Search behavior around vaping is moving in a direction that retail sales charts don’t show yet. Americans are searching for reusable vape hardware almost as often as they search for the disposable devices that still dominate store shelves, and the gap between the two has been closing for years.
A new analysis of US search data, compiled by Discount Vape Pen, an online retailer that specializes in refillable 510-thread cartridge batteries, found that the term “510 thread battery” now draws around 30,500 monthly search clicks in the US, just ahead of “disposable vape” at roughly 29,500. Interest in the reusable term is up about 20% since 2021, while searches for disposable vapes have fallen close to 36% from their 2022 peak. In 2022, Americans searched for disposables about 2.4 times as often as for 510-thread batteries; by 2025 that ratio had narrowed to 1.46 to one.
For a wellness-minded reader, the more interesting part of that shift isn’t the battery spec, it’s what that battery means once it’s out of the box and into daily use. A disposable vape is a single-use device with a small lithium-ion battery sealed inside, built to be thrown away after a few hundred puffs. Research from PIRG has found that millions of these devices are discarded every week in the US, each one carrying a battery that is not supposed to go in household trash. A reusable 510 system asks for the opposite habit: charge it, refill the cartridge, and keep using the same hardware for months.
“People don’t usually frame switching to reusable hardware as a wellness choice, but it fits the same pattern as a lot of the other swaps people make once they start paying attention to what they’re consuming and throwing away,” said James Smith, head of vaping community at Discount Vape Pen. “It’s less packaging, less battery waste, and one less thing you have to remember to rebuy every week.”
There’s a safety dimension to the hardware question too, and it sits closer to a health story than an environmental one. The CDC notes that defective e-cigarette batteries have caused fires and explosions, some resulting in serious injuries, and that most of those incidents happened while the battery was charging. A disposable is designed to be cheap and short-lived, with little built-in incentive for the kind of battery quality control a device meant to last months would need. A 510 battery, bought once and looked after, is a different relationship with the hardware, and for anyone who already thinks about vaping the way they think about any other appliance in the house, that’s the more practical version of the safety conversation.
The retail numbers still tell a different story. Data compiled for the CDC Foundation put disposables at 58.1% of US e-cigarette unit sales by mid-2024, more than double their 26% share in early 2020, and CDC surveillance data has consistently found disposable devices to be the most commonly used type among people who vape. Supply is part of why: the FDA has authorized only a small fraction of the thousands of e-cigarette products on the market, and enforcement action against unauthorized disposable brands has picked up sharply over the past two years. Search demand for the reusable alternative began climbing over roughly the same period.
“The people buying disposables aren’t necessarily attached to the format, they’re often just buying what’s in front of them,” Smith said. “Once a favorite disposable goes out of stock, or someone actually costs out what they’re spending every month, that’s usually the point they start looking at something they can recharge instead.”
There’s a household budget angle here too, even if it’s a quieter one than the environmental and safety case. A disposable is a repeat purchase; a 510 battery is a one-time cost that is then paired with cheaper refill cartridges over months of use. For anyone treating spending as part of a broader wellbeing habit, alongside things like meal planning or cutting subscription creep, it’s the kind of swap that pays off slowly rather than all at once.
For readers unfamiliar with the terminology, a “510 thread” battery is simply a rechargeable handle with a standard screw-fit connection, named after the thread size, that accepts a wide range of cartridges and tanks. The appeal is less about any particular device and more about the model behind it: buy the hardware once, then keep replacing only the part that runs out. That is a different relationship with a product than the buy-it, use-it-up, bin-it cycle a disposable is built around, and it’s the part of the trend that tends to resonate outside the vaping world too, in the same way people have gravitated toward refillable water bottles or rechargeable batteries over their throwaway equivalents in other categories.
Disposables aren’t disappearing from shelves any time soon, and search interest alone doesn’t prove a mass switch has already happened. But a trend that has held for several years, moving in a consistent direction while sales data shows the opposite, is not nothing. It suggests that among people actively researching their options rather than grabbing whatever’s at the counter, the reusable case is starting to win the argument.
Search figures are US estimates drawn from Ahrefs Keywords Explorer search-volume data
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Our Editorial Team are writers and experts in their field. Their views and opinions may not always be the views of Wellbeing Magazine. If you are under the direction of medical supervision please speak to your doctor or therapist before following the advice and recommendations in these articles.
