PC Maker Maingear Is Building Ventilators To Help Fight Coronavirus

Maingear is a gaming PC manufacturer that many are familiar with. The company has retooled some of its manufacturing facilities to help fight coronavirus/COVID-19. The company is making emergency ventilators to help those with respiratory distress to be able to breathe. Ventilators are one of the most commonly requested items from hospitals all around the country right now.

Maingear calls the ventilator it created the LIV, and if it looks like a gaming PC to you, that would be because the ventilator components are housed inside of a gaming PC chassis. The device is designed with a touchscreen interface that appears to operate on a separate tablet.

It’s able to power on and be ready to help patients breathe within 1.5 seconds. It has all the adjustments that medical professionals need to set up the letter for optimum care for a specific patient, including adjustable pressures and respiratory rates. Maingear says that the ventilator can be manufactured at scale for a quarter of the price of traditional ventilators reports Kotaku.

A caveat with this machine is that it is still pending FDA approval, which can take a very long time under normal circumstances. That long approval time is why most companies producing ventilators for the coronavirus battle are teaming with a company that has a ventilator with existing FDA approval. It’s unclear if the FDA is fast-tracking ventilators during the coronavirus outbreak. Maingear says it’s in talks with state and local officials to supply the ventilator to medical facilities around the country.