We are the inventors of uvSABA, a wearable UVC air filter and we just made our first big sale!

SABA (supplied air breathing apparatus) is a type of breathing apparatus designed for high volume breathing air cylinders or breathing air compressors located outside the atmosphere that the respirator is located.

Eg. Workers need to replace a valve in a oxygen deficient location, or a location with high H²S concentrations, the compressor is located outside of the zone, and the respirators are connected by 50' lengths of hose.

SABA is a life saving device. My worry is that some idiot may see that access to a hazardous atmosphere requires SABA, and he's going to get some kids killed because he mistakes your uvSABA for an SABA.

Was your team aware of SABA's prior to naming your product?

Are you aware of your potential exposure?

Are you aware that your device would be categorized as a PAPR, and not a SABA?

Are you attempting to get NIOSH approval?

I really like the premise of the device itself, but I stopped my evaluation at the name you chose.

Nice comment! Thanks for the positive support. I have seen people wearing a PAPR on airplanes.

It should be possible to route our device into the PAPR hardware, however. Yes it is difficult to find a new name for a new concept that someone else isn't already using. uvSABA was not being used and is easier to say than uvPAPR.

We have a planned regulatory roadmap that includes several different organizations. It is a little early to say which approvals are most helpful.

I think there is so much stagnation (in terms of modern innovation) in this product category that you should find a lot of success.

Have you considered exports at this time?

Are your batteries removable? It appears to be a sealed enclosure (UV exposure issues, I assume?)

Regarding batteries: This first version gives you several options. The easiest is to charge it and have an external battery, if you need more time.

For people reasonable technical knowledge and an allen wrench, it is not too hard to remove the battery and replace it. Make sure it is off, if you open it. If this does grow in demand, we will come up with an even easier way to replace the battery. A third option could be to have all the batteries external. If that is of interest to this community, we appreciate the feedback!

We are simply trying to help people get through this pandemic. Exports are fine with us, it becomes a matter of shipping costs/time, and making sure the export regulations are surmountable.

Not gonna lie, at FIRST GLANCE it looks promising for a beta product.

Get back to me when the it fits in a pack of smokes and the price is 19.99.

Kidding. I could see someone dropping $200, $300 maybe even $500 on a mature product from a reputable company and a 1 year warranty via SKYMALL - but a grand to be an early adopter of what looks like alpha/beta/ first gen tech at best?

Good luck with that.

Now, at second glance, I will say your presentation on IGG is somewhat lacking. I'm not sure if that is because you are a noob in the ways of marketing and doing it all yourself, or if you are a fraud.

You will hook some people with a few pics but IMHO, you need to talk a lot more about your team and tech, bios on your scientists and engineers that you mention but do not identify, previous success with manufacturing other products, a peep inside the box WHAT'S IN THE BOX!

In other words, MORE than a pic of guy in a t-shirt holding up a SHEET OF PAPER with a black box hanging off you, some charts and a pic of a warehouse door from the parking lot (with no sign) ooh - take my money,

The article in forbes is an advertisement and is pay to play which means it has Zero credibility. The rest of your proof fails to meet the bar of anything more than 'this was not posted by a BOT'.

That crappy shopify website that took 30 seconds to load isn't doing you any favors either.

Since this is an AMA, and I'm supposed to ask a question, here it is:

Who are your 2 Ph.D. scientists and 3 MDs that are advising you?

Where did they go to school, where have they been employed and what experience do they have in bringing such a product to market? Previous success stories? etc.

Have you applied for a trademark or patent protection? links to both please.

Until I see a verifiable answer, I would run from this. The more I look at it, the more it does not pass the smell test. It's possible you are a noob and just don't know how things are done in the crowdfunding space to ensure you have the proper cred and you literally put this thing together in your shop on Friday and trying to gauge interest but you are soliciting business with a delivery timetable of OCTOBER and today is already the 10th so color me skeptical. I'm seen some very smooth and polished campaigns turn into hot garbage a minute after they close and get funded but you are literally 'a guy with a box'.

I know high school kids who could push out a sharper looking campaign with more credibility. This looks like it was phoned in.

Just my 2 cents, Best of luck.

