery, a cartridge, and an atomizer. All of these fit inside that little cigarette and are ready to go when you buy one. Let me explain what each one does.

The battery should be pretty obvious. It’s the power source for the overall device. This is needed to turn the liquid inside the e-cigarette into warm vapor for you to “smoke.” next is the cartridge. This is basically just a little reservoir that holds a nicotine solution. You can unscrew the cartridge to take it out. Some of them are refillable, some are meant to be replaced when empty. Then of course is the atomizer. It works similar to the spray nozzle on a bottle. It vaporizes and heats up the liquid and then you can inhale it like a puff of smoke.

Lots of innovations have happened in the design of e-cigarettes. For instance some companies combine the cartridge and atomizer into a single piece that is easier to change and cheaper to replace. A lot of former smokers love using smokeless cigarettes instead because they are so much safer.