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Comment by SeanAnderson | Hacker News Reader

Is 40 seconds... challenging for people? Sorry, I don't know, maybe this comes off as entitled.

I'm 33, a SWE that sits at a computer 8hrs/day for work and then another 4hrs/day for play. I absolutely could not run five miles, but I do go for walks. I've smoked weed on and off for over a decade.

This website was absolutely trivial for me to accomplish with zero prep. I wasn't even concerned about my ability when I started - I knew the answer to be "yes." implicitly.

Surely 40s is not an indicator of strong, healthy lungs for all ages?

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The purpose of 40 seconds is for most people to feel accomplished so they are incentivised to sign up. This is a landing page for an upcoming app.

Thank you for checking it out. You are right, we are working on something to make us healthy in the most easy way.

I just wish you’d made the challenge more difficult. I signed up and look forward to hearing from you. Getting notifications that are purely life-improving have a lot of potential. Too much advertising gets mixed in.

"Only geniuses can solve ..." wow I'm a genius. Always knew it.

When you do physical training, such as lung capacity training, you do not start at maximum. You go up.

If you scroll down the page you can see that they are trying to start an app with 5-minute health activities.

If their intent is to work me up to five minutes - great. As written, the app congratulates me after 40s and says, "Congratulations. You have good lung capacity." If I were only able to hold my breath for 40s I would be deeply concerned and not congratulating myself.

My take on their message, "Hey, we're making an app that helps boost your health with quick 5-minute activities." is that I'd receive something like a meditation + breathwork + gratitude journaling app which, in sum, accounts for five minutes of activity, not that their intent was to increase my lung capacity to five minutes.

The average person can hold their breath for 30–90 seconds. This time can increase or decrease due to various factors, such as smoking, underlying medical conditions, or breath training. So that's why we took a 40 seconds test (as an average) and congratulate you.

Same here. Non-smoker, but I'm in my mid-50s and [I like to think] fairly healthy. I too found that trivial, with no prep. It might be a bit more interesting if it carried on timing after the 40 seconds were up and you hit another button, when you finally had to breathe... or there was some kind of "grading" or league table. As it stands, it superficially appeals to our competitive streak. But is so easy, it's a bit of a disappointment.

Thanks for checking out. We took 40 seconds because, the average person can hold their breath for 30–90 seconds. This time can increase or decrease due to various factors, such as smoking, underlying medical conditions, or breath training. So by taking 40 seconds, its something most people can do(if they have not much issues with health)

Reading these comments has me a bit concerned... since I (a 37 year old relatively healthy person) could barely do the 40 seconds. I did it but it was rough at the end.

Thank you for checking out our simple web page. We took '40 seconds test' after testing it with few people of different ages. Initially thought of doing 60 seconds, but it was hard for older people and for those with a sedentary lifestyle. So chose 40 seconds, which shows a good lung capacity than most people. Still it's hard for some people to meet that time, as you can see from some of the comments here.

> I've smoked weed on and off for over a decade

No one cares.

?? Surely my smoking habits are relevant to an app focused on lung health and lung capacity.

You don't think smoking impacts lung capacity?

Frequency is the determinant variable, on and off over a decade is too open ended to be relevant.

I agree I could've been more clear.

Less than an ounce of weed per month for five years. Then an ounce of weed per month, every month, for another 5 years. Two six month breaks. One three month break. Coughing up black stuff from my lungs wasn't unheard of.

I had genuine concern about the damage I was doing to my lungs and brain, so I started trying to quit more seriously about two years ago. Two of the six month breaks occurred in the last two years.

I've smoked maybe a gram in the past month.

I strongly feel that I should not be a shining bastion of good lung capacity.

>Coughing up black stuff from my lungs

At least switch to a vaporiser if you dont quit completely.

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