The next time you see a disposable vape on the street, it might not just be trash. Romanian engineer Bogdan Ionescu has repurposed one into something unexpected: a functional web server.

Ionescu began collecting discarded vapes for their batteries, but he soon noticed that some “fancier pacifiers for adults” contained surprisingly capable microcontrollers.

One unit carried a specific chip, which had a modest processor with 24 kilobytes (KB) of flash storage and three KBs of RAM. Despite the technology being “so bad, it’s basically disposable”, he saw potential in it.

Using the chip’s support for the Serial Line Internet Protocol, Ionescu emulated a 56K modem and added code that would allow for networking. Early performance was dismal: loading a single page would take 20 seconds.

However, after optimising his code with a buffer, speeds improved dramatically as load times dropped from seconds to milliseconds. The tiny server even hosted a copy of his blog explaining the project, though it often collapsed under major visitor traffic and displayed “503” errors.

The experiment highlights the hidden usefulness in devices that typically end up in a landfill. A 2023 University of Oxford study estimated that 1.3 million disposable vapes are discarded weekly in the United Kingdom, despite containing rechargeable batteries, peripheral interfaces and processors.

Ionescu has published the VapeServer code as freeware online, encouraging others to explore creative reuses of disposable tech. For him, the project proves that even a vape pen can still surprise: one man’s trash is another’s microserver.

Image Credit: Source