Forget about breathalysing for blood alcohol levels, how about breathalysing yourself to accurately zero in on your health status? ezOxygen aims to do that.
ezOxygen. It’s a digital lung function wearable device that connects to your smart phone.
Using what is billed as a “unique Ultrasound Whistle and integrated software to accurately measure your lung function”, it promises to give you an “in-depth look at how your environment and activities impact your lung capacity".
From pollutants in the air, to a workout at the gym, ezOxygen says it keeps track of everything, while storing all your data conveniently on the cloud, coupled with a compact design.
{loadposition alex08}On Kickstarter, the product has raised US$9305 of its US$70,000 goal, with 49 backers and, at the time of publication, nine days to go.
The founders seem keen on bringing the product to life whether they reach the Kickstarter goal, or not, but as a device to digitally measure your lung health daily, it appears likely to appeal to Australians and indeed anyone affected by asthma, allergies, COPD sufferers or any need to check lung health – which even includes singers.
Billed as a “stylish wearable device”, it weighs only 102g, but is something you breathe into rather than, it would seem, actually wear.
Connecting to your smartphone or tablet, its makers recommend you use it before sports or training.
The device will “provide you information about your respiratory condition and the outdoor air quality for your reference”, because you don’t want to be training or doing sports when “fine particles can directly affect your respiratory tract sensitivity".
exOxygen can monitor your PEF, FEV1 and FVC ratings, with FVC representing your daily oxygen storage in sports, and PEF and FEV1 being related to your respiratory tract muscles’ capacity of instant-provided energy.
We’re told than when you have better FVC, “you will have longer air exchange duration to let you swim faster. During sports like basketball, jogging and marathon, we all need stronger respiratory system to support us to successfully complete the challenge, and even win the champion".
In the future, more functions will be added to ezOxygen so you can analyse distance, time or sports mode.
You’re promised to be able to use ezOxygen to better speak or sing, and to manage asthma, COPD and other lung ailments, so you know when best to take appropriate medicine and to track lung health and recovery times.
Whether this project gets funded and becomes reality, or not, it’s certainly a medical device that sounds like we need to add to the medical arsenal out there.
A video from the founders is below. Thankfully the video has closed captioning turned on so you can properly understand what is being said, but it’s very clear that you don’t need to be a fluent English speaker to want to change the world, even if by one breath at a time.