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Futuristic Helmet Has Its Own HEPA Filter and Fan
- puppable 6y ago"Goodbye Masks?" "$199" Well, at least the headline is helpful enough to answer its own question.
- baron816 6y agoNeeding to scratch you face or rub your nose but not being able to is awful. They need to solve that problem first.
- NullPrefix 6y agoThese problems apply to masks too
- kube-system 6y agoMaybe if you're wearing a respirator or a rigid mask. It's not any harder to scratch your face through a piece of cloth than it is to scratch any other part of your clothed body.
- Someone1234 6y agoIt isn't about the difficulty, it is about the safety. If you scratch your mask/face you could cross-contaminate.
- kube-system 6y agoIf you are concerned about contaminating your hands, you can wash or sanitize them. Although, wearing a cloth mask in the first place is already a compromise. Real world usage and effectiveness of any personal protective device is almost never the ideal usage and effectiveness. A mask which someone contaminates their hands on when scratching their face is better than a mask that isn't either isn't worn at all, or that is repeatedly taken on or off.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoExcept that you should not do this, unless you're wearing disposable gloves, which you throw away immediately after.
- kweks 6y agoThe device in question has built in 'inverted' gloves in the hood to allow you to scratch your face / adjust glasses / pick nose / etc
- kube-system 6y agoAlso sound is likely a problem -- both the helmet blocking outside sounds, and the fan noise inside of the helmet.
- GekkePrutser 6y agoAccording to the below it has built-in gloves as well. But how do you keep those virus-free when you take it off? It all seems very elaborate. Besides, even with a fan I think it'll be stuffier inside than the worst mask. It's basically a greenhouse on a sunny day. It'll be hard for a fan to compensate. I really hope the vaccines will bring this under control so we can all finally breathe fresh air again.
- sgt 6y agoI wear a biker "buff" type of mask, which is not a mask at all and probably not even half as efficient, but it's much more comfortable and I compensate by just keeping a distance to others at stores or in town.
- m-p-3 6y agoWe'll eventually become the Quarians in the Mass Effect game series. But I'd say these looks cool, and they must be an improvement for those with hearing disabilities and need to do lipreading.
- jswizzy 6y agoScientism
- koolk3ychain 6y agoWhat kind of idiot would actually wear this - other than the finance bros this is intentionally marketed towards?
- wl 6y agoI shaved my beard at the beginning of the pandemic so I could wear a properly fitting particulate respirator. If something like this had been available, I might have been able to avoid that. PAPRs were about $1000 at the time and I figured I should leave those for medical professionals and industrial users who had more of a need. Why the mocking for people who want to protect themselves?
- Moru 6y agoForget about the mocking of people that want to protect themselves, why on earth would people mock someone that wants to protect others? Normal masks don't protect the wearer much at all according to tests done in Denmark on 3000 people. However it might lower the spreading if done right. But that was harder to test with a control group offcourse.
- koolk3ychain 6y agoI still can't fathom why people would risk a deadly respiratory illness to save... a beard. I broke out laughing when I was reading a 3m respirator review on Amazon from someone with a beard that was verbatim "works great with thick beard, just have to spread half a tub of vaseline on my face to achieve near air-tight seal". The people making these products are grifters, and bad grifters at that being this late in the game.
- ThrowawayR2 6y agoI'd wear it, particularly when I have to start commuting by bus again. It looks a lot more comfortable than a mask and (supposedly) gives better filtration.
- Saint_Genet 6y agoSF tech bros.
- scotty79 6y agoCool thing would be to design voice communication for this thing with airbuds and stereo microphones for the wearer, and inside microphone, outside speakers and some clever filtering and processing so the voice sounds good from outside and to the wearer.
- depingus 6y agoHere ya go. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/01/razers-n95-voice-boost-active-ventilators-led-lights-in-mask-prototype/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/01/razers-n95-voice-boo...
- lallysingh 6y agoCan we get a HUD on this?
- vorpalhex 6y agoA realtime hud with audio might be the only feature that would convince me to wear something like this, and even then it better be realllly useful.
