There are a lot of smartphone breathalysers out there, but they don’t tend to prioritise design aesthetic. It’s more of an ‘am I too drunk, yes or no,’ kind of thing. But the Lapka Bam Breathalyser is all about bringing form and function together.
First of all, the Lapka is designed so you don’t need mouthpieces or any external elements other than the handheld breathalyser itself. By cupping your hand around the device and blowing into it for four seconds (that’s pretty short for one of these things) you customise it as much as you need to. And the design is a super minimalist black ceramic cylinder. Nothing flashy or even noticeable. The best sobriety checks, after all, are the discreet ones! The app, iOS and Android, has some nice design features including a UI that simplifies and clarifies itself as it detects your BAC climbing.
The Lapka is $US200, which is a little steep but not out of control for one of these devices. One weird thing is that at the end of the (dramatic and overly intense) video promo, the narrator says “There isn’t more. There isn’t less. There is no device.” Which is odd because there pretty clearly is a device right there aka the device they are selling. But perhaps the design group was trying to keep their thinking so minimal that they forgot they even made a thing. It happens. [Uncrate]