The thought of getting caught in a building fire is terrifying. Flames raging, smoke obscuring your vision and making it difficult to breathe, infrastructure crumbling, and you're trying desperately to remain calm and get out. The 5aver won't douse the flames, but the grab-and-go combination of lantern, alarm and mask is designed to help you find your way to safety in a hurry.
The 5aver is designed to be mounted on the wall and used during fire evacuations. When it's pulled off the wall, the lantern portion automatically turns on to increase visibility and the alarm activates to alert others to your location. The mask unscrews from the lantern and attaches around the nose and mouth and uses a combination of pre-filter, hopcalite filter and HEPA filter to protect from smoke, dust, carbon monoxide and other airborne particles.
Besides playing on the word "saver," according to its Korean manufacturer, GemVax & Kael Co., the "5" in its name refers to the fact that it becomes difficult for firefighters to get inside the building five minutes after a fire starts and the survival rate for those still inside drops by five to seven percent each minute after those first five. Anyone in the building obviously wants to get out before that, and the 5aver is designed to help get you do just that.
The 5aver won a "Best of the Best" Red Dot product design award earlier this year with the jury recognizing it for its highly visible, appealing and design as well as its multifunctional capabilities.
"The design vocabulary of the 5aver visualizes its purpose – in case of an emergency, everyone will know where to find it," the jury said in a statement. "It is intuitive to use and ready in a few seconds. The coloring of the 5aver is highly distinctive; the system is space-saving and compact."
The 5aver appears to be a great safety precaution for homes, offices and any buildings where the danger of getting trapped in a fire exists. It's packaged in several wall-mountable options, including two- and four-person versions.
