[HN Gopher] Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier ___________________________________________________________________ Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier Author : Ariarule Score : 809 points Date : 2022-06-20 16:27 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (dynomight.net) (TXT) w3m dump (dynomight.net) | CodeWriter23 wrote: | Not surprising given Wirecutter was acquired by NYT a few years | back and mainstream media's obsession with not-quite-robust "fact | checking" | bombcar wrote: | Whoops this wasn't meant to be a top level post. Erp. | | Moved it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31813424 | sorry for those responding | abracadaniel wrote: | Project Farm is another great one for tools or anything you | might find in a garage. - https://www.youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm | He buys everything himself, and does good comparisons and | testing, often to failure. | bombcar wrote: | "Review to failure" is a good benchmark to see if they are | actually really reviewing the tool, even if the failure is | obscenely beyond any normal use of the product. | | _Especially_ if they then can breakdown _why_ it failed (and | if they 'd improve anything). | dusted wrote: | excellent write.. I bought multiple of these airfilters after | reading that review, because, honestly, I didn't believe it | anyway, and my particle sensors clearly show when the filter is | running. | | Unfortunately, the build quality is not exceptional, so there is | a bit of noise from the unit, even at the low settings, but | placed far enough from the bed, it's hard to notice. The particle | count is higher during the night, but not as high as with the | filter completely turned off. I can even see when my sleep is | interrupted, and when I go to bed and wake up from the particle | count graph. | | I must admit that I capture the data with the ikea "VINDRIKTNING" | sensor, it has a TX pin exposed and that is easily hooked to RX | on an ESP8265, which simply runs a TCP socket server that streams | the reading via wifi. | vanous wrote: | Awesome, thanks for the tip! | jve wrote: | Great article. I myself have IKEA air purifier. | | Has anyone used https://www.mi.com/global/mi-air-purifier-3c ? | Can it achieve lower noise per CADR? IKEA one on full speed is | pretty loud (I may not know what loud air purifiers are, but I | get concert of sounds at home I want to minimize - refrigerator, | freezer, dishwasher, electric water boiler, air purifier) | | Does it work via LAN with Home-Assistant? Are they "smart" | filters you are forced to change or "dumb" ones? | brnt wrote: | I have two Fornuftigs for bedroom and office, and a Winix Zero | in the living room. The Winix definitely beats Ikea in terms of | noise production on max airflow, it positively sounds like a | jet is taking off. It moves quite a bit more air of course. I | was rather surprised that the Fornuftig is nearly perfectly | quiet at the lowest setting, which is really great for a | bedroom and offce, although I don't know how much or little it | stil does at that setting. | fmajid wrote: | Also worth reading, in the same vein: | | https://danluu.com/nothing-works/ | Tade0 wrote: | > That's lower, but do we care? The first level is already | comparable to the least polluted cities on the planet. And most | people reading this probably have less drafty windows or cleaner | outside air. | | I wish. I live in an area that routinely goes to 100ug/m3+ during | the winter. | | I picked a local brand because it had all the features I wanted: | a numerical indicator, ioniser and the filter was aligned | vertically, so the device doesn't occupy too much space. | | It has a CADR of 300m2/h or ~ 185sq ft/min. That's enough to | survive the worst smog events. | | I could buy three of those IKEA ones for the price though, which | is actually the recommended approach, because air purifiers | generally work very locally. | cosmodisk wrote: | I've done so much research about air purifiers that I think I | could do a thesis if I were in academia. The vast majority of | these devices fall under one category: rubbish. Lots of gimmicks | performed when it comes to efficacy. Bending reality with | borderline claims or inventing useless terms that mean nothing. | If you are serious about indoor air quality, start with IQAir. | Their products are bulky, contain multiple filters and you know | that you'll be able to get replacement filters 5 years later. | Blueair has some reasonable products too (ignore the smaller, | cheap product lines). | jefftk wrote: | Most air purifiers are a high-quality filter and a fan to move | air through it. That's a solid approach, and they perform close | to how you'd expect given their flow rate and filter rating. | | Why are IQAir products especially good? | bryanlarsen wrote: | Their humidifier recommendations have similar problems. If you | want a humidifier, I recommend checking out Technology | Connections on YouTube. | | For anything else, Consumer Reports. They don't accept | advertising or commissions. | rhexs wrote: | The air purifier review market is about as useful as searching | for a credible mattress review. | | Snake oil everywhere. | ilamont wrote: | _they refer to the IKEA purifier as using a "PM2.5 filter"_ | | Take a European brand. Add some mysterious spec numbers to the | name, and turn a milquetoast product into something cool or | respectable. | | My favorite: the "Merkur XR4Ti" which was basically a Ford Sierra | hatchback (family car) with a vaguely sporty look and slightly | higher performance engine. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkur_XR4Ti | highwaylights wrote: | I have three of the Fornuftig and am very pleased with them, save | for the noise being quite bothersome at the highest setting. | | They've helped quite a bit with a pollen allergy. | | Getting good information has been a nightmare and it's nice to | see a post calling out the utter nonsense that gets spread about | HEPA and filtration, with no thoughts to diffusion. | | The big problem I have now is that I would like to upgrade to the | Starkvind smart purifiers as they'd be ideal, save for again not | being able to get any decent information on filtration and flow | rate. | | If the author ever reads this, I'd absolutely love a deep dive | like this one on the Starkvind! | sampo wrote: | Ikea Starkvind flow rates: | | From https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-air-purifier- | white-00... "Product details" and then "Other documents" gives | you | | https://www.ikea.com/us/en/manuals/starkvind-air-purifier-wh... | | and there the table on page 7 gives you the flow rates. | | The filter is EPA12. | | "The particle filter is tested according to EN 1822-1 and ISO | 29463-3 which corresponds to class EPA12." | | https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-2-piece-filter-set-s9... | Mister_Snuggles wrote: | I'm not qualified at all to do a deep dive, but I've got a | FORNUFTIG and a STARKVIND and can give you some thoughts. | | The STARKVIND is a LOT bigger than the FORNUFTIG. Assuming | you're getting the standalone model, it's probably the depth of | two or three FORNUFTIGs. This really surprised me. The table | version is very interesting because it eliminates that problem | by being a functional piece of furniture. | | The STARKVIND filters are different than the FORNUFTIG, so no | filter sharing. Conceptually they're the same - a paper | particle filter plus an optional carbon filter. At its highest | setting it's louder than the FORNUFTIG's highest setting, but | at its lowest it's virtually inaudible. If you leave it in Auto | mode you'll hear it ramp up when it detects particulates in the | air and ramp down when the air quality returns to normal. | | The main reason I bought the STARKVIND was the Zigbee | interface. The IKEA Home Smart app is functional, but after the | initial setup I only use Home Assistant to control it. In Home | Assistant there are sensors for particulates and filter life, | and controls for fan speed and mode (auto/manual). I'm using | the IKEA gateway for my STARKVIND since deCONZ support wasn't | completely ready at the time. Overall, it lives up to | expectations as far as control goes. | highwaylights wrote: | This is my use case more or less. Basically I want to be able | to leave the house and say "hey google, clean this mess" and | it'll start my strategically placed robot vacuums and run the | filters on max while that's happening to minimise particulate | spread. | | Mostly though, I just want some extra power for larger rooms. | wpietri wrote: | Who is Dynomight? | | For me this piece leans pretty heavily on authorial confidence. | But I couldn't find any indication of who the author is, or what | his expertise is. I get why he's casting aspersions on their | revenue model and how it might affect what they write. But then | he doesn't disclose what his revenue model and personal interests | might be. | screye wrote: | As a reader, if I had to generalize; Dynomight is a SF- | rationalist-substack-adjacent blogger with a good understanding | of statistics. The 2 closest popular bloggers I associate him | with are SSC and Gwern; both pretty popular on HN. | | I particularly loved his blogs on the homelessness[1] and | drug[2] crisis in the US. He? digs deep, does the statistical | due diligence and usually finds conclusions that richer- | academics-media houses have yet to find. I have found his | arguments to be in good faith and are generally unencumbered by | the political repercussions of said findings. | | [1] https://dynomight.net/homeless-crisis/ | | [2] https://dynomight.net/p2p-meth/ | | my 2 cents. Don't actually know him or anything. | elxr wrote: | Great pitch, might add a few of his articles to my list. | | I'm a fan of Gwern too, but who is SSC? Haven't heard of this | one. | screye wrote: | Scott Alexander of Slate-star-codex fame. Now at | astralcodexten.substack.com | | It is funny you that you have never heard of SSC. Most | people I know have found Gwern through SSC. | ck2 wrote: | Particle sizes visualized, note PM2.5 vs PM10 | | https://i.imgur.com/dU990L8.jpg | nerdjon wrote: | I use the IKEA air purifier and love them, but I had a specific | use case in mind. | | My cat boxes are in an enclosed big box with a single entrance, I | wanted to put the filter in front of the opening (kinda creating | a walkway) to help eliminate smell and dust. It does these tasks | wonderfully. | | I don't think I could see myself using them for filtering an | entire room, but they do a good job for what they are. | amelius wrote: | > The EU HEPA filter spec--yours to download today for a bargain | $1148.24-- | | How can this be true? Weren't these standards produced with tax | money? | Sebguer wrote: | Sort of. I'm not super familiar with the EN, but ISO is a non- | governmental organization, and is funded by 'subscriptions' | from every participating nation (which are apparently based on | GDP?) | | They are also funded by selling access to their full standards | reports. You can see a preview for the one in question here: | https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:29463:-1:ed-2:v1:en | | It's only 88 CHF (~90 USD, I think?) | | I'm a lot less familiar with the European Standards, and the | ISO above is apparently derived directly from the $1148 doc | mentioned in the article (https://www.emw.de/en/filter- | campus/iso29463.html) | TootsMagoon wrote: | TLDR - Where is Wirecutter's test data? | irishloop wrote: | I see a lot of discussion here about Wirecutter and/or Consumer | Reports being untrustworthy. But I am not sure "reviews" are a | solvable problem, really. | | The human element of perception is inherent to reviewing | products. I might think something is genuinely better than you | because it meets my needs better. Or because you got a bad part | in yours through sheer bad luck. Or I had a migraine that day. | | I usually just try to google whatever product I am trying to | understand and read a few articles and try to at least hone in on | what might be the most authentic or at least reviews that are | well-written and seem to care about the product. | | But there's no perfect system. I went through this whole process | trying to figure out the best mattress and at some point you just | gotta give up and say hey they're all basically glorified piles | of hay let's just do this. | armchairhacker wrote: | That's why you look at reviewers who have similar other | opinions to yours, and look at pros / cons instead of the | overall rating | pigbearpig wrote: | People should use Wirecutter and CR to find a list of products | that they'll probably be happy with. The expectation that they | can identify the absolute best product for everyone is | impossible and this article/discussion is probably a bit | unfair. | | If I'm an expert in a product area, then I'll find a more | specific review site or do the analysis myself, but if I'm not, | then Wirecutter and CR do a pretty good job of helping me avoid | duds. | Androider wrote: | There might be better air purifiers, but the recommended Coway | purifier is really good. I've had one for 5 years, still working | as well as the day I bought it. I also have a 3x more expensive | high-end Alen unit, but it's not nearly as effective or quiet as | the simple Coway. The filters are way more expensive too. | pnathan wrote: | Same. The Coway is very quiet, and it works rather well, as | measured by the Dylos particle counter elsewhere in the room. | inferiorhuman wrote: | I bought two Coway units based off the Wirecutter reviews. | Both had noisy, off balance fans (gee I wonder why there are | reports of the fan blades blowing up). The newer one had a | HEPA filter that reeked of VOCs and went back to the retailer | because Coway refused to honor their warranty. The air | purifier "review" was _the_ thing that really soured me on | Wirecutter as a source of trustworthy reviews. | | Oh yeah Coway deserves a shout out for trying to sneak some | binding arbitration agreement in at the end of their warranty | drivel. | SrslyJosh wrote: | I have four of them to cover both floors of a two-story | house. They work well (so long as you remember to clean the | prefilter every month or two!) and are very quiet on the | lower fan speeds. | | The only thing I'd ding them for is not having a fan speed | setting in between "nearly silent" and "jet engine", but you | should only need the highest setting in unusual | circumstances. | vorpalhex wrote: | This is good work. | UIUC_06 wrote: | For kitchen devices, ATK or SeriousEats. | | Anything else: if you don't have a site you trust, then the only | recourse is to look at LOTS of sites and read between the lines. | By "sites" I also include "user forums." | | This also applies to movie reviews, btw. Rotten Tomatoes is | trash. You can't average Trash opinions and end up with anything | other than Trash. What you want to learn is "what is this movie | like, and will I enjoy it?" So you should find some critics whom | _you_ think are intelligent, and just read them. | spiderice wrote: | > You can't average Trash opinions and end up with anything | other than Trash | | But Rotten Tomatoes doesn't take averages. The reason so many | people take issue with Rotten Tomatoes is they don't know how | to read the data. | | Rotten Tomatoes shows you the (number of promoters) / (number | of detractors). In other words, it tells you what percent of | the people like the movie. Not how much they like it. A score | of 95% on RT doesn't mean it's a nearly flawless movie. It | means that 95% of people/critics think it is, at the very | least, good. | | Taken directly from the RT About page[1]: | | > The Audience Score, denoted by a popcorn bucket, represents | the percentage of users who have rated a movie or TV show | positively | | and | | > The Tomatometer score represents the percentage of | professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film | or television show | | If you understand that, RT is a very useful review site. | | [1]: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/about | UIUC_06 wrote: | The "percent of the people like the movie" still doesn't tell | you anything about WHO those people are. Nor does (number of | promoters) / (number of detractors). | | "professional critic reviews" ?? Please. | | I'll stick with what I said: get to know a few critics, and | read