Solo Stove and Breeo brand fire pits

I've been toying with the idea of getting a breeo or solo stove brand fire pit for a quite a while. A buddy bought a Solo Yukon model the other day and it looked like a nice fire pit. These things are not inexpensive to purchase though. The Yukon with no accessories costs 4/6'th of a field grade M1 Garand...

I am looking for something to replace the 2x2 fire pit in my back yard that I don't use much anymore because I've gotten less tolerant of smoke as I've gotten older. The existing fire pit is simply where I removed a 2x2 section of pavers and squared it off with bricks to make a pit; nothing fancy going on there. The replacement will likely sit on pavers, but may just sit right on the hole.

If you've got some experience with these smokeless stoves, I'd sure like to hear about it.

A friend has one, Solo, that he brings camping. For the most part it does a pretty good job directing the smoke straight up. However it also seems to direct the majority of the heat straight up as well. It is also very efficient, there is not much ash left once the fire burns out. I have seen some DIY videos where you can build a better functioning fire pit out of blocks that are supposed to work the same.

https://youtu.be/xQLYoNZh8Ro

Good comparison review above. He also explains why they work the way they do. I presume from your post that you're just using it for ambience while sitting outside. If you were planning on cooking on it, there are references online for building a rocket stove from cinder blocks and I have a Quadgrill from quadgrilling.com that I love.

Yes, this is just for ambiance.

It doesn't need to be portable. For some reason I hadn't even considered just redoing the existing pit into a smokeless. That might be the better route for me. Easy enough to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lFo2ycdN0Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DToPhKv2vYM