Catch a Smoker Lghting Up (Detector)

Found this product in an ad on a news site.

It can be installed in public/school bathrooms (or anywhere really) and will send out an alarm as soon as somebody lights a match in the vicinity of one of these detectors.

Catch a Smoker Lighting Up

Our system is very different using UV (Ultraviolet) flame detectors (not smoke detectors) our systems "sees" the initiation of a flame started by a cigarette lighter or match and sounds the alarm either overtly or covertly. The covert systems alert the "enforcer", perhaps a vice principal or personnel manager that a smoker has lighted up in a particular bathroom

On the "How It Works" section it has a video of how it works and how it can alert somebody if a person is smoking in a bathroom.

No more "smoking in the boys room".

On the "Typical School" section it claims to cost about $3,800 for a 6 bathroom set up. Not that much of a cost to try to keep young people from smoking and starting a bad habit.

In my opinion, that's a pretty large price tag.. especially if you are trying to sell to public schools.. I mean, they barely have enough $$ for teachers, buses, computers & textbooks... how many schools can really afford a 'luxury' item like a match detector?

If it costs $3,800 for 6 bathrooms... most schools I know of have more than 6 bathrooms.. Take that money and buy some extra computers so the kids can go online and find out how bad smoking is. Take that money and get enough textbooks to go around.

Also, they did a cost analysis on their website.. OK, except they seem to claim that it takes 5 minutes to check a bathroom... I would guess it takes about 5 seconds to check the bathroom to see if anyone is smoking.

www.catchasmoker.com...
Let's assume that a Teacher/Staffer earns $40,000.00/Year
Working 185 days/year
That's about 45 cents a minute


If s/he checks 10 bathrooms per school building
averaging 5 minutes per bathroom
and 5 bathroom sweeps/day then
s/he's consumed 250 minutes
or about $115.00/day

If we further assume that an average complete STEALTH System costs $3000.00
$3000.00/$115.00 is 26 days or less than 6 weeks!

Finally, if the smokers found out about it, and really wanted to, couldn't they get around the system by better concealing their match or lighter? Flick the lighter right before you enter the bathroom then toke up.

edited for spelling

[edit on 9-10-2006 by please_takemyrights]

Wow, what will they do next? Make something to detect a kid sneaking cookies? Obesity is just as bad as smoking, if not worse, but it's acceptable and seen as a disability.