those. | rexf wrote: | > Anything else: if you don't have a site you trust, then the | only recourse is to look at LOTS of sites and read between the | lines. By "sites" I also include "user forums." | | That's why Wirecutter is useful: convenience. They might not | have the best product recommendations, but for items they | "review", they provide an easy to click button to buy the | product. | | No offense, but reading random review sites, reddit, yelp, | forums, misc google SEO landing pages with affiliate links, etc | to try to find the best product is a huge pain. If I can go to | 1 review site that is _good enough_ and just buy the thing, the | convenience often wins out. | AlbertCory wrote: | No offense taken. You do have a site you trust, so you're all | good. | | I find that if I read a whole lot of stuff, I start to get | the gist. | blobbers wrote: | I had a lot of trouble finding "the right" air purifier. Who | knows if its even the right one. I found wirecutter (and the | like) to have a bit of a feel of a fake affiliate marketing | website. | | My take is: people currently trust their friends, and they trust | influencers. They don't really trust "experts", or scientists. | | What are thoughts on a social network that was simply product | endorsements from your social network. You can add influencers & | friends and list the products you use. | | Yeah if influencers want to shill a product, that's up to them | and you. If you trust them, then you trust what they shill. But | if you want to see Kara Swisher uses a IQ Air or an Ikea product, | you can trust them. | | Thoughts? | kn0where wrote: | Wirecutter really illustrates the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. Some | of their recommendations are fine, but whenever they review | something more niche than phone charger cables, I go to the | comments/Reddit/forums to find out why their pick is | overpriced/underperforming compared to whatever the community | prefers. | | Edit: also, I'm finding Reddit to be a less useful term to append | to my google searches over time. Many Reddit communities seem to | attract novices who quickly learn to parrot the same frequently- | upvoted claims without context, and the experts flee to niche | forums instead. | wlonkly wrote: | Gordonjcp wrote: | Reddit can be a hilarious example of the Dunning-Kruger effect | writ large. I've had people argue with me about the exact | working of various synthesizers in the synth subreddits, even | when I've backed up my points with links to the extensive | service documentation, circuit diagrams, and my own code | disassembly of the firmware ;-) Like, yes, that's nice that you | have an opinion, but here's the fat book I wrote on the topic, | so let's see if we can work out who's right. | mewse-hn wrote: | I've read similar comments about interactions with Wikipedia | editors | Gordonjcp wrote: | Endless back-and-forth about the Ensoniq EPS being a 13-bit | sampler. Yes, "13-bit" makes no sense. Yes, "13-bit" sounds | really unlikely. | | No, I'm looking at the Otto datasheet right now, and the | 2MB memory expansion on my bench which has three rows of | 4-bit DRAMs and a row of 1-bit DRAMS. Yes, definitely | 13-bit. | | No, I agree it makes no sense, but there you go. | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | I think that if a product requires that much hair splitting | then at the end of the day it's a wash, pick any recommendation | and live with it. | | Reddit is full of shills as well. | jacobolus wrote: | Warning: "community preferences" have plenty of their own | arbitrary biases. | chrischen wrote: | I've noticed that problem with reddit as well. Someone will | make a comment as if it is a well known fact but it turns out | it was just one youtube reviewer saying it... and they don't | provide sources. | Der_Einzige wrote: | Stupid shit like this causes urban legends that don't die. | People to this day still think that setting STALKER to | "master difficulty" makes the player guns do more damage. | They don't. | addicted wrote: | This article has basic misreading errors. | | It assumes that everything the Wirecutter says about the IKEA | filters and non IKEA filters is a reflection of the difference | between HEPA filters and non HEPA filters. But the wirecutter | article does not imply that. It mentions the IKEA filter is not a | true-HEPA filter and mentions other stuff about the IKEA filter | which may or may not have derived from the true-HEPA claim. | | However, it's likely true because the IKEA spokesperson they | spoke to confirmed this and said it was a deliberate design | decision. | | I also want to point out that this article makes a big deal of | having found something on the IKEA website about its filtering | capacity, but seems to miss the fairly obvious point that in the | line it highlights, IKEA never states that it's filters meet the | E12 standard. It only states that it's tested against that | standard. | simias wrote: | Opinions about Wirecutter notwithstanding, I thoroughly enjoyed | this article. I basically believed every singe "myth" exposed | here, and especially that a better grade of filter was really | important when in fact if you recirculate the air constantly it's | really not a big deal. | | Also the fact air filters don't work like sieves is pretty mind | blowing to me, I must confess. | jansan wrote: | IKEA really mussed the chance to provide a way to connect their | air quality sensor with the air purifier. I was hoping to have an | automated system that would start the air purifier when a certain | threshold is reached, but there is no way to achieve this (except | with intensive hacking). | | Also, the air quality sensor ALWAYS shows green. Did it show | yellow or even red for anyone not living in Hotang? | bouvin wrote: | As an owner of a couple of Fornuftigs, I have each connected to | a smart switch (which I already had) triggered over HomeKit by | Eve air quality sensors (which I also had). Had the upgrade, | the Starkvind, been on the market, when I got onboard, I would | probably have opted for that instead, as it packs both a sensor | and the ability to be controlled wirelessly over Tradfri. | | I have had other air purifiers before, and have been happy with | the Fornuftigs - the air purifying business is, IMHO, to a | large degree a racket that was badly in need for disruption. I | bought my two Fornuftigs with filters for less that what I | would have needed to pay for a single filter change for the air | purifier I used before. | enragedcacti wrote: | Home Assistant has air quality integrations although it does | seem most solutions require a whole lot of hacking regardless | of the sensor you choose and you would have to leave the air | purifier on and use a smart plug to trigger it. | | An easier option is just forking over the cash for the | Starkvind, which does exactly what you want and optionally | comes in the form of a coffee table. | | https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-air-purifier-white-00... | diebeforei485 wrote: | Note that Ikea also sells a more powerful air filter called the | Starkvind. This one is able to detect the air quality and | automatically turn itself on. | | It is sold either as a standalone device or integrated into a | nightstand / small coffee table: | https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-table-with-air-purifi... | yurodivuie wrote: | Levoit also sells more powerful air purifiers with particle | detection, though. I think the point of this article was to | compare the bottom end. | screye wrote: | Wirecutter is like Leetcode interviews. | | The goal is not to find the 'best' option, but minimize false | positives under intense time-pressure. Their recommendation is | usually the 8/10 solid option that you can blindly buy and be | moderately satisfied with. In the process, they drop out or | misrepresent other comparable options, but their final | recommendation is never shoddy. | | This is in stark contrast to other reviewers like IGN who give | 10/10 to every new cash-cow game, and The-Verge that tows the | 'mainstream' line to play it safe. Additionally, Wirecutter's | guides are up-to-date and cover every imaginable category. Are | rtings, Anandtech, LTT, Crinacle, notebookcheck, gsmarena, etc. | better ? Yes, a 100%. But each of them cover a small niche and | particularly leave out appliances of all types. | | I agree with Dynomight on Wirecutter being mediocre. But, | consistent mediocrity is incredibly hard to execute at at scale. | | I would never use wirecutter unless I absolutely had to. But, | often, I absolutely have to. Because no one else remotely | trustable is going around reviewing humidifiers and vacuum | cleaners. | rat9988 wrote: | I'm not sure why you would trust them to have a good false | positive ratio when the claim is thay their review is influence | by their partnerships. | jefftk wrote: | Agreed: the Wirecutter's emphasis on HEPA is not right for a | purifier that sits in a room. Once you get to reasonably high | removal efficacy (even 90%, let alone 99.5% vs 99.97%) flow rate | matters far more than filter spec. | | I also wish the Wirecutter would publish more detailed logs. They | just check the particle density after half an hour, which is | generally super low. Instead they could show the particle density | curves, or the minute-over-minute decreases (ex: | https://www.jefftk.com/p/testing-air-purifiers) | asojfdowgh wrote: | > which is generally super low. | | Except when it isn't, which is kinda the point: Its a fan and a | filter, if the fan is improperly fitted, path of least | resistance starts playing, if the filter is improperly fitted, | blah blah | | making a fan spin to the point of getting the most volume | allowed through a filter, is probably the easiest bit of the | entire process | 99_00 wrote: | >HEPA is not right for a purifier that sits in a room | | Why not? I don't know anything about HEPA, or quality, air | flow, etc. | highwaylights wrote: | Almost all of these review sites, not understanding the | physics involved, believe a HEPA filter sieves particles down | to a size of 0.3 microns, which implies that anything smaller | passes on through. | | This is utterly false. HEPA filters are measured at the | efficiency of what's known as the MPP (the Most Penetrating | Particle size). It's the hardest particle size to capture as | it can get by the two methods used to capture large particles | (impaction), and smaller particles (diffusion). | | Considering almost none of the air in a room is passing | through the filter at a given moment, the efficiency of the | filter is less important than how much air it moves through | the filter media per minute, which IKEA have favoured here. | | Essentially this filter performs close to par with more | expensive units, while using less energy, and having | dramatically lower costs for filter replacements when due. | | What they don't do is give reviewers either kickbacks or | basic physics lessons. | weaksauce wrote: | > Almost all of these review sites, not understanding the | physics involved, believe a HEPA filter sieves particles | down to a size of 0.3 microns, which implies that anything | smaller passes on through. | | To be fair, it took a pandemic for me to go to the | literature of mask effectiveness and finally found the "on | the filtration efficiency of fiberous filters" paper that | showed the u shaped curve. it's not something that they | scream from the hills about in their product brochures. | That said it should be screamed from the hills. | highwaylights wrote: | You might also enjoy this: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cagRuiyAsio | DantesKite wrote: | Thank you for this comment. Really gave me a lot of clarity | for how to think about air filters. | s0rce wrote: | HEPA makes sense if you filter all the air, ie. the filter is | inline like in a laminar flow cabinet/cleanroom or directly | inserted in an air stream filtering 100% of the downstream | air. In those cases you care a lot about how many particles | make it through since they will cause yield loss or | contamination in the processes. | seoaeu wrote: | Yeah, the difference is whether you can run the same air | through the filter multiple times. | jefftk wrote: | The article explains it well: | | _Here's a thought experiment: Take a 1000 cubic feet room | and a purifier that processes 100 cubic feet of air per | minute. (I follow Wirecutter in using vulgar imperial units.) | Assume pessimistically that all particles are the worst-case | size. If you run that purifier with an E12 filter, the | fraction of particles that will remain after one minute is | .1 x (1-.995) + .9 = 0.9005. | | That's because 10% of the air goes through the purifier and | has 99.5% of particles removed, while 90% of the air doesn't | go through the purifier at all. | | Meanwhile, if you run that purifier with an H13 filter | instead then the fraction of particles that remain will be | .1 x (1-.9995) + .9 = 0.90005. | | If you noticed that 0.9005 and 0.90005 are almost identical | then congratulations--you understand air filters better than | the Wirecutter. Both 99.5% and 99.95% are close enough to | 100% that performance is almost entirely determined by the | volume of air they process._ | etchalon wrote: | The idea that the difference between 0.9005 and 0.90005 is | "small" is ... weird. | | The moment I read that I checked out on the rest of the | authors opinions. | 1986 wrote: | Why? It's a 0.05% difference, seems pretty small to me. | etchalon wrote: | The difference between 99.5% and 99.95 is the difference | between an event happening 1 in 200 times and happening | and 1 in 2000 times. | | It's a 10x difference. | | The author's "I'll just times .1 by the percent of flow, | and produce very small numbers that look fine! See! The | numbers are so small!" trick is just ... wrong. | | The author implies that the difference can be made up by | the volume of air being processed, but that would only be | true of a sealed environment, where no new pollutants are | added to the air. | | Setting aside the basic misunderstanding of probability, | and ignoring that home purifiers don't operate in sealed | environments, the IKEA unit does not process 10x the | amount of air as the other units, so the point is mute. | rootlocus wrote: | Consider a purifier that purifies 99.995%. According to | your "probabilities", that's a 100x improvement. Now | consider this purifier purifies 1 cubic millimeter of air | per hour. That is to say, each hour 1 cubic millimeter of | air is 99.995% purified (no probability). Would you say | that this purifier is 100x better than the IKEA one with | 99.5% purification at 1 cubic feet of air per minute? | Considering air flow is not a trick. | etchalon wrote: | A E12 filter filters out 99.5% of particles above 0.3 | microns. | | An H13 filter filters out 99.95% of particles above 0.3 | microns. | | Assuming a volume of 10000 particles above 0.3 microns: | | An E12 filter will leave 50 particles. | | An H13 filter will leave 5 particles. | | The "rootlocus" filter would leave 0.5 particles. | | So yes, I would say your filter is 100x better because it | literally is. | rootlocus wrote: | > Assuming a volume of 10000 particles above 0.3 microns: | | That volume is not the same volume processed by all | filters in the same amount of time. | | In the first minute: E12 filters 10000 | particles @ 99.5% performance -> removes 9950, | leaves 50 H13 filters 10000 particles @ 99.95% | performance -> removes 9995, leaves 5 RLv1 | filters 10 particles @ 99.995% performance -> | removes 10, leaves 0 RLv2 filters 1000000 | particles @ 99% performance -> removes 990000, leaves | 10000 | | RLv1 only filters a tiny amount of air each minute, while | RLv2 filters a lot of air each minute (I've improved the | flow, but drastically botched the performance) | | By your method, RLv2 is 2000x slower than H13, but in the | same ammount of time filtered 99x more particles. RLv1 | needs to run 99000 minutes to filter the same amount of | particles RLv2 does in one minute. | | The example is meant to show air flow totaly dominates | performance, and it's not "a trick" to multiply by it. I | also want to point out that comparing the amount of | particles "left" (50 vs 5 vs 0 vs 10000) is nonsense and | absolutely no indication of performance in any way. | snowwrestler wrote: | Probabilities and amounts are not comparable even though | they