I shaved my beard at the beginning of the pandemic so I could wear a properly fitting particulate respirator. If something like this had been available, I might have been able to avoid that. PAPRs were about $1000 at the time and I figured I should leave those for medical professionals and industrial users who had more of a need.

Why the mocking for people who want to protect themselves?

I still can't fathom why people would risk a deadly respiratory illness to save... a beard. I broke out laughing when I was reading a 3m respirator review on Amazon from someone with a beard that was verbatim "works great with thick beard, just have to spread half a tub of vaseline on my face to achieve near air-tight seal".

The people making these products are grifters, and bad grifters at that being this late in the game.

Forget about the mocking of people that want to protect themselves, why on earth would people mock someone that wants to protect others?

Normal masks don't protect the wearer much at all according to tests done in Denmark on 3000 people. However it might lower the spreading if done right. But that was harder to test with a control group offcourse.

If I couldn't work from home, I would seriously consider buying one. My province has a mandatory mask order, but when I take public transit, there is always at least one person not wearing any mask and 5 people with masks below their nose. Fortunately I don't have to take transit often because I work from home.

199$ is way cheaper than the cost of a car and would allow me to take transit with greater piece of mind. But then again, it is cold here, and I am not sure whether and how well this product avoids fogging. So maybe not.

Finance bros and tech bros have money to waste.

I suspect mask fatigue is going to have most people going maskless by summer.

I'd wear it, particularly when I have to start commuting by bus again. It looks a lot more comfortable than a mask and (supposedly) gives better filtration.

SF tech bros.