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A company that makes consumer-grade "breathalyzers" has settled with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission due to the inherent inaccuracy of the devices:
If you're trusting a personal breathalyzer to protect you from a drunk driving conviction, think again, since the devices might not work as advertised. In the past few years, various companies have begun marketing personal breathalyzers that fit in your pocket and can report blood alcohol content (BAC) levels to a smartphone. El Reg's Vulture West hacks in San Francisco carried out a group test on such devices, which provided much merriment.
Breathometer, which was one of the devices we tested, has just agreed to settle charges brought by the FTC – America's trade watchdog – that claims the company made about its breathalyzers weren't backed up by scientific evidence and that users could be dangerously misled about how sober they were.
"People relied on the defendant's products to decide whether it was safe to get behind the wheel," said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "Overstating the accuracy of the devices was deceptive – and dangerous." According to the FTC, Breathometer sold more than $5m worth of its alcohol testing devices and claimed that they were "law-enforcement grade products" that were subject to "government lab-grade testing." This wasn't the case, the FTC claims, and alleges that the company was aware that its devices routinely reported lower BAC levels than were accurate, but continued to sell them.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 28 2017, @06:26PM
The problem with ALL breathlyzers is they can't tell you when you are under the limit. They can only detect being over the limit in some percentage of the time.
So if your breathalyzer says you are over the limit, then you are definitely over the limit.
But if it says you are not over the limit, maybe that's true or maybe its just a false negative.
Car analogy:
Its like carfax - if carfax says there is an accident on the car's record, you can be pretty sure the car was in an accident. But if carfax says no accidents, all you know is that carfax has no record of an accident, not that there were no accidents.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 29 2017, @12:15AM
I thought they were easily fooled into false positives -- if you gargle with something containing ethanol (but have none in your blood stream), I believe you blow a very high (but false) "BAC". Same for skin care and other products that contain alcohols?
Ah, Google is my friend, https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/false-breathalyzer-results-from-acetone/ [alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org]
> Hypoglycemia is a significant cause of acetone in the breath. And research has found that diabetics can have levels of acetone in the breath high enough to get false readings of .06.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 29 2017, @01:18AM
Yay for corner cases.
If you are that diabetic and you've had a drink, you are fucked anyway.