- syntaxing 6y agoAs funny as it looks, I would totally wear one. People suck. They don’t wear their masks correctly and don’t care about about the risk of others. If this can help lower the risk of me bringing covid to my high risk family members, fuck others and their judgment. I rather look ridiculous and be safe.
- foobarian 6y agoMy biggest problem with masks is my glasses fogging up. I am at the end of my rope - I am looking into adding powered heating elements around the rims. There has to be some other way.
- benibela 6y agoPerhaps the glass of the helmet could be formed like a lens, so you do not need glasses underneath?
- blamestross 6y agoWhere on a lenses your eyes focus through matters (That why you need IPD to make glasses) Corrective lenses would be difficult to integrate so far from the eyes.
- syntaxing 6y agoI hear your pain. And if use something with a stronger nose bridge like a KN95 or N95, it pushes your glasses out a small amount that make me slightly dizzy.
- sa1 6y agoThere are anti-fogging sprays available - a spray is good for a few days. (Of course this is a worse solution than making that seal air-tight)
- polartx 6y agoWhere does the water vapor go? It condenses into droplets then skates back and forth along the bottom centimeter of plexiglass? That would be disgusting to look at. Or maybe it absorbs into the cloth hood/neck piece? That way when the user pulls it up off their head they get to squeegee their face with their own cold saliva. Sounds awesome!
- bitwize 6y agoAnd it makes you look like a Space Channel 5 character. I'm down with this.
- milkytron 6y agoOne of my favorite YouTube channels did a "review" of this, his humor is mostly dry but I thought this video was hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1ZYWvUh28s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1ZYWvUh28s
- username3 6y agoPeople will wear these if it has AR.
- ortusdux 6y agoI would be so paranoid about sneezing.
- falcolas 6y agoEven just talking would quickly fill the inside of that dome with small droplets. That's why we're wearing masks in teh first place.
- lallysingh 6y agoThe filter should get allergens too.
- EamonnMR 6y agoI would rather be able to hear people clearly than be able to see them clearly.
- diveanon 6y agoI'd wear it if the visor was opaque from the outside.
- devops000 6y agoMarketers have too much time to waste.
- polartx 6y agoDoes bioVYZR actually _mean_ anything? Is ‘bio’ indicating that it’s biodegradable? Or made of organic material? Is VYZR an acronym? Or is it a meaningless combination of a buzzword and misspelled word, (which is inexplicably in all caps)? Or perhaps its a meta-indicator that their product, like their name, is a 20-something y/o marketers interpretation of ‘cool’, but ultimately has no practical utility whatsoever.
- modernerd 6y ago"Biological visor"? A vizor/visor historically meant a mask, and is used today to mean a shield pulled down over the face (like a motorbike helmet visor) or worn above it (like a sun visor).
- Xavdidtheshadow 6y ago> Goodbye Masks? Absolutely not. Even if these catch on, masks being cheap and accessible has been a huge boon for getting them rolled out quickly. They can be made from household materials, can be disposable, and never need to be charged. Because so much of the pandemic is affecting lower-income parts of society disproportionately, this would only replace masks for people with money to burn.
- wl 6y agoThe problem is most masks don't actually protect the wearer. If we had them in sufficient quantity, the public health advice would be to wear fit-tested N95 or better particulate respirators.
- maxerickson 6y agoThere's plenty enough KN95 masks that the message can be to use them.
- ThrowawayR2 6y agoThere's plenty of imported KN95 masks of various brands for sale but the real questions is which ones meet the KN95 standard and which don't?
- maxerickson 6y agoIt's a fair question. I think resistance to air flow is probably enough to evaluate whether a given package is better than cloth masks though (if the KN95 resists flow, probably better).
- Xavdidtheshadow 6y agoRight, which is why it's so vital that cloth masks be trivially easy and cheap/free, so that I can be confident that everyone around me has access to them
- chongman99 6y ago
- tptacek 6y agoSee also: https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/drew-magary-coronavirus-helmet-microclimate-air-15867960.php#photo-20495050 https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/drew-magary-corona...
- ogre_codes 6y agoI'm picturing someone sneezing in one of these. It becomes a challenge, how quickly can you get this off your head? Even coughing would quickly become rather gross.
