CigarMedics will be showing off two new products during the 2022 PCA Convention & Trade Show: one is a new cigar cutter that will only be sold on the company’s website while the other is an upgraded version of an existing product.
The first product is the HumidiMeter Pro, an improved version of the company’s HumidiMeter. As the names suggest, both products are designed to measure the moisture content inside a cigar, specifically within the filler tobaccos inside the cigar.
According to Luigi Lucente, product development engineer at CigarMedics, the HumidiMeter Pro includes a number of changes over its predecessor: first, it has a smaller footprint and features a metabolized finish instead of the plastic exterior used on the original version. Second, the probes on the HumidiMeter Pro are not only positioned closer together—so that the product can more easily be used on cigars with smaller ring gauges like lanceros—but those probes are also stored internally and slide out by pushing a thumb notch. The third difference between the HumidiMeter and the new HumidiMeter Pro is that instead of being powered by conventional batteries, the latter product features a rechargeable battery that is charged via USB.
In an email with halfwheel, Lucente explained that while the technology used in the HumidiMeter Pro is identical to that used in the original HumidiMeter, the new Pro version includes a “more responsive” chipset, which means that the moisture results should be ready “less than a second” after the button is pushed.
The HumidiMeter Pro will retail for $49.99 each—$15 more than its predecessor—and is scheduled to be sold via both retailers and on the company’s website starting in August.
In addition, CigarMedics will be showing off The Baller, a cigar cutter designed to combine aspects of both a punch cutter and a v-cutter that has been in the works for the past two years. According to Lucente, The Baller works by cutting a 12mm circular indention out of the cap of a cigar, much like a shallow melon baller. Made of anodized aluminum and nickel-plated steel—the “ball” of the cutter is composed of hardened stainless steel—The Baller is assembled by a company in Illinois out of components made in a small family-owned shop in Pennsylvania.
The Baller will be priced at $80 and will have an initial limited production of 250 units. All of the cutters will be sold exclusively on the company’s website and are scheduled to ship to customers immediately following the 2022 PCA Convention Trade Show. Each box will also have a QR code printed onto it which will pull up a video explaining how to use the cutter.
Both products will debut at the 2022 PCA Convention & Trade Show, which takes place July 9-12 in Las Vegas.
Brooks Whittington
I have been smoking cigars for over eight years. A documentary wedding photographer by trade, I spent seven years as a photojournalist for the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star Telegram. I started the cigar blog SmokingStogie in 2008 after realizing that there was a need for a cigar blog with better photographs and more in-depth information about each release. SmokingStogie quickly became one of the more influential cigar blogs on the internet, known for reviewing preproduction, prerelease, rare, extremely hard-to-find and expensive cigars. I am a co-founder of halfwheel and now serve as an editor for halfwheel.
