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Airbreak.dev: Jailbreak your CPAP machine to turn them into ventilators

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Re: Airbreak.dev: Jailbreak your CPAP machine to turn them into ventilators

#151

Post by hindsightbias »

ars wrote: post #81
favorited wrote: post #23

The CPAP jailbreak community was eye-opening when I first learned of it. I never expected something like that, but with the draconian policies it's not surprising. For example, my CPAP has a CDMA radio inside, which transmits usage data back to the manufacturer & my doctor. Insurance won't pay for it unless the machine tells them I'm using it – so a medical device company has a record of when I sleep and wake, which…

The CPAP world is a microcosm of what's wrong in the medical world, i.e. why things cost so much. A CPAP machines costs about 10x as much as it should, and a part of that is insurance companies wanting to make sure they are not paying for a device you are not using. Which then increases the price, which makes insurance companies even more worried about them. Then you are paternalism where only a Dr. is allowed to cha…

One thing about Kaiser CA, they’re very proactive about OSA. Free take home test rig (must be back by 9am), and the sleep specialist pushed a higher end CPAP, 3 masks, 3 pillow types into my hands and said I’d get a 10% copay call. Followup on choosing right mask/pillow, and when my machine starting whistling after 4 years, doc emailed the sleep specialist and they gave me a new machine with no copay. No telemetry.

Think I’ve spent $120 for the machines, the headgear costs (supplier) are overpriced. But you can look for one of those online shops and wait for 4-pack specials, got 16 pillows for $150. Not an expense I can complain about.

Re: Airbreak.dev: Jailbreak your CPAP machine to turn them into ventilators

#152

Post by TylerE »

VectorLock wrote: post #83

Very great. I was really really curious if this was possible and how much work it would be. As you said a lot of CPAP machines are very close in functionality to BiPAP machines. I could see this being very helpful to people who are having a hard time with CPAP therapy but are having difficultly getting their insurance provider to approve a BiPAP machine which are more expensive (something I've experienced)

Yeah this is something I’m wondering too. I’m on a CPAP, not sure if I could get approved for a bipap or not. I run quite high pressure for straight CPAP (range from 18.8 up the machines max of 20). Some nights I peak around 19.6 but other nights will Max it out. Most bipaps will go up to 25.

Re: Airbreak.dev: Jailbreak your CPAP machine to turn them into ventilators

#153

Post by wormyrocks »

NoInputSignal wrote: post #131
favorited wrote: post #23

The CPAP jailbreak community was eye-opening when I first learned of it. I never expected something like that, but with the draconian policies it's not surprising. For example, my CPAP has a CDMA radio inside, which transmits usage data back to the manufacturer & my doctor. Insurance won't pay for it unless the machine tells them I'm using it – so a medical device company has a record of when I sleep and wake, which…

Don't really know how viable this question is, but for curiousity's sake, is it possible to build a Faraday cage around the machine?

The machine still works if you yank the 4-pin connector from the cellular board, so that's the easiest way. We gotta add that to the instructions...

Re: Airbreak.dev: Jailbreak your CPAP machine to turn them into ventilators

#154

Post by CamperBob2 »

prostheticvamp wrote: post #109
ars wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. And the worst part is sleep studies are medically unnecessary - an APAP machine (automatic machine) can auto-set the necessary pressure, and no sleep study is needed. Simply sleep with an APAP for a week, review the pressure graph and draw a line at the bottom of the values. Then set the minimum pressure to that number, or slightly less and done. Review every few months. If you ask a Dr. about this…

Hahahahah. Oh man. The vast majority of patients take months or longer to get acclimated to the machine. Most will say they feel /worse/, because the machine gets in the way of their sleep at first. I look forward to hearing more medical pearls from the web design community.

The vast majority of patients take months or longer to get acclimated to the machine

Sounds like your experience is with much older machines. Is that reasonable to say?

Re: Airbreak.dev: Jailbreak your CPAP machine to turn them into ventilators

#155

Post by SubiculumCode »

MrStonedOne wrote: post #129
electriclove wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is a prescription required anyway?

