ZukZythepsor Portable Breathalyzer

This breathalyzer gives me peace of mind if I need to drive somewhere after having a few drinks. It is also interesting to play with it to see how different drinks affect the reading (red wine versus white wine, beer versus hard cider). I am just using it myself now, but I can see this being handy if someone I am with seems a little unsteady after drinking to make sure that is safe for them to drive. This is small so it fits easily in the glove compartment or purse. I have no way to verify the accuracy, but the measurements are repeatable. The meter is easy to read, and provides precise measurements with several different unit options as well as a simple green/yellow/red light indicator to give a fast indication of whether you are too drunk to drive. The price on this is very good relative to similar looking ones. You must provide the 3 AAA batteries, and unfortunately my meter seems to run them down quickly so I make sure I have extra batteries as well.

This is a neat little breathalyzer. It runs on 3xAAA batteries and has good, intuitive controls; single button press to turn on, an audio and visual prompt to blow into it once it has warmed up, and a double-press to change measurement units. It’s noted that after taking it out of the packaging, or after long periods of not using it, you may have to run the preheat cycle a few times to clear buildup off of the sensor. It did seem relatively accurate to what I felt it should be based on the exact amount of alcohol I’d had over a known number of hours. Comes with multiple tips should you and your friends want to try it out!

My husband and I both enjoy having a drink or two in the evening (I usually have one, he is usually on his third by the time I get home from work). We have purchased a few breathalyzers just for fun because they are usually cheap but worked ok. This one is priced higher than any of the others I have ordered and didn’t measure accurately at all. I was going to take it over to a LE friend and have him compare with the professional ones, but I didn’t need to. After three drinks, it gave a zero rating for my husband. While I had literally taken two sips of my first drink and I was registering at a .187. There is no way either of those results were correct. We turned it off and turned it back on and tried again, completely different results but still obviously wrong. Now the thing won’t turn on at all. Its almost like this thing was just randomly selecting numbers to display. At this price, save your money because apparently it is hit or miss whether it is going to work at all and even then, won’t give you remotely close numbers.

Also, NEVER drink and drive.

While this does reliably pick up on the presence of alcohol and leans in a direction of the level of intoxication, the actual readings are all over the place for me.

I noticed the most consistent results were when blowing into it at a very normal exhale rate and nothing like what you see in TV shows where tests are given by officers.

I got this to be a second line of awareness for some nights out. I would not rely on this in a situation where I felt I was intoxicated but tried this device once or twice and it said I was within 20% of the legal BAC level, as the accuracy just is not consistent to convince me.

The manual is quite detailed but does not provide more specific instructions on the rate you’re supposed to blow into the device. When blowing hard, I’d regularly get readings that were 95% less than what I was confident I was actually at, drastically reducing my confidence in the device.