I 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-breat...), better tolerance to leaks, and better comfort for people who find masks uncomfortable.
Thanks 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.
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.
I can't say anything about this mask that has a ton of cloth, but we had people wearing the 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.
Cool 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.
I 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 $1000 at the time and I figured I should leave those for medical professionals and industrial users who had more of a need.
Why the mocking for people who want to protect themselves?
I still can't fathom why people would risk a deadly respiratory illness to save... a beard. I broke out laughing when I was reading a 3m respirator review on Amazon from someone with a beard that was verbatim "works great with thick beard, just have to spread half a tub of vaseline on my face to achieve near air-tight seal".
The people making these products are grifters, and bad grifters at that being this late in the game.
Forget about the mocking of people that want to protect themselves, why on earth would people mock someone that wants to protect others?
Normal masks don't protect the wearer much at all according to tests done in Denmark on 3000 people. However it might lower the spreading if done right. But that was harder to test with a control group offcourse.
If I couldn't work from home, I would seriously consider buying one. My province has a mandatory mask order, but when I take public transit, there is always at least one person not wearing any mask and 5 people with masks below their nose. Fortunately I don't have to take transit often because I work from home.
199$ is way cheaper than the cost of a car and would allow me to take transit with greater piece of mind. But then again, it is cold here, and I am not sure whether and how well this product avoids fogging. So maybe not.
I'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.
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.
The 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.
That was that thinking in April, but more careful studies are showing that wearer protection is quite high. And that bandanas and neck gaiters do actually offer reasonable protection.
Here's the preprint from Linsey Marr who is considered by many a leader in aerosol risk.
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).
Right, 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
As 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.
My 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.
I used to have the same problem. My solution is that a use a foam tape and put that in the inside of the mask on the area around my nose. The uper area of the mask is air tight and therefore no fogged glases.
It looks like that but slimmer:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000CBIFD
I 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.
I had this problem pre-pandemic when I wanted to avoid glare but also not freeze my face off while walking to work. The solution was ski goggles-they isolate the lense from your breath.
Water vapor is a gas and is much smaller than the "leaks" of particles. A perfectly sealed filter (like an elastomeric mask with high fit factor) will still release a ton of H20.
EVIDENCE: The exhaust from PAPRS and viralhelmets.com has a ton of moisture.
With my cloth mask, I pull it up under my glasses, and let me glasses hold the seal. Just make sure your mask is big enough to still cover your face after you pull it up this high.
Where 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!
Where 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.
Most defog is just a soap film, and many divers including myself just use baby shampoo diluted in water. Store-bought defog is expensive and doesn't really work any better.
However, when diving you leave your defog wet (hence the baby shampoo so your eyes don't get irritated) after a quick dunk in water to rise off the excess. A coating that dries will be very different, although I am sure they sell it somewhere!
I've heard of people using Rain-X on their masks, but never tried that before. Maybe it'll work on glasses too!
Does 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.
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).
I 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.
I 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.
I'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.
Maybe 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.
If 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.
According 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.
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.
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-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... and instructions at https://www.viralhelmets.com/.