- adolph 6y agoTradeoffs noted in the article: With no mention about how sound travels through the device (maybe through the cloth lining at the back), I’m guessing the wearer would have to constantly be on the verge of a shouting match in order to be heard. Even though it looks relatively easy to take off, I’m sorry for the folks out there who suffer from the regular runny nose. To that I offer that this device will be a greenhouse in the summer.
- chongman99 6y agoI can't say anything about this mask that has a ton of cloth, but we had people wearing the http://bunnypapr.org http://bunnypapr.org in New York City summer. They did fine. There is a fan blowing 30 to 60 liters per minute through the bag/volume. This is like a cool breeze if you aim it at the skin. In the winter, you have to aim it at the shell and not the skin because you'd freeze otherwise. But, mostly these are worn indoors.
- codazoda 6y agoI don't want clear masks. I want styleized helmets with voice changers.
- parliament32 6y agoI wonder what they're doing about sound. Most of us have already had the experience of shouting at a retail employee through plexiglass, now imagine that plexi is an inch in front of your nose permanently. Not only are people going to have trouble hearing you, but your own voice is going to get concave-dish-bounced directly back into your own ears... I suspect it'll be very unpleasant.
- chongman99 6y agoOn the viralhelmets I make, the fans are about the same loudness of laptop fans. You do have to talk louder, but you can still hear.
- yonran 6y agoI feel like I’m reading a repeat of dismisive comments of how goofy masks are a year ago. So far, almost all the comments are focusing on appearance rather than effectiveness. The benefits of a PAPR include far better filtration than a surgical mask or even an N95 respirator (edit: inexplicably the BioVYZR only uses KN95 filters though https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/biovyzr-venture-out-breathe-easy#/faq https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/biovyzr-venture-out-breat...), better tolerance to leaks, and better comfort for people who find masks uncomfortable. For a $15 (in quantity) DIY version of a PAPR which uses pulmonary function testing (PFT) filters, see https://viralhelmets.medium.com/15-viral-helmet-version-of-a-2000-hospital-mask-papr-4950905ae2cc https://viralhelmets.medium.com/15-viral-helmet-version-of-a... and instructions at https://www.viralhelmets.com/ https://www.viralhelmets.com/.
- chongman99 6y agoThanks for the link. I run viralhelmets.com and a few people came and visited the site based on google analytics. Looking at the log files, I found this backlink.
- JohnTHaller 6y agoI'm getting this, adding RGB, and walking around with a Bluetooth speaker playing Daft Punk.
- jariel 6y agoIt's almost there. If it looked a little bit less cumbersome, if there was a speaker/mic scenario to get out of the fact people cant hear you and you can't hear them, it they could make the 'dome' a little more all encompassing ... ... and if COVID were somewhat more aggressive or we didn't have a vaccine announcement ... Then it would be mass-market. A few people would buy them, they would be highly visible - and then corporations and unions would start demanding them, and it would be a shift in culture. In the long term I can maybe see people in parts of hospitals using this, maybe even in airports. I don't think all the ingredients are there, but I do see these starting to popup in special scenarios.
- chongman99 6y agoWe tried getting visibility with bunnyPAPR.org and now with the $15 Hoodie Viral Helmet (slimmer). The mass market appeal of these is quite low. People are tired. Hospital market was a no go (they need certifications). Airports... maybe. But we found it tough trying to break in to that market. Airlines aren't really supportive. I track this stuff here: https://www.reddit.com/r/viralHelmets/ https://www.reddit.com/r/viralHelmets/
- sleepysysadmin 6y agoIve been thinking about how to add fan/filter to my mandalorian helmet. Anyone see anyone do this?
- chongman99 6y agoTake a look at my instructable on filters and fans. https://www.instructables.com/Viral-Helmets-9999-Hospital-Grade-Viral-Protection/ https://www.instructables.com/Viral-Helmets-9999-Hospital-Gr... I also posted in reddit about it. https://www.reddit.com/r/cosplayprops/comments/l0ucd2/help_how_to_make_a_viral_helmet_look_better/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cosplayprops/comments/l0ucd2/help_h...
- nunez 6y agoThis is the zenith of “you spent so much time thinking if you could, you forgot to ask if you should.”