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Ok I'm just posting this because I, for one, know nobody ever told me, and I don't want anyone else who has to keep things relatively under-wraps to get in trouble due to this.

Charcoal tabs, when used with resin incense at least, produces a STRONG smell and a LOT of smoke. Literally, it had filled my room and was filling the rest of the house before I took it outside.
It took an hour to clear the smoke out of the house and even still, the house smells intensely of dragons blood and a few clearish pieces from a forest blend pack.

The charcoal tab also stays hot a LONG time afterwards and still hasn't cooled down, and as I said its been at least an hour. The Swift-Lite tabs also spark a lot when lighting them so be careful if you only have a small container to use them in, or if your altar is indoors.

When I first heard of charcoal incense all I could find to read about it was that it was so natural and so wonderful, and of course that you needed a container and sand etc to use it. I NEVER heard mention that it produced tons and tons of smoke- I expected no more than from smudging or burning sweetgrass.

So just a forewarning- It smells wonderful, if you're willing to clear your house out afterwards, or if you're doing it outside and possibly willing to get the fire dept. called on you.
Don't let your parents come home to a house full of oddly scented smoke- They WONT be happy.

We use charcoal disks for our hookah, and yeah, they smoke a lot. But if you use tongs and a grill it'll smoke less, a grill is simply a piece of metal you place over the coal and put whatever you want to heat on top of it.

If you want smokeless smell, I'd use either potpourri or an oil diffuser or burner.

Droplet Oil Burner

Incense sticks/cones don't smoke much at all. You get a cool looking tiny smoke trail, but the only way you'd smoke out a house with them is if you lit like... 2 million of them at once, lol. I used stick incense, and I'd highly recommend it. n_n

is it with the incence in general or just certain smells? for instance something with a minty smell will give me an asthma attack because im allergic to mint.

Well, understand something, charcoal incense is for when you want to make a lot of smoke, usually for purification rituals, or BIG church spaces. It's what is used by the Catholic Priests in their swinging burner.

Options could be to use scented oil on the coal, and as that vaporizes you get a strong scent, little smoke.

You can also control the amount of smoke based on how much incense you put on the coal. Little bits, it produces some smoke for purification, but not a lot. Tons of incense and you get tons of smoke.

Normally for rituals, I just tend to use my stick incense.

xD Ah, I hope this isn't too off topic, but... I have a friend who told me that stick incense causes cancer. Is that true?

I think that this is true for some cheaper brands of incense. I notice on the back of some there's a warning that says: this product contains chemicals (or whatever it is) known to the state of California to cause cancer. I mean, who would want to burn that? Of course it can be hard to know what's actually put into the incense, but I find that higher quality incense is just better overall and probably a little bit safer (I don't know that for sure though). You can also make your own, if you really want to be sure.

I burn incense quite a bit, some would argue too much, usually throughout the day if I'm staying home. So I go through a lot of it. Usually it's stick and cone, and I use charcoal disks but usually just for rituals, blessings, offerings, purification etc. I enjoy burning my own herbs and oils more but it can be cumbersome to do it all the time. Patchouli oil with lavender is one of my favorites. My parents don't notice the difference because I burn so much incense anyway, lol. I can usually stand a lot of smoke, but I wouldn't recommend using so much that your entire room/house fills up with it...unless you're doing something really extreme for some reason...opening windows is definitely recommended. It is much more healthy that way.

Of course incense and especially charcoal disks aren't for everybody. There are a few different ways of putting out a charcoal disk if you absolutely have to. Not letting much air get to it and also I notice if you put too much stuff on it it'll just suffocate out. Once you do that they're harder to light up again but it's possible. Sand is one of the safest ways to prevent heat problems but there are other creative methods as well. Just be careful.