Product Review: AlcoSense Excel
Whether you’ve been celebrating a birthday, anniversary or you’ve watched the semi-final of the World Cup 2018, you might be feeling the effects this morning. But how much of last’s night’s booze is still in your system? How It Works tested out the AlcoSense Excel breathalyser in preparation for potentially the biggest night of the year on Sunday’s World Cup final. It has to firstly be said that a breathalyser should not be used as a way to push the limits of alcohol consumption before getting behind the wheel of a car. SO DON’T EVER DRINK AND DRIVE!
That being said, what a breathalyser can do, is give you peace of mind the morning after, something AlcoSense excels at. In order to test out the correctly a few gin and tonics had to be sacrificed for science, especially during the rarity of a UK summer lasting more than two days. Waiting the recommended 1-2 hours after finishing my last drink, I followed the straightforward three steps on its screen and blew into one of the disposable blow tubes. A particularly nice feature of the Excel is the backlit blow tube receptor, should you not want open the curtains in the morning.
The Excel senses the volume of breath exhaled during the test, once a single litre has passed. Equipped with the 64mm² version of the 200mm² Fuel Cell sensor used in several UK, US & European Police Breathalysers, the Excel has incredible accuracy. Sure enough, after blowing into the Excel, this alcohol lie detector found out about the previous gin and tonics and displayed an amber warning screen on its 48mm full-colour screen. When giving your readings, the Excel separates them into three traffic light warning, green for zero/trace, amber for alcohol presence but under the limit and finally red for over the driving limit. The units of measure between mg/L (breath alcohol) and ‰BAC (blood alcohol) readings can be adjusted to the drink drive limits across the globe. If you are travelling, the accompanying handle manual can inform you about limits in different countries.
Overall the Excel is incredibly simple to use, lightweight and can offer a sense of reassurance when you wake up. Although the AlcoSense Excel retails for £99.99, the sound of mind this product can provide is priceless.
For AlcoSense’s full range of breathalysers head to alcosense.co.uk.
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