page_title: Fog machine
section_title: Uses
hierarchical_section_title: Fog machine / Uses
context_page_description: A fog machine, fog generator, or smoke machine is a device that emits a dense vapor that appears similar to fog or smoke. This artificial fog is most commonly used in professional entertainment applications, but smaller, more affordable fog machines are becoming common for personal use. Fog machines can also be found in use in a variety of industrial, training, and some military applications. Typically, fog is created by vaporizing proprietary water and glycol-based or glycerin-based fluids or through the atomization of mineral oil. This fluid vaporizes or atomizes inside the fog machine. Upon exiting the fog machine and mixing with cooler outside air the vapor condenses, resulting in a thick visible fog.
context_section_description: The versatility of fog machines make them appropriate for a wide variety of applications:
  Fog readily assists in creating a specific mood or feeling for a theatrical moment, and is often used in plays, such as Dracula, A Christmas Carol and Macbeth. Fog machines are also frequently used in Halloween displays such as haunted houses or forests. Because of greater availability and reductions in prices between 2003 and 2005, fog machines have become widely used for domestic Halloween presentations.
  Fog machines are also useful for industrial applications including visualizing the flow of air, such highlighting drag over a surface in a wind tunnel or testing for leaks or filter effectiveness in air conditioning installations.
  Emergency and military services also use fog machines in their training regimens.
  Because of the reflective and refractive qualities of the smoke created by fog machines, they are often used in nightclubs and other entertainment venues to enhance the effects of lighting and laser arrangements, although they are being superseded by haze machines (see also light beam).
  Several companies in Europe and Canada have developed rapid deployment fog machines for use as intrusion and hold-up security systems, intended to disorient an intruder by filling a room with fog when triggered by a panic button or other security device. These Security Smoke devices can produce between 300 and 1,000 cubic meters of smoke in 30 seconds and have been utilized in a wide variety of industries, including buildings requiring a high level of security, such as banks and jewelers, but also warehouses, offices, retail premises and in cash-handling chains. Concerns have been raised, that these devices may cause criminals to panic, causing them to become violent to customers or staff, however Security Smoke now has its own European Standard EN-8 which specifically states that it must not be installed in such a way as to create a mantrap.
caption: A heavy duty smoke machine feeding smoke into a blower to generate fog effects for open air location filming.
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