The 6 Best Portable Oxygens
Special Honors
GCE Zen-O-Lite With an intuitive button layout and helpful LCD screen, this option is exceptionally easy to use. It activates both visible and audible alarms if the battery gets low, and even if the device detects that you've stopped breathing. That can make a big difference for caregivers in situations where time is of the essence. gcegroup.com
Sequal Eclipse 5 This device comes with a pair of power supplies, one of which is meant for use at home, while the other is designed to plug into the power port in your car. That gives you the option of taking long road trips without worrying about your access to O2. It's even been cleared by the FAA for use on airplanes. sleeprestfully.com
Inogen G5 This extremely capable option can provide users with 24/7 O2, and can be taken out on the road, as well. Its batteries are replaceable, so you can have as many as you can carry with you to ensure a consistent flow at any one of the unit's six concentration levels. The company offers a lifetime warranty, so you can use it without worry. inogen.com
Editor's Notes
August 20, 2019:
The sad reality of this category is that a significant number of the portable O2 bars on the market simply aren't very good. There are a lot of poorly made Chinese factory knockoffs, and the technology for creating a reliable flow of pure oxygen from H2O is a heck of a lot more expensive than most people can afford, resulting in a lot of glorified humidifiers that claim to increase your O2 saturation. It was also vitally important to us that these offerings we actually portable. Plenty of models are happy to claim portability, but still need to be plugged in to work. As a result, only two of our last list's models remain this time around.
That said, there are some models that perform much more admirably than others, even if there's a ceiling on their capabilities. There are also some products — like the athlete-oriented quick burst O2 bottles are numbers two and six — that offer a nice hit of real oxygen for help recovering on the sidelines or after a big workout. These won't be particularly useful from a medical standpoint, but they are a nice product for a certain demographic. At number three, you'll find a product from Lif-O-Gen, which is a nice little O2 delivery system that relies on real tanks of pure oxygen, but it's a limited emergency supply meant to be taken along or kept in places where up to 20 or 30 minutes of O2 might save someones life, or keep them going until they can reach a hospital.