The bottleneck might be the air in the room • Hacker News Board

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#361

Post by Hikikomori » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 3:56 PM UTC

tmp147963 wrote: post #342

Having CO2 sensors is mostly useless. In Quebec province in Canada, they added CO2 sensors in all the classes in all the schools after covid. Now what? Having data does not change anything if nothing is done. If instead all the millions invested would have gone into adding air exchangers, now that would actually do something. And that is assuming that CO2 levels really have an impact. From the last time I researched…

>Having CO2 sensors is mostly useless

I got one because old apartment and bad ventilation. Was able to open a window when I felt the effect before, but now I can get an alert earlier. Since getting it I could consistently feel the effect at around 11100-1300.

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#362

Post by goodroot » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 4:04 PM UTC

mft_ wrote: post #273

bluerooibos wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal, but I'm convinced it screws up sleep quality. I'd just accepted for the longest time that waking up groggy with a slight headache and tired was the norm until I put a CO2 monitor in my room. With the door closed, it climbed up to 1500ppm in under an hour. I'm certain many people are sleeping in similar conditions without realising and ventilating their rooms properly or leaving the door open.

Higher CO2 vs. free cat access at 4:17am. No win scenario!

I have this same challenge!

Also, moved all of my lovely oxygenating plants like lillies out of the room because they are toxic to kitty.

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#363

Post by coryrc » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 4:05 PM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #177

Lwerewolf wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ones in cars need to be heated up quite a bit in order to work, and you still need reference air. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure that CO2 isn't a problem but rather an indication of a lack of oxygen in the first place, so it technically could work... just not if you're measuring the environment itself.

This is in theory not a problem: getting an oxygen sensor to 700 degrees if it's a tiny spec on a chip is not necessarily hard or would even require a lot of power. But...oxygen concentration is essentially indepedent of CO2. We measure CO2 at part per million levels, whereas O2 is 20% of the air. (In that context CO2 is surprisingly toxic given that 1000 ppm can impair mental acuity).

> whereas O2 is 20% of the air.

The goal of a gasoline engine's sensor is to accurately and precisely measure the point where O2 concentration reaches zero, so ambient air levels are not quite as relevant.

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#364

Post by pessimizer » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 4:06 PM UTC

dml2135 wrote: post #328

joezydeco wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opening windows can bring in pollen, dust, humidity, noise, and a lot of energy loss during cold winters and hot summers. In a bedroom it might be worse than the elevated CO2 problem.

That’s a bit of a dramatic way to describe opening a window.

As dramatic as having a runny nose and sneezing all day, having to overuse your asthma inhaler.

Is that really dramatic, or just the reality that needs to be considered in a cost-benefit analysis? Are you a hay fever truther?

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#365

Post by LordDragonfang » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 4:06 PM UTC

naet wrote: post #63

oasisbob wrote: post #23

There needs to be a meter for the amount of AI writing in blogposts. Same physics, same climb, same afternoon fog.

This reads to me as AI generated. Apparently it's still good enough to the general audience to be the #1 post on HN right now though. Which is honestly a troubling signal for the state of the world...

Yeah, I clocked it as AI the moment I read "Here is the uncomfortable part". FWIW, Pangram detects it as 100% AI-generated.

https://www.pangram.com/history/c410d4b4-abfd-4ca0-b52d-db0d...

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#366

Post by BobaFloutist » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 4:08 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #360

cotwo wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The air infront of you IS the air you breed in, why shouldn’t it be measured?

Because the thresholds everyone gets from the studies were not measured in that location. It would be like the weather station telling you it was 160 degrees outside because they put their thermal sensor on the asphalt, but you wanted to know the air temperature.

Or your watch telling you the room is 98 degrees because it's only ever measuring your body temperature

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#367

Post by LordDragonfang » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

Hey, just FYI to everyone:

Even though this article is conveying good (and useful) information, it seems to be completely AI-generated.

Pangram clocks it as 100% AI: https://www.pangram.com/history/c410d4b4-abfd-4ca0-b52d-db0d...

Someone else in the thread lists it as 99%: https://www.salahadawi.com/hacker-news-ai-detector

Also, it sort of jumps out at you if you're used to reading AI writing. Claude loves to start paragraphs with "Here is the uncomfortable part".

I'm not necessarily saying this automatically makes it bad, but everyone should be aware of the source of their information.

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#368

Post by Aurornis » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

BobaFloutist wrote: post #366

Aurornis wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the thresholds everyone gets from the studies were not measured in that location. It would be like the weather station telling you it was 160 degrees outside because they put their thermal sensor on the asphalt, but you wanted to know the air temperature.

Or your watch telling you the room is 98 degrees because it's only ever measuring your body temperature

That’s a much better example. Thanks

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#369

Post by gdilla » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

People don't understand ppm like they do temperature units. These rebreathed stickers can help drive home the point. Especially when the next respiratory virus season rolls around. https://naltic.com/product/aranet4-rebreathed-percentage-sti...

You will take ~ 1000 breaths per meeting hour. really gross!

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#370

Post by romaniv » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 4:33 PM UTC

bluerooibos wrote: post #198

deanc wrote: post #13

I’m not saying this isn’t a legitimate concern but this really seems to have exploded amongst the tech community as the next obsession. I see this pop up on X every few weeks. Is the concern about this really based on actual science? Is there empirical data proving people are less productive or are damaging themselves as a result of heightened CO2 levels? And I don’t mean observational epidemiology studies.

Anecdotal, but I'm convinced it screws up sleep quality. I'd just accepted for the longest time that waking up groggy with a slight headache and tired was the norm until I put a CO2 monitor in my room. With the door closed, it climbed up to 1500ppm in under an hour. I'm certain many people are sleeping in similar conditions without realising and ventilating their rooms properly or leaving the door open.

> Anecdotal, but I'm convinced it screws up sleep quality.

It absolutely does.

>I'd just accepted for the longest time that waking up groggy with a slight headache and tired was the norm until I put a CO2 monitor in my room. With the door closed, it climbed up to 1500ppm in under an hour.

Same experience here. Opening windows just a bit totally changed my sleep quality.