both use % notation. | | In this case they are measuring the % of particles | captured (an amount), not the likelihood a particle is | captured (a probability). The parent is right, it's a | tiny difference. | weaksauce wrote: | > The idea that the difference between 0.9005 and 0.90005 | is "small" is ... weird. | | it is. that's one minute of filtration and the difference | is minuscule. over time, this would trend to zero. in 10 | minutes you'd expect to be near the steady state of the | room. (obviously not completely steady state since you | are filtering some already filtered air and probably | introducing more particulates but close enough for an | approximation) | etchalon wrote: | It's a 10x difference. It's not small. | | In a sealed environment, you're right, you'd eventually | end up with all particles filtered. | | But homes are not sealed environments. | diffeomorphism wrote: | What? Where are you getting the 10x from? Both numbers | are about 0.9 and the difference is about 0, not 10. If | you are refering to the sticker number, yeah the whole | point of that calculation is that a 10x sticker number | does absolutely not translate to a 10x difference. | | > but homes are not sealed. | | Correct, but neither are they ultra high throughput (at | which point any filter sitting in the room would be | useless anyway, since you never get the filtered air). So | "not sealed" is too vague to make any conclusion. | hexane360 wrote: | (0.9005 - 0.90005) / 0.90005 = 0.00049997222 | | It's a 0.049997% difference, not a 10x difference. | | In an unsealed environment, the steady state will be | related to amount filtered * % filtered / amount | exchanged for any given time period. The difference in % | filtered is not a significant factor in the above ratio. | [deleted] | kbelder wrote: | No, a 10x difference would be between 0.9 and 0.09. What | was given was about a 1.0005x difference. If you had a | child that was .9005 meters tall and one that was .90005 | meters tall, you couldn't tell which was taller without a | precision ruler. | etchalon wrote: | A E12 filter filters out 99.5% of particles above 0.3 | microns. | | An H13 filter filters out 99.95% of particles above 0.3 | microns. | | Assuming a volume of 10000 particles above 0.3 microns: | | An E12 filter will leave 50 particles. | | An H13 filter will leave 5 particles. | | That's a 10x difference. | csours wrote: | The author explicitly states that it's small in the home | use context. If you're talking about medical or cleanroom | manufacturing contexts, yes it's a huge difference. | etchalon wrote: | Small home or not, homes are not sealed environments. A | 10x difference is a 10x difference. | | Using one small number or produce another small number, | so the difference looks small, doesn't hide the 10x | change. | jefftk wrote: | How is there a 10x change? I see a 0.1% change. | dan-robertson wrote: | 0.90005 times 10 is 9.0005, not 0.9005 (I.e. the two | fractions presented are 90.005% and 90.05%). Even if you | look at the complement you get 9.995% vs 9.95% which is | small. One could imagine that these differences could | also arise from eg obstructions to airflow or positioning | in the room or the direction of the wind outside. The | point is that the difference is dominated by air flow in | a typical environment rather than filtering differences. | infinityio wrote: | Is it a 10x difference? If you used the better filter, | you would still have 99.95% of the particles you would | have had if you used the worse filter | rcoveson wrote: | The difference between 0.9005 and 0.90005 is not huge in | a medical context, or in a chip fab context, or in any | other practical context. We're not talking about the | difference between 0.0005 and 0.00005. The numbers in | question are 0.9005 and 0.90005, and the point being made | is that the 0.9 problem dwarfs the 10x efficiency | difference way over in the thousandths place. | csours wrote: | That difference is from his comments on the toy model of | 1000 cubic feet room and 100 cubic feet per minute | recirculating air. | | In an operating room or chip fab, the room would be over | pressure and the new air coming into the room would be | filtered. The cleanliness of that air would be determined | by the quality of the filter. | | Also, if you need air that clean, you need to have | strategies for all sorts of things besides filtering. | | The point is, you need to be very careful when you put | numbers on the internet, and when you read numbers on the | internet. Numbers make things feel more real than they | are. | | For me to actually trust the numbers here, I would need | to see the graphs for multiple runs of each filter. | tempestn wrote: | Yes, but in that case you wouldn't be comparing 0.9005 | and 0.90005, but rather 0.0005 and 0.00005. No one is | arguing that the difference in filters wouldn't matter in | a cleanroom context, just that recirculating air in a | home the difference in filtration is more like 0.9005 vs | 0.90005, and the difference between those numbers is | small (in any context to which they apply). | rcoveson wrote: | Yes, the numbers are from a toy example, one that the | author used to make one uncontroversial point in one | section of the post. Those are the numbers we are | discussing in this subthread, which began with: | | > The idea that the difference between 0.9005 and 0.90005 | is "small" is ... weird. | | We aren't talking about a situation where both filters | are processing all the air in the room. We're talking | about a situation where the filters are only processing | 10% of the air in the room. That's the defining | characteristic of the hypothetical. | csours wrote: | I did a poor job of being explicit in my first reply to | etchalon. | jefftk wrote: | _> In an operating room or chip fab, the room would be | over pressure and the new air coming into the room would | be filtered._ | | You're describing a situation where the filter is on the | intake, but this thread and article are about purifiers | within rooms. I agree that the math is really different | in your situation. | bramblerose wrote: | Why do you feel it is weird? They are both 90%, because | 90% * 100% + 10% * "effectively 0%" is completely | dominated by the first term. | rootlocus wrote: | Another application of Amdahl's law. | jefftk wrote: | "the overall performance improvement gained by optimizing | a single part of a system is limited by the fraction of | time that the improved part is actually used" | | Thanks for teaching me the name for this principle! | jiveturkey wrote: | Glad to see some strong analysis backing up my decision to ignore | wirecutter reviews for a couple of years now. Basically when they | started publishing reviews for things they did not actually | review. | shoelessone wrote: | I wasn't aware they did this. Any chance you have an example of | this? | IndySun wrote: | Who or whatever dynomight is, they take things seriously. And I, | for one, am grateful. | idk1 wrote: | Can anyone tell me what 'Contra Wirecutter' means. It's like I've | gone mad, everyone seems to know what this term means, both of | these words mean nothing to me and I've spoken English my entire | life. You're all acting like they're two words that make perfect | sense. Haha. It would be really great is someone could explain | the two words to me. | 7402 wrote: | Dictionary definition of _contra_ : "against; in opposition or | contrast to" | | So "Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier" means that it | is an essay in opposition to the opinion of the Wirecutter.com | website regarding the IKEA air purifier. | wux wrote: | Contra (preposition): 1: AGAINST -- used chiefly in the phrase | pro and contra 2: in opposition or contrast to | | (Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contra) | | Wirecutter: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/ | wlonkly wrote: | "Contra" means "against" or "in contrast to"[1]. The author has | a position that is against Wirecutter's position. It is a Latin | borrowing. | | [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contra | EnderWT wrote: | On the first point in the article, there is a definition for HEPA | which for ISO is 99.95% efficiency. The