This is my first crowd-funding. All this is new, so we didn't spend time on marketing. At first I was not sure if my "real" job would mind if I put my name out there as the inventor. I did get permission recently, so I'll update that part of the page.

The patent was filed, but it takes about 12 months to publish, so we can link to that when it has gone all the way through the PTO. This is actually important, as we cannot publish those details ahead of the PCO filing.

A few of our team members lost their "real" job due to the pandemic, so they have more time to help than others.

For quality web-sites, it was either wait another 6-8 weeks or spend a lot of money. We didn't have the time, so launched as is. I know it looks bad, but hopefully you can understand how it works.

That was me in the t-shirt last night. PhD from Caltech. We also found early customers through a Stanford program, so there are quality people behind this. They simply are not marketing people.

Hi, I have studied UV light as a means of killing Covid in the air we breath.

My understanding is that, at the energy levels in UV light needed to kill floating Covid droplets, the UV promotes ionization of the air, producing chemicals that are bad for our lungs like ozone.

So, any solution either produces dangerous ozone, or is ineffective.

What is your response to this?

This question comes up for me every time I see a device advertised to 'clean' water or air with UV light. Two components come into play: energy intensity and exposure time. For free-flowing breathable air, I have to imagine the energy intensity would be quite high to overcome the short time the air can be exposed before it's inhaled. Just because UVC can denature viruses doesn't mean it does in all conditions.

Great questions!

Your line of thought is correct, you need to have enough energy and time to be effective. This can be done with more time, more intense UVC source, or by reducing distance; as otherwise the air molecules will absorb the UV light before it reaches all of the volume.

The LED solution is great because we can really pick the most effective wavelength and almost all of the energy is converters to UVC, but they are also small enough that we can put them in the middle of the air stream, which makes distance between the source and the air very short.

Thanks for the question!

Ok, so your UVC LEDs are wavelength-specific and adequate intensity, but what about the ionization issue?

Ok, so your UVC LEDs are wavelength-specific and adequate intensity

We haven't seen that they are.

I am, for the moment, taking the claim at face value, but you're right. It is just an unsupported claim.

Here is the speck sheet of the LEDs in the current version. If you reference page 5 you'll see that the LEDs have a cut off at 250nm and already near zero output at 260, with the highest output between 270nm to 275nm which is the sweet spot for what we want.

We also selected this LEDs as the larger tail or spill light happens in the 285nm to 320nm, which wastes energy but is not going to generate ozone.

https://www.aopled.com/AOP_PDFs/L944-MUV265-4.pdf

Thanks for the feedback though

This is my question as well. I know there are hospital UVC filters that produce fairly negligible amounts of ozone at the specific UVC wavelength used, but it's negligible compared to the huge volume of air being pushed through the hospital.

When you have a device that is sending air directly to your lungs without any dilution, it seems like you would have to be extremely careful because even a relatively small amount of ozone production could be very damaging and irritating, which could ironically make someone more susceptible to infection.

Thanks for the question,

Ozone is produced by a specific energy. You have to ionize O2 and then let it recombine. This happens at a frequency above the one we use (shorter than 240 nm). If you look at the frequency that denatures proteins and DNA, those are good frequencies for denaturing viruses (265-280 nm). This has been one of our points of focus during the design stage, to make sure that we do not produce it.

I’d like to hear the response too.

UV-C promoting ozone in filtration and static systems is largely acceptable in conventional situations due to usage in open areas—the parts per million is small because the volume is so big.

I wonder how much ozone is being generated because youre breathing in all of it

The ozone question has come up a few times, and though it is true that UVC lamps have this issue, that is because you can't select narrow wave lengths like you do with LEDs. We know that wave lengths shorter than 240 nm produce ozone,but to denature DNA we use 265-280 nm instead, hence minimizing if not completely avoiding ozone generation.

hence minimizing if not completely avoiding ozone generation

I believe the fact that you aren't even sure yourself is what is causing the concern with everyone here.

If you check on google: The majority of humans can smell ozone long before it is dangerous. The odor detection threshold is 0.005-0.02 ppm.

We have been testing this device and never smell ozone. That supports the physics that Ozone needs a wavelength below 240 nm to form in air from UVC.

