CPAP machine with built-in filtration

[lindalq]

Hi everyone,

Just want to get some of your opinion on this. Our fourth year biomedical engineering design project at University of Toronto involves improving on CPAP machines and this is one of the idea we brainstormed. We would definitely love some user feedback on this.

What do you think of a CPAP machine with built-in filtration system? This way, you don't have to especially buy/prepare distilled water for it. Instead just pour tap water into it and the machine will make sure the water that goes into your hose is purified and filtered.

Please let us know some of your opinion, such as:
a) Is using distilled water inconvenient for you? If so, please describe.
b) How do you regularly obtain distilled water? And how to you obtain it when you're away from home?
c) Would you be interested in this feature?
d) How much more are you willing to pay for a machine with built-in distillation function? (this is used to rank the worthiness of this idea in comparison with our other ideas).

Oh, and from reading some comments on the forum, it seems like cleaning the reservoir is also another inconvenience. What do you think of changing the design of the reservoir so that it's easy to clean? Is the current reservoir design actually hard to clean? and how much more are you willing to pay for a machine with this feature?

Thank you!! Much appreciated!!

(Any feedback would be awesome since we've been getting mixed feedback regarding this and we would really like to key down our design. )

[Grumpy]

No need for me

I am lucky and have good quality tap water.

The Resmed water tub is pretty easy to clean; I can get away with a simple rinse most days and a full clean about once a month!

[Sleep2Snore]

As Grumpy says.
Scotland has good clean water and as long as the bottom of the water bottle comrs off it is easy to clean.
If away from home I look for bottles of Scottish Sprng water
which has very little minerals and if in doubt I just boil it and let it cool. I know some machine bottles sre not so easy to clean, but it is not that big a problem.
Better developing a machine thst can't tell you how well you are doing.
Making machines quieter and less air noise from masks would be a lot more helpful to the end user.
If you want to do something in the humidifier area, develop a humidifier thst will run on 250volts, 110v & 12 & 24 volts that will be reliable. Better still, get the machines to run on these voltages as standard. Would make traveling a whole lot easier. You could add $30 - $40 to the cost. 240 /110v ac & 12v dc as standard would be a big benifit.

[lindalq]

Hi Grumpy, Thank you for replying to our other post too!

Hi Grim,

We realized that built-in filtration is not really useful for alot of people, and we decided to target data features of the CPAP machine instead.

We are restricted to only editing Philips System One REMstar Auto, and we decided to incorporate a better LCD on it, which shows graphs of previous night's event. Therefore the user can quickly glance at their previous night's sleep the next day. Would this be what you meant? Furthermore, we decided to incorporate wireless feature to it.

What do you think? Can you also help us out by filling out our survey? https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JFSCFJ9. It helps to consolidate all the data for us.

[Alleycat]

Using distilled (rather than "bottled") water is about it being clean (no bacteria) rather than about the mineral content....so purifying would be pointless. Boiling the water does the job and I would only recommend using distilled water if you were away from home without the facilities to boil water. I also recommend using cooled boiled water rather than tap water even in the uk. There are still potentially harmful bacteria in tap water which when warmed but not boiled in a humidifier would quickly nultiply. Putting a system into the humidifier to be able to sterilise the water in the same way would vastly increase the running costs as it would need to heat the water above 70 deg C in order to clean it.