Ikea purifier doesn't | meet this. It meets the EPA standard, hence the designation of | E12 (99.5%). | Gordonjcp wrote: | A little further into the article, it explains why this doesn't | make any difference. | adolph wrote: | As noted by the sibling comment, the parent comment | mischaracterizes TFA's reference to "true-HEPA." It also makes | the same hash of characterizing standards as the affiliate | blogspam. Read TFA, which has an interesting characterization | of the tradeoffs involved and not this comment. | rahimnathwani wrote: | The article didn't say HEPA has no definition. It said that | 'true-HEPA' has no definition. | kllrnohj wrote: | Which seems intentionally nitpicky given that "HEPA" is | defined and the Ikea one doesn't meet it while the others do. | Therefore, "true-HEPA" almost certainly just means "HEPA", | and the "true" just means "is actually HEPA" not some other | special definition. | | The rest of the article's points are good, but this one comes | across as just axe grinding. | rahimnathwani wrote: | Yeah. I'd assumed that 'true-HEPA' was a made-up term | intended to trick people into thinking something is HEPA | when it's actually worse. But that doesn't seem to be the | case. | wlonkly wrote: | The Wikipedia HEPA article[1] says it's actually a | reaction to people doing that -- some companies advertise | "HEPA-type" or "HEPA-style", and so companies with actual | HEPA filters market them as "True HEPA". It's a race to | the bottom. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA#Marketing | [deleted] | Saint_Genet wrote: | Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but the IKEA one which they | singled out as not recommended to buy is the only one in the | article they don't earn a commission on when someone buys it | davidcbc wrote: | There are other categories where they do recommend IKEA as the | top option despite not getting a commission | elromulous wrote: | This is definitely not a conspiracy theory. Incentives affect | reviews, which is why truly unbiased review sources exist. | hammock wrote: | Sometimes conspiracy theories are true. They are still | conspiracy theories | CharlesW wrote: | "A conspiracy theory is not the same as a conspiracy; | instead, it refers to a hypothesized conspiracy..." | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory | hammock wrote: | My point is it's a mistake to conflate anything labeled a | conspiracy theory as being automatically false, which is | often what happens, or the label is applied something | that's already false. Many theories turn out to be true | jstanley wrote: | A conspiracy is when people collude in secret. A | conspiracy _theory_ is a theory that some people collude | in secret. Conspiracy theories are true when they | correspond to true conspiracies. | bombcar wrote: | Exactly, if they're true it's a conspiracy fact or just a | conspiracy. | | And even if they do NOT take kickbacks, there's no | financial incentive at all to "link" to a sales page that | doesn't offer affiliate links, where there is one to | link. And so the best way to handle this is to _not | review_ at all products that aren 't available through | said sites. | | Think Southwest tickets not being available from | aggregators. | CharlesW wrote: | > _And even if they do NOT take kickbacks, there 's no | financial incentive at all to "link" to a sales page that | doesn't offer affiliate links..._ | | And yet Wirecutter does this. | | https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-stuff- | from-i... | Nextgrid wrote: | Especially when they already have a proven track record of | nastiness: https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk- | review-pay-to... | elromulous wrote: | Oh wow! I hadn't seen this. Thanks for sharing. | GavinMcG wrote: | I've used the Wirecutter, so I'm not going to claim to be | totally unbiased. But I'm just not seeing any nastiness | there: the reason they gave for switching their | recommendation (while retaining their original | recommendation as an upgrade pick) seems entirely | legitimate. And as much as the company wants to emphasize | the use of the word "kickback" it's not really apt: | Wirecutter's model has always been affiliate linking, and | that's exactly what they reached out about in their first | and second emails. And when turned down, they still | published the recommendation and (later) still identified | it as the best option if cost isn't an issue. | Nextgrid wrote: | But the problem is that it ultimately skews the | incentives and contradicts their claim that the editors | are totally isolated from the commercial part of their | business. | | Their homepage currently suggests the following: | | > _We independently review everything we recommend._ When | you buy through our links, we may earn a commission | [emphasis mine] | | The "about" page claims: | | > _There's no incentive for us to pick inferior products_ | or to respond to pressure from manufacturers--in fact, | it's quite the opposite [emphasis mine] | | That's not really true when the same person who writes | the reviews is the one trying to solicit kickbacks in the | background, and puts the credibility of the entire | website into question. Their adjusted review _could_ be | completely legitimate but there 's no way to be sure so | it's better to err on the side of caution. | donohoe wrote: | But the editors are isolated from the commercial side. | | Regardless of what they pick, they do not manage the | affiliate links. Thats an entirely different process. | | >> That's not really true when the same person who writes | the reviews is the one trying to solicit kickbacks in the | background | | No. The person doing the review has no insight or | commission on any affiliate income. | | Whether you like the NYT or not, their coverage and | reviews are made to the best of the abilities, and while | mistakes happen, the writers are not trying to nickle and | dime you. | GavinMcG wrote: | Sure, and I'm not saying there's _no possible_ influence | in any direction. At the same time, I suspect things are | more separate than in 2014, and I don 't see that claim | on their pages from back then [0][1]. In fact they seemed | to have independently reviewed the desks and only _then_ | asked about an affiliate program. | | When they switched their recommendation to Fully, they | apparently didn't have an affiliate relationship with | them, either. NextDesk calls that "false" -- but based on | Wirecutter linking to _Amazon_ to earn a commission. That | 's a bizarre conflation (although like you said it's not | _nothing_ ) but it's what Wirecutter usually did | regardless of the product, and they were up front about | it at the time [1]. | | [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150603092537/https://th | ewirecu... | | [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150518125823/http://the | wirecut... | | (Wirecutter used the word "kickback" here, too, so if | anything it seems like they were trying to be as | uncharitable as possible about their own model.) | lozenge wrote: | Wirecutter's "business team" won't let their "editorial | team" review the new iterations of the NextDesk product | because if their "unbiased recommendation" is NextDesk, | revenue will go down. | | The CEO was explicit in his email that he looks to | maximise revenue on the standing desks page (and by | implication, every other page on the site). | | The "business team" was explicit - the editorial team | doesn't act directly, they can only get review units | arranged by the business team - which is refusing to | receive review units because no affiliate program is in | place. | GavinMcG wrote: | Eight years ago, right? Are they refusing now? (Genuinely | curious if you've got up-to-date info. If they are | terribly biased I want to know it, so I can downgrade my | trust, which is why I upvoted the OP about the air | purifier.) | | Also, it's not really clear to me that "independently | review" has to mean "we completely isolate any business- | related decision-making from editorial functions" as | Nextgrid seems to assume. | tyre wrote: | They make more money from me if their reviews are | accurate. If they're are only motivated by money, then | that