Ozone is produced by a specific energy. You have to ionize O2 and then let it recombine. This happens at a frequency above the one we use (shorter than 240 nm). If you look at the frequency that denatures proteins and DNA, those are good frequencies for denaturing viruses (265-280 nm). For a long time, people did not have the options to select frequencies that LEDs give you. They had to rely on lamps. Now with that selectivity, we can avoid unwanted frequencies and focus on what is needed.

We will put together some references for those interested to review.

By frequency at 265-280nm you mean wavelength right?

yes, wavelength

How does this device work? Your website shows a box and a woman wearing a normal mask with a thin wire to it.

Have you gotten any regulatory approval or 3rd party to this device working?

It has a pump inside that pushes air past UVC LEDs (after going through a filter). That air then comes out the nozzle in the top. You can use it to treat air in a room or as shown on the photo treat air going to your face.

There is a university and a lab in the process of evaluating the device.

Why do you come to Reddit to do an AMA when you really just want publicity for your product?

We are an early-stage startup looking for feedback. This has definitely been a great session for us to get just that.

It looks like currently this is intended to be used in tandem with a traditional face mask and the face piece looks like a pretty standard nasal cannula. Is there any plan to design a full mask to be used with the device? What sort of rate of flow do you get through the device? Would it be realistic to use it in a more contained setup where it needs to be the sole source of breathing air?

You can use it with or without a mask. For the special case of wanting to eat while breathing the air, you need something similar to a cannula. A simple hose can work, if you keep it in place. We have been looking at multiple ways to deliver the air to your face. The easiest one is a simple tube. I like that for a mask, but using existing solutions out there was also faster and reliable. There are some higher flow rate solutions that we are also looking at (more images on the page). Higher flow rate options are quieter.

Is this something you can scale down to be practically hooked up on a duty belt for paramedics and other first responders?

What is your intended application/targeted audience and where do you hope to get to in the future?

Good questions.

Yes. There are several ways to scale it down. More LED's can help it be smaller, but that makes it more expensive. Also, we can reduce the battery size (reduce the life) or move the battery out of the enclosure. Lastly, there are some ways to scale the pump, but it is too early to confirm something on that front.

We started by helping the people we know. There are technicians that have to quarantine for 3-14 days before they are allowed to do their job at remote sites. They are giving us good feedback. I'd like to help my parents be able to fly safely too, so they are planning to use one to visit me for Thanksgiving. Eventually this or it successor could be useful for almost anyone. We thought about rideshare drivers, theme park workers/attendees, etc.

Thoughts on your market dynamics/demand if vaccines are given to the front line workers soon? Good luck!

We see the demand for this being pretty consistent over the next few years. Plus, there maybe other applications for this device. UV-C has similar effects on flu and other viruses.

Looks a cool idea, although I'd guess you are going to come up against some big, big, players able to throw massive resources at this market, and have existing route to market and manufacturing capability options that will make it tough to compete.

To that point, is there anything in your design which is proprietary that you have patented or applied for patent on?

Thanks for engaging. Our product is patent-pending. It is a challenging market but we are getting a ton of interest based on the applicability of the idea and our credibility as a team. We have currently in the process of securing manufacturing capability in order to scale production.

Great idea, and congrats on the progress.

One question that comes to mind is how do you ensure the flow rate of air is not too high given the uvc intensity to properly disinfect it?

Thanks for engaging with us. Great question. We are building an phone app to control the flow rate. That way it is comfortable for the user. We also have an air buffer built into the device that allows for sufficient resident time of the air to properly expose. Our LEDs make 62.5 mW/cm2 and we are doubling them up in a reflective chamber to further increase exposure.

edit: added more information on the UV source and phone app.

Thanks everyone for your questions, we will be here for another 20min and then we will have to disconnect.

Let us know if you still have questions

Serious question: Are they slim enough to fit under, say, a Mandalorian, Storm Trooper or Darth Vader helmet?

Asking for a friend.

You could wear it on your chest and the it would pump under your helmet. Fun!

Thank you all for the feedback!

All of your comments are very helpful to us, as we will make sure to address all your concerns moving forward.

We will be back here in a few weeks to show you our progress and address more questions then.

Thank you all for engaging with us and have a great weekend.

We are loving the excellent comments that are coming through. Lets keep them coming!