In most medical devices anything, prescription is justified the same (read in a mocking voice) "There could be another reason for those symptoms so if we don't gate your access behind an expensive doctors visit you could treat the wrong thing and die" This is used to justify eyeglass prescriptions. This bullshit really needs to go, especially for eyeglass prescriptions. Making people wait weeks for another eye exam w…

I think you may be able to.purchase one, but if you want insurance to cover it....

Re: Airbreak.dev: Jailbreak your CPAP machine to turn them into ventilators

#156

Post by hcrisp »

justicezyx wrote: post #72

Talking about cpap machine, I did some research on it, and found that they are regulated medical device and cannot be purchased without prescription. I suffer chronicle dry nose, moderate empty nose syndrome on the right side (due to surgery done 20 years ago in China), and Deviated Septum (due to injury as kid). One thing often happen to me is during middle of nigh sleep, my left nose duct will be extremely dry, cau…

You can also get a home test for about $500 after insurance, get a Rx from your doc, and then buy a $200 CPAP unit with low hours off ebay, Craigslist, FB Marketplace, etc. Or skip the test / Rx and titer the machine yourself using Sleepyhead / OSCAR with the help of very capable folks on cpaptalk.com. It sounds hard until you look into it, and then it's not really that difficult.

Re: Airbreak.dev: Jailbreak your CPAP machine to turn them into ventilators

#157

Post by wormyrocks »

ENOTTY wrote: post #110
wormyrocks wrote: post #56

Hi, I worked on this project and have a couple comments to address the issues people are raising. - There are established medical protocols to treat COVID-19 patients with BiPAP machines, including the addition of a viral filter to mitigate aerosolizing the virus. People are using these protocols now and we link to them from the site. - There are two separate firmware hacks presented. The first one modifies ~20 bytes…

What are the differences in the sensors?

CPAP: https://fccid.io/2ACHL-AIR104G/Internal-Photos/Internal-Phot...

BiPAP: https://fccid.io/2ACHL-A10STA3G/Internal-Photos/internal-pic...

Re: Airbreak.dev: Jailbreak your CPAP machine to turn them into ventilators

#158

Post by SubiculumCode »

zentiggr wrote: post #128
prostheticvamp wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hahahahah. Oh man. The vast majority of patients take months or longer to get acclimated to the machine. Most will say they feel /worse/, because the machine gets in the way of their sleep at first. I look forward to hearing more medical pearls from the web design community.

Apparently I'm an outlier then, I got used to it in under a week, and swear by it. If my wife and I stay up late and get short hours on machine, or nap in the living room instead of upstairs and on machine, I know it the next day. 5, 6 hours in a base minimum for me to not feel sluggish and possibly even start the day with a headache.

I think the autotitration helps acclimation...and for me, I was so anxious for relief, I was acclimated before I even got the machine.

Re: Airbreak.dev: Jailbreak your CPAP machine to turn them into ventilators

#159

Post by ClumsyPilot »

gmueckl wrote: post #125
sneak wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If these devices malfunction, they could hurt people. I think that the circumstances under which these are being developed are a special emergency; the alternative to using such a less-safe, makeshift device here would be no ventilator at all, i.e. near-certain death. In this specific circumstance, I think this sort of criticism should be withheld. I don't think anyone's talking about reflashing CPAPs to be life su…

In these circumstances, this kind of criticism is especially necessary. It's easy to feel like you're doing the right thing and that you're helping people when you set out to hack medical devices. The truth is that you should only even think of doing it as a team with a leadership that understands the full engineering requirements for such a device completely and is very professional about it, including following str…

I am sorry but that statement cuts no ice with me.

The team clearly doe know what they are doing, you ha e provided no evidence, except a blanket statement of 'something might go wrong'.

Unless you can actually point to specific issues, your statement is not very useful

Re: Airbreak.dev: Jailbreak your CPAP machine to turn them into ventilators

#160

Post by prostheticvamp »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #154
prostheticvamp wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hahahahah. Oh man. The vast majority of patients take months or longer to get acclimated to the machine. Most will say they feel /worse/, because the machine gets in the way of their sleep at first. I look forward to hearing more medical pearls from the web design community.

The vast majority of patients take months or longer to get acclimated to the machine Sounds like your experience is with much older machines. Is that reasonable to say?

No. Last time I worked shifts in a pulm/sleep medicine clinic was about 18 months ago.
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