incentive favors honest reviews. | | If I buy products that they recommend and they're shit, I | won't go back and click anything again in my life. Making | an extra $3 from on purchase isn't worth it. | hackernewds wrote: | It works if you, the reader, doesn't suspect malice. | Which it seems there is. | Nextgrid wrote: | But the problem is that there's a difference between | "okay" and "shit". They indeed won't make money if they | recommend shit that gets returned, but a lot of products | can be "okay" enough for people to keep around even if | there are better products out there (that the review site | doesn't recommend because the "okay" product provides | better kickbacks). The standing desk situation is | actually a very good example of that - the hassle of | shipping and assembly means that once you've received it | you are unlikely to ship it back unless it's absolutely | bad despite other models being even better. | | Frankly, for "okay" products, most of us don't need | review websites. Even with the shit-show that Amazon | reviews are it's usually easy enough to tell an outright | bad product. The purpose of a review website (as a | consumer) would be to find the absolute _best_ product | possible out of a sea of mostly "okay" ones. | seoaeu wrote: | Honestly, when I'm looking at buying something OK is | usually all I'm looking for. Sure getting the best widget | would be nice, but I'm happy as long as it doesn't break | right away or otherwise cause me problems. | stjohnswarts wrote: | Do you have proof of that? Otherwise it kind of is conspiracy | theorist. I assume Hanlon's razor here rather than malice on | the part of NYT/WC. | dchest wrote: | I thought the same, but IKEA does have an affiliate program. | rahimnathwani wrote: | This is mentioned in the first line of the article: | | "you should instead buy a different purifier that totally | coincidentally happens to pay affiliate marketing commissions." | clairity wrote: | i literally ran into this with wirecutter when searching for | an air purifier years ago. they recommended an inferior | performing coway when their own tests concluded that blueair | (211+) was significantly better. they've long since removed | the chart showing this discrepancy, and they still recommend | coway, no doubt because that's their affiliate partner. i | bought the 211+ and have been mostly satisfied with it for my | studio apartment, but beware, filters are relatively | expensive. | | in any case, if you really care about effective air | purification, buy the largest/most powerful fan you can get | (CADR tries to proxy this, but is an imperfect measure), | because the critical factor is getting as much of the air | volume through the filters before the dust settles | (literally). filter effectiveness isn't nearly as critical as | throughput. | | nowadays i'd probably opt for two of the ikeas instead, and | put them on opposite sides of the room (but not against a | wall). that'd be cheaper and likely just as effective. | asojfdowgh wrote: | They recommend against a bunch of things even if they get | commission | arkitaip wrote: | You know what the messed up thing about Wirecutter's affiliate | marketing is? | | Their Amazon links are consistently broken to the point where | the links don't point to products but are faulty search | queries. Like, if you are going to compromise your reputation | doing affiliate marketing, at least get the damn links right so | I don't have to perform a Amazon search to find the actual | product. | bombcar wrote: | Some might say this is intentional, the whole point for the | link is to corrupt your Amazon cookie so that they get credit | for the (next?) purchase you make. | | At least that's how I've always assumed the links work, not | that you have to buy the exact product immediately. | hackernewds wrote: | This blew my mind. And would be highly unethical that | Amazon should know, since the accounting often happens on | the publisher's side | bombcar wrote: | https://toolguyd.com/top-tool-deals-11122020/ has some | comments on what the _site owner_ can see, things like | which links work better than others, etc. Surprisingly | large amounts of info could leak without anyone really | realizing it, even if everything is entirely | "anonymized" there's still the total dollar amount paid | out, etc. | apendleton wrote: | I definitely feel like there's a bit of a Gell-Mann Amnesia | effect going on with Wirecutter reviews: when they review things | in areas I happen to know well, I often notice errors or missteps | in their thinking in the review, but for some reason I still | blindly trust their reviews in products that I know less about, | even though obviously it's not particularly likely that they're | uniquely inexpert in the areas I happen to know well. Posts like | this are a good reminder to be skeptical of all of it. | GistNoesis wrote: | I am no professional but air quality as been a pet peeve of mine, | here is my advice. | | The main problem with air purifier is that they create a false | sense of security while doing only part of the job, and in many | cases the job can be done better by opening the windows to change | the air. | | The step number one if you care about your air quality, is | getting an air quality monitor. They are quite cheap, and should | display temperature, humidity, PM2.5, TVOC (total volatile | organic compounds), and CO2. | | Then you can treat the problem adequately if you have one. | | If your home ventilation was well designed and you live in a non- | polluted area the numbers should be OK. Then you only need an air | purifier if you create some kind of dust and/or not ventilate | during cooking. | | If they aren't : try opening windows a little and experiment to | see if you can maintain the number in the correct range | throughout the day and year. If you can't you'll probably have to | have some form of professional installation to get the | ventilation done properly or need to move. | | HEPA filters in air purifier, only remove particulates but have | no effect on TVOC or CO2. HEPA filters are expensive and need to | be changed regularly. | | TVOC and CO2 only grow indoor, the only thing you can impact is | how fast they grow, and therefore how often you will have to | change your air to maintain good enough quality. | | To reduce the growth rate of TVOC the first thing to do is track | the sources of it and remove them (for example avoid bad paints, | glues, remove clutter (the less object surfaces you have the less | they emit and use inert surface materials), chemical bottles...), | and then make sure that you keep temperature and humidity stable. | | To remove CO2, the only way is to have adequate ventilation | (either by opening the windows or by mechanical ventilation), | (and you can only get as low as the CO2 concentration of the | outside air (which is growing...) ). | | This ventilation will bring fresh air from the outside. Then it | all depends on where you live and the quality, temperature, | humidity of the exterior air. | | For example if you live in a cold place, opening the windows will | lose lot of heat, so you can mitigate this problem by using a | ventilation that recover part of the loss heat. If you live in a | humid place bringing you probably need some ventilation that dry | the air. But the key is to ventilate as little as possible to | maintain the number in the good range. | | If you live in a place where the quality of the exterior air is | bad, you probably should move, but in the mean time you can use | an air purifier to mitigate the PM2.5 problem. | | If you live in an old place that was designed without ventilation | in mind, it will be quite expensive and may create some noise, | and you probably should move. | Youden wrote: | Nothing against the rest of what you say but I wouldn't | recommend a "cheap" air quality monitor for CO2. | | "Cheap" usually means eCO2, which isn't actually a CO2 | measurement but rather an estimation based on VOC measurements. | This has basically zero correlation to actual CO2 levels [0]. | | For CO2, you need to look at air quality monitors that cost at | least $100, or which do nothing but monitor CO2. These will | have real sensors in them that actually measure