Futuristic Helmet Has Its Own HEPA Filter and Fan

https://www.gatechecked.com/microclimate-air-visor-helment-on-sale-coronavirus-protection-3548

by evo_9 • 6 years ago

27 80 6 years ago

m-p-3• 6 years ago

We'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• 6 years ago

Scientism

koolk3ychain2• 6 years ago

What kind of idiot would actually wear this - other than the finance bros this is intentionally marketed towards?

Saint_Genet• 6 years ago

SF tech bros.

wl2• 6 years ago

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?

Moru• 6 years ago

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.

koolk3ychain2• 6 years ago

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.

ThrowawayR22• 6 years ago

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.

smnrchrds• 6 years ago

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.

offtop5• 6 years ago

Finance bros and tech bros have money to waste.

I suspect mask fatigue is going to have most people going maskless by summer.

scotty79• 6 years ago

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.

depingus• 6 years ago

Here ya go. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/01/razers-n95-voice-boo...

lallysingh2• 6 years ago

Can we get a HUD on this?

vorpalhex• 6 years ago

A 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.

syntaxing2• 6 years ago

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.

foobarian• 6 years ago

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.

benibela• 6 years ago

Perhaps the glass of the helmet could be formed like a lens, so you do not need glasses underneath?

syntaxing2• 6 years ago

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.

sa12• 6 years ago

There 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)

EamonnMR2• 6 years ago

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.

kps2• 6 years ago

If your glasses are fogging up, the mask is leaking around your nose or cheeks.

lhoff• 6 years ago

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

everdrive• 6 years ago

What about the solution that divers use to keep their diving mask from fogging up?

JBorrow• 6 years ago

Try using a plaster (to-american: band-aid) to ensure your nose bridge is clamped properly to your nose. Works quite well.

tynpeddler• 6 years ago

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.

weaksauce• 6 years ago

not sure how well they work but I've seen that rubbing them with dryer sheets have been posed as a solution for fogging.

nunez2• 6 years ago

Wouldn’t two masks be just as effective?

bitwize• 6 years ago

And it makes you look like a Space Channel 5 character. I'm down with this.

sgt• 6 years ago

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.

puppable• 6 years ago

"Goodbye Masks?"

"$199"

Well, at least the headline is helpful enough to answer its own question.

baron816• 6 years ago

Needing to scratch you face or rub your nose but not being able to is awful. They need to solve that problem first.

NullPrefix• 6 years ago

These problems apply to masks too

kube-system3• 6 years ago

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.

kweks• 6 years ago

The device in question has built in 'inverted' gloves in the hood to allow you to scratch your face / adjust glasses / pick nose / etc

kube-system3• 6 years ago

Also sound is likely a problem -- both the helmet blocking outside sounds, and the fan noise inside of the helmet.

GekkePrutser• 6 years ago

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.

milkytron• 6 years ago

One 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

username3• 6 years ago

People will wear these if it has AR.

ortusdux• 6 years ago

I would be so paranoid about sneezing.

falcolas• 6 years ago

Even just talking would quickly fill the inside of that dome with small droplets. That's why we're wearing masks in teh first place.

lallysingh2• 6 years ago

The filter should get allergens too.

EamonnMR2• 6 years ago

I would rather be able to hear people clearly than be able to see them clearly.

diveanon• 6 years ago

I'd wear it if the visor was opaque from the outside.

devops000• 6 years ago

Marketers have too much time to waste.

polartx2• 6 years ago

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.

modernerd• 6 years 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).

Xavdidtheshadow2• 6 years 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.

wl2• 6 years ago

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.

maxerickson2• 6 years ago

There's plenty enough KN95 masks that the message can be to use them.

Xavdidtheshadow2• 6 years ago

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

chongman997• 5 years ago

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.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.18.20233353v...

tptacek• 6 years ago

Futuristic Helmet Has Its Own HEPA Filter and Fan

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