Breathalyzer sensors are sensitive, the dictionary defines sensitive as "readily or excessively affected by external agencies or influences." This means that to extend the life of your breathalyzer's sensor you need to be careful what external influences you allow to act on it.

Failure to wait 20 minutes after smoking, eating or drinking will provide you with inaccurate results and can damage your breathalyzer's sensor, requiring service by a qualified technician.

Remember, it takes about 20 minutes for the alcohol in your mouth to be absorbed into your blood stream, and breathalyzers are calibrated to read a deep lung breath sample. If you blow into it shortly after taking a drink, the breathalyzer will get a direct blast of alcohol from your mouth and the BAC reading will be inaccurately high. If the amount of alcohol in your mouth is high enough it can also damage your breathalyzer's sensor, requiring service by a qualified technician.

From a previous blog post, we learned that smoking can delay alcohol absorption, causing inaccurate BAC readings, and smoke particles blown into the breathalyzer can damage sensor also.

In addition, if food particles find their way into your breathalyzer it could also cause damage to the sensor or at least block your breath from reaching the sensor, causing an inaccurate reading.

So next time you think about blowing into your breathalyzer right after drinking, smoking or eating remember that not waiting 20 minutes will give you an inaccurate BAC reading and you could damage the breathalyzer sensor for any future testing until it is serviced or replaced.

Smoking and Drinking

In every AlcoHAWK manual we state that you should wait 20 minutes after smoking, eating or drinking before testing.

We also have a list of precautions in each manual, one of these precautions reads "Do not blow smoke, food or liquid into the unit."  Why do we make such a big deal out of smoking before using your breathalyzer?  Because we want you to get the longest life possible out of your breathalyzer.  Failure to follow the instructions and precautions given in the manual can harm the sensor of your personal breathalyzer.

But, besides causing harm to the sensor itself (and your body) smoking can also affect your breathalyzer results because smoking causes a delay in alcohol absorption in your body.  So if you're drinking and smoking and are using a breathalyzer to monitor your BAC you could end up drinking more than you wanted to. Not good.

So please, in the future if you smoke, wait 20 minutes before using your breathalyzer.

You want a more technical explination? You can find an article¹ about the study in the highly respected British Medical Journal.

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¹ British Medical Journal; Cigarette smoking and rate of gastric emptying: effect on alcohol absorption

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Recently a few people have asked us how to clean their AlcoHAWK breathalyzer.  Here is what we recommend:

Use of a mild disinfectant cleaner and a soft cloth on the outside of the case is recommended periodically to keep your unit clean. Do not use alcohol to clean the unit.

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You may ask "Why can't I use rubbing alcohol to clean the unit?" The answer: Because your breathalyzer is used to detect alcohol and if any traces of rubbing alcohol are still on the unit you may have skewed results when you perform a test.