To be honest I've only seen pot vapes. And I do see smoke, not vapor.
You are seeing vapor, not smoke.
I've never seen the pot type, but the propylene glycol type are all over Boston. What they release is definitely vapor, not smoke. (The vapor clouds act very differently than smoke clouds. They look and act like the steam clouds which emanate from manhole covers in cities, or from dry ice.)
Pot vapes definitely aren't supposed to put out smoke. With some vapes you could achieve this by cranking the heat all the way up, but it'd be a far worse experience than just smoking.
I guess some of the cheap $20 chinese ones like the "gpen" might not actually vaporize though.
I see a white cloud. Could that be vapor? I always thought vapors were invisible.
Yeah, that is vapor. Vapors aren't necessarily invisible, you can see the clouds in the sky too.
Might look similar, but it's a completely different experience for the user.