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The bottleneck might be the air in the room

blog.mikebowler.ca

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Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#41

Post by infofarmer »

kashishgrover wrote: post #27

Oh this is absolutely so relevant and I wonder if there are any high quality studies that have analyzed driving performance against CO2 buildup in cars. Cars often ship with circulate air feature in the aircon, and people use it aggressively, nonchalantly at least where I live, having no idea about the dangers of possible hypoxia and sleepiness that might be inducing in them while driving. It is absolutely critical i…

Yeah, I measured over 5000ppm in a taxi with two passengers. Showed the driver how to enable air intake (he didn’t know about the feature) and tried to explain this is deadly. Pretty sure this is commonplace globally.

Generally it’s a miracle to me so many people survive traffic on public roads, statistically.

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#42

Post by Terr_ »

scoot wrote: post #18
gpt5 wrote: post #6

I really wish a Apple or another major OEM would integrate CO2 monitor into watches or smartphones. Suddenly, everybody would be aware of the CO2 level in the room, get alerts, etc. and the problem will just solve itself. There are so many rooms, classrooms, movie theaters and other places with poor ventilation where you just feel dizzy, or fall asleep, not knowing it was just due to lower oxygen levels in your blood…

Apple watches already have a blood-oxygen sensor so it's covered, albeit indirectly.

I don't think that's safe to assume at all, for two reasons:

1. CO2 has effects on the human body of its own that aren't simply a lack of oxygen, and vice-versa. [0]

2. The baseline proportions involved aren't close, so even doubling CO2 isn't going to show up easily as a large swing in in oxygen%.

For example, the article references a study where the CO2 proportion going from 0.04% -to 0.25% correlates to mental problems.

Even if the watch could sample atmosphere directly, is it sensitive enough to detect a shift from 21.00% -> 20.79% oxygen?

As it's estimating oxygen in the owner's blood, it might not detect anything different at all... not if the owner's body has already compensated by breathing harder or by "underclocking" their brain to make dumber decisions.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphyxiant_gas

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#43

Post by Krutonium »

kashishgrover wrote: post #30
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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nh_vxpycEA

Somewhat unrelated, Tom also did a great video where he was put in a low oxygen environment. Similarish effects, differentish cause.

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#44

Post by Scroll_Swe »

sapiogram wrote: post #10
keiferski wrote: post #4

Yet another reason to have meetings while walking outside: air quality and a natural limit on time, and the mental benefits that come from movement.

Requires an area around your office that isn't ugly or overrun with cars.

Scandinavia wins again :)

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#45

Post by esikich »

kashishgrover wrote: post #27

Oh this is absolutely so relevant and I wonder if there are any high quality studies that have analyzed driving performance against CO2 buildup in cars. Cars often ship with circulate air feature in the aircon, and people use it aggressively, nonchalantly at least where I live, having no idea about the dangers of possible hypoxia and sleepiness that might be inducing in them while driving. It is absolutely critical i…

Cars aren't hermetically sealed vessel. This is hilarious.

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#46

Post by hahahaa »

w-m wrote: post #36
Tossrock wrote: post #12

Submarines operate in the 1000s of PPM CO2 range and the sailors aboard generally do not experience any ill effects. This was tested and no deficits were found even at 15,000 PPM: https://asma.kglmeridian.com/view/journals/amhp/89/6/article...

I don't think you can cleanly compare this: In the study, they added CO2 to the room, while keeping O2 at normoxic levels throughout the experiment. In your meeting room, O2 levels will be dropping in lock-step with the CO2-levels rising. It may be the lack of oxygen that leads to drowsiness, not the additional CO2. But it's the CO2 levels that you can measure as a good proxy of overall air quality.

O2 is 200000ppm so if co2 goes up 400 to 2000ppm does o2 go down to 198400ppm?

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#47

Post by Liftyee »

legulere wrote: post #33
gpt5 wrote: post #6

I really wish a Apple or another major OEM would integrate CO2 monitor into watches or smartphones. Suddenly, everybody would be aware of the CO2 level in the room, get alerts, etc. and the problem will just solve itself. There are so many rooms, classrooms, movie theaters and other places with poor ventilation where you just feel dizzy, or fall asleep, not knowing it was just due to lower oxygen levels in your blood…

I guess the problem is with the price of the sensors. Just look how expensive the Aranet 4 home shown in article is. There are worse devices for less like the IKEA alpstuga. I also don’t know how much electricity they pull.

I would hesitate to say the IKEA is worse. Inside the IKEA is a reputable Sensirion all in one sensor module. It's much cheaper and smaller because the CO2 sensor in it is using different (newer) technology that only released a few years ago from Sensirion.

(Upd: the IKEA does have lower accuracy, with ±100 ppm instead of ±30 ppm. From the SEN63C datasheet)

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#48

Post by boernard »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #7

Don't forget too, if the CO2 is 1000 ppm, then half of the air in each breath you inhale was recently exhaled by someone else. Yes, airborne viruses are still spreading. I still wear an N95 mask whenever I'm in an indoor space with other people outside of home. IKEA now has a remarkably cheap ($35) air quality monitor that measures CO2 as well as PM: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/alpstuga-air-quality-sensor-sma... I d…

could you observe an effect on your health after starting to wear the mask? like sickness days per year?

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#50

Post by ErroneousBosh »

kashishgrover wrote: post #27

Oh this is absolutely so relevant and I wonder if there are any high quality studies that have analyzed driving performance against CO2 buildup in cars. Cars often ship with circulate air feature in the aircon, and people use it aggressively, nonchalantly at least where I live, having no idea about the dangers of possible hypoxia and sleepiness that might be inducing in them while driving. It is absolutely critical i…

Cars are not sufficiently sealed for that to make any kind of a difference.
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