Patent ID: 8671943

Claim:
A breathing apparatus comprising: (a) a face piece for covering a user's whole face or part of the face; (b) an inhale valve and an exhale valve provided on the face piece; (c) a motor fan supplying external air into the face piece through the inhale valve; (d) a filter disposed to clean the external air sucked into the motor fan; (e) a breath monitoring apparatus provided on the face piece and not comprising the inhale valve or the exhale valve, wherein the breath monitoring apparatus comprises i. a diaphragm covering an opening formed in the face piece, wherein the diaphragm is a membrane body comprising a circular disk portion and an annular portion constituted by a fold of a periphery of the circular disk portion that extends radially inward under the circular disk portion, and an inner periphery of the annular portion is fixed to an outside surface of a first portion of an annular drum connected to a periphery of the opening formed in the face piece, and the annular drum projects out of the face piece; ii. a magnet provided on the diaphragm; and iii. a Hall element disposed opposite the magnet and provided on the face piece; and (f) a controller connected to control operation of the motor fan synchronously with the user's breath based on a detection signal sent from the breath monitoring apparatus, wherein the controller starts the motor fan based on the detection signal sent from the breath monitoring apparatus when the breath monitoring apparatus detects the user's breath, and thereafter the controller controls the operation of the motor fan synchronously with the user's breath based on the detection signal sent from the breath monitoring apparatus, and the controller stops the motor fan when the breath monitoring apparatus does not detect the user's breath for a predetermined time.