Checked out the latest styles in portable air monitors lately? High tech features make the ones you used ten years ago (or even the sturdy old stuff your die-hard peers still use) look like instruments used in Fred Flintstone's quarry.

Instruments today can calibrate themselves, calculate time-weighted averages and short-term exposure limits, and operate with the touch of only two or three buttons, one of which is the on/off switch. Powerful microprocessors allow monitors to be so miniature you can clip one onto a belt loop. Their sensors are more reliable and need to be replaced less frequently. Some even detect motion and alert command control by telemetry if a man goes down in the field. Monitors can double check you on the gas you're measuring, or log data all day long in the field and feed the saved information into a computer back at the shop.