I like that Plus15 smoke hood, thseng. It's great to finally see another option that is similar in price point to the Safescape.

But my goodness! I downloaded the 8 page PDF file on instructions, and it seemed like 90% of those 8 pages were warnings about what NOT to do. Anyway, that's irrelevant to the question at hand.

One weakness compared to the Safescape, I think, is that the hood is less heat/flame resistant, at least based on these warnings. There are repeated warnings for the Plus15 about not letting embers get on the hood, but I believe that the hood on the Safescape is more heat resistant. I'd hate to have my smoke hood fill up with eye-tearing smoke because an ember melted a quarter or half dollar-sized hole in the plastic as I was trying to escape. I'm hoping that the hood is actually more heat resistant material, similar to Kapton, and that it is just a warning.

The Plus15 also "only" protects for 15 minutes but the Safescapes can go up to 60 minutes. Of course, most fires don't require 60 minutes to escape but it's nice to have that buffer. Events like 9/11 or the tunnel fire deep under Mont Blanc or some of those Las Vegas hotel fires remind me that some situations may require a bit more time to get away, especially if you are forced to hunker down and wait for rescue rather than escaping yourself.

One big plus of the Plus15 in my mind is that the entire unit is sealed in a vacuum pouch. Granted, you can't practice donning it, but one thing that always bothered me about the Safescape is that you have to remember to remove a couple little tabs that seal the canister before donning it. In a stressful enviroment, it seems very easy to forget that step. So you don it and then realize at some point that air is not flowing, but maybe you're already in a Very Bad Place to be trying to remove and fiddle with it. If you seal the whole unit in a vacuum pouch, then you can't have that same kind of error.