Hacker News Reader

Comment by foobarian | Hacker News Reader

My biggest problem with masks is my glasses fogging up. I am at the end of my rope - I am looking into adding powered heating elements around the rims. There has to be some other way.

View on HN

I used to have the same problem. My solution is that a use a foam tape and put that in the inside of the mask on the area around my nose. The uper area of the mask is air tight and therefore no fogged glases. It looks like that but slimmer: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000CBIFD

Product idea alert

Prior art: tape

I hear your pain. And if use something with a stronger nose bridge like a KN95 or N95, it pushes your glasses out a small amount that make me slightly dizzy.

I had this problem pre-pandemic when I wanted to avoid glare but also not freeze my face off while walking to work. The solution was ski goggles-they isolate the lense from your breath.

If your glasses are fogging up, the mask is leaking around your nose or cheeks.

That is only a concern for medical grade masks. Most masks that people wear are to slow down the air, not filter the air.

It is also a concern for people whose glasses fog up.

This is not technically true (but often true).

Water vapor is a gas and is much smaller than the "leaks" of particles. A perfectly sealed filter (like an elastomeric mask with high fit factor) will still release a ton of H20.

EVIDENCE: The exhaust from PAPRS and viralhelmets.com has a ton of moisture.

With my cloth mask, I pull it up under my glasses, and let me glasses hold the seal. Just make sure your mask is big enough to still cover your face after you pull it up this high.

There are anti-fogging sprays available - a spray is good for a few days. (Of course this is a worse solution than making that seal air-tight)

Where does the water vapor go? It condenses into droplets then skates back and forth along the bottom centimeter of plexiglass? That would be disgusting to look at. Or maybe it absorbs into the cloth hood/neck piece? That way when the user pulls it up off their head they get to squeegee their face with their own cold saliva. Sounds awesome!

It just forms a thin film instead of forming larger droplets. It’s no less or more disgusting than having fog in the first place.

Try using a plaster (to-american: band-aid) to ensure your nose bridge is clamped properly to your nose. Works quite well.

Perhaps the glass of the helmet could be formed like a lens, so you do not need glasses underneath?

Where on a lenses your eyes focus through matters (That why you need IPD to make glasses) Corrective lenses would be difficult to integrate so far from the eyes.

What about the solution that divers use to keep their diving mask from fogging up?

Most defog is just a soap film, and many divers including myself just use baby shampoo diluted in water. Store-bought defog is expensive and doesn't really work any better.

However, when diving you leave your defog wet (hence the baby shampoo so your eyes don't get irritated) after a quick dunk in water to rise off the excess. A coating that dries will be very different, although I am sure they sell it somewhere!

I've heard of people using Rain-X on their masks, but never tried that before. Maybe it'll work on glasses too!

not sure how well they work but I've seen that rubbing them with dryer sheets have been posed as a solution for fogging.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com