system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Electric smoker

I've googled (and even binged), and there are literally no results for "how do electric smokers work" both intext and intitle.

My main questions are:

1. How do they create smoke?  Is it actual combustion, or is it closer to vaporization?

2. How do they circulate air?  Fan powered vs convection?

3. How does it balance the required heating load between the wood chips and the heating element?

4. Why does it need a water basin?
gpt
1. It is combustion. The wood chips are soaked in water so they solder rather than burn outright. 
2. The generally are no fans. There are air vents and the bottom and top that regulate how the smoke gets drawn through the smoker. 
3. Cheaper models don't have a regulator on th e burner. It's a simple heating element. Some more expensive models do allow you to regulate the temperature but these are more common on gas smokers. 
4. The water pan is two fold. One it can help keep food moist so that  like a pork shoulder or ham doesn't just become a desiccated piece of meat. Two when making something like jerky or smoked fish you create alot of steam to basically kill bacteria and allow your food to cure at a lower temperature.