Driving drunk is for the birds. Meaning you’d be an idiot to do
so, especially in this day and age of Uber and Lyft. But let’s face it.
We’ve all done it: head to the a bar or restaurant, plan on having
just one and end up slugging back three or four. Not good. And that’s
why every one should carry a portable breathalyzer, such as the
Breathometer Breeze.
Now, the Breathometer Breeze isn’t the first portable breathalyzer
I’ve reviewed. But it’s the first that doesn’t require charging.
Powering the keychain sized device is an included watch battery. To
install, just unscrew the top half of the Breathometer Breeze and pop it
into place. I struggled for a few minutes to get it back together, but
with some trial and error did so.
Included in the box are a few mouth pieces an attachments. I
immediately tossed the mouth pieces aside since they just mean more to
lose, which will surely happen, and more to carry around. As alluded
to, there is a keychain attachment, but since I drive just one car I’ll
be storing the Breathometer Breeze in my car for those “just in case”
moments of weakness.
With the battery installed, it’s as simple as hitting the button near
the mouth piece to power it on. You’ll know you’ve done so when the
LEDs light up. The last few steps are pairing it to your phone and
downloading the Breathometer app. Both are a quick and painless
process, so no qualms there.
To begin a reading it’s a single button press on the app and then
blowing into the Breathometer Breeze. Comparatively speaking the
Breathometer Breeze works very fast; it only requires that you breath
into the device for 5-seconds, where as other Breathylyzers require more
time. Moreover, the device resets fairly quickly after each use,
though it will error out if used too many times in a row (this only
happened once after excessive testing).
Because the Breathometer Breeze runs off a watch (cell) battery,
which is good for up to 16 months, it does shut off automatically fairly
quickly. I never measured the actual amount of time, but it’s a moot
issue since it powers on just as fast.
Compared to other Breathylzers, it tended to understate my BAC (that,
or the other ones overstated it). But only marginally. And since
the exercise isn’t to determine how drunk I was (well, sometimes) but
whether or not I was close to or had exceeded the legal limit.
Regardless, it seems to be a strong indicator of this, though I would
have prefer to have it overstate my BAC; a “better safe than sorry”
mentality.
You can buy the Breeze Breathometer direct for $100.
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