CO2 levels | (NDIR). You should check to confirm they advertise NDIR | somewhere to be sure. | | You also need to be very careful with calibration. If your area | has consistent low levels that don't match ambient, the | calibration will be thrown off and all your readings will be | garbage. | | TVOC and particles don't have the same problems, there are | fairly cheap sensors for them that work pretty well, it's just | CO2 you have to be picky about [0]. | | [0]: https://jsss.copernicus.org/articles/7/373/2018/ | throw90259475 wrote: | On the same subject but from another source, some arguments in | this video are off: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uZKBlwLEFs | rdl wrote: | Wirecutter has gone way downhill since NYT bought them, too. :( | | The only review source I trust is | https://www.youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm/videos | js2 wrote: | True HEPA means exactly what it says: HEPA as defined by the US | EPA. | | E12 is NOT a HEPA filter. Which is why it's called E12. HEPA | starts at H13 and H14. This is right in the wikipedia page TFA | links to: | | > The specification used in the European Union: European Standard | EN 1822-1:2009, from which ISO 29463 is derived, defines several | classes of filters by their retention at the given most | penetrating particle size (MPPS): Efficient Particulate Air | filters (EPA), HEPA and Ultra Low Particulate Air filters (ULPA). | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA#Specifications | | So the IKEA filter is an Efficient Particulate Air filter, but | not a HEPA filter. | | There is nothing wrong with The Wirecutter's review. TFA's | allegation that The Wirecutter dismissed the IKEA filter because | they don't get an affiliate fee from IKEA is without evidence or | merit. The Wirecutter does in fact recommend other IKEA products: | | https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-stuff-from-i... | | The Wirecutter is not a perfect site, but it's where I often | start my product research and it has yet to let me down. | rossmohax wrote: | Looking for an indoor air quality monitor to buy, any | recommendations? | Someone1234 wrote: | To monitor what (e.g. what particular size, VOX, radon, etc)? | And do you need logging? Because that almost entirely | determines which one. | | For simple, cheap, PM2.5 and above, the Ikea "VINDRIKTNING" is | a good choice. It only offers a simple traffic-light system | though, no logging and numeric readout. USB-C powered (cable | and power-brick sold separately). Around $25~ including buying | the USB-C cable and power-brick, $13 alone. | rossmohax wrote: | Mainly to know when to open windows (CO2 monitor?) and to | vacuum and its effect (PM2.5?) and maybe some generic stuff | because why not (temperature, humidity, pressure). I probably | want something more precise, that just a traffic light | system, but don't plan to plot readings in Grafana either. | Someone1234 wrote: | CO2 can be a little expensive, AirThings sell one but | $200(!). | sydthrowaway wrote: | Oh great, Wirecutter is full of paid shills now too. | | Why the fuck does everything turn to shit? | | Fuck Google. | swagasaurus-rex wrote: | I've tried out various air purifiers, the only one I've found | that's truly quiet is RabbitAir. | | It's amazing how much noise pollution most air purifiers create. | breput wrote: | Big Clive made a video and wrote an OpenSCAD script[0] which | allows you to 3D print a base and adapter to convert a regular | 120mm computer fan into a "true" HEPA air purifier. | | You might already have a spare 120mm fan laying around - I am | using a $8 ARCTIC P12 fan[1] which is very quiet and is designed | to work with high static pressure. The generic filters[2] are two | for $17, (supposedly) H13 grade, available from a number of | suppliers, and last a very long time. You could use them one at a | time but I stack the two filters on top of each other and seal | them with electrical tape for more surface area. | | The fan isn't super powerful (56 CFM) and the appearance is not | as polished as commercial models, but it does have a certain | aesthetic to it. The area where I live rarely has any air quality | issues but I have noticed it really cuts down on dust. | | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vmh2Ip2Vxg (script in the | Description) | | [1] https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GB16RK7 | | [2] https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08N1FP2WT | aftbit wrote: | Thanks for sharing this! Can you provide the values of the | variables for that exact linked filter and fan? I'd like to | print this while I wait for Amazon shipping. I bought ASIN | B07GJG285F instead - same fan, but faster shipping for me. | screwhole=5; //fan screw hole diameter (5) | filterhole=92; //HEPA filter hole diameter | thickness=1.5; //Thickness of plastic layer (1.5) | insert=10; //Length of insert into filter (10) | breput wrote: | You'll definitely want to bump thickness up to 2.0 mm for | more rigidity. Otherwise just measure the diameter of your | filter and maybe round up slightly. | | I put a layer of electric tape around the flange where the | filter adapter inserts into the filter and it makes a very | nice airtight fit. Finally, just print it with the big end | facing down and you shouldn't need any supports. | | screwhole=5; // fan screw hole diameter (5) | | filterhole=59; // HEPA filter hole diameter | | thickness=2; // Thickness of plastic layer (1.5) | | insert=10; // Length of insert into filter (10) | KennyBlanken wrote: | That air filter will move such a small volume of air, it's | basically useless unless you're in a small closet. | breput wrote: | Well, my experience refutes that opinion, but yes, it sized | for a smaller room or less polluted larger areas. | | My office is approximately 12' x 12' x 8' or 1,152 ft3. That | means the room's air would (theoretically) completely pass | through the filter every 20 1/2 minutes. As the article | explains, even the lower quality filter in the Ikea air | purifier is so close to 100% efficient that it isn't worth | worrying about, so completely filtering the air three times | per hour is nothing to sneeze at... | | And the cost is negligible - the fan might cost $0 to $10, | filters are $20/year, and electricity usage is around 2 watts | or probably under $2/year. | Der_Einzige wrote: | But little to no dust will get into your computer, meaning | less cleaning is necessary. | hubraumhugo wrote: | Since most people are relying on Reddit for product research, | this list of the most discussed air purifiers on r/AirPurifiers | might be a good start too: | https://looria.com/reddit/AirPurifiers/products | | What enthusiasts and authentic users say is far more valuable | than an article that was made for views by some corporates. | Redditors and other forum members are more interested in boosting | their ego by showing their depth of knowledge on the topic (and | correcting others on the topic), whereas corporate websites are | more interested in raking profit by displaying (potentially) | dishonest information. | pubby wrote: | If filters struggle to trap particles around some specific | particle size, wouldn't it make sense to combine two filters with | different ranges together? | gpm wrote: | I'm pretty sure that they all have their worst performance at | roughly the same particle size, because they're all working on | the same two mechanisms (discussed in the article), and that's | the small area where neither mechanism works very well. | pkulak wrote: | They all struggle at the same size, is the issue. | flanbiscuit wrote: | Here's the original Wirecutter review: | https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/ikea-fornuftig-air-p... | | "Our pick among small-space purifiers, the Levoit Core 300, is | not much more expensive, is a true-HEPA machine, and has a CADR | of 135, which means it's effective in rooms up to 200 square | feet." | | Non-affiliate direct link to the one Wirecutter recommends: | | https://levoit.com/products/core300-true-hepa-air-purifier | | Just linking for information in case anyone else was curious. | backtoyoujim wrote: | Ikea interested me when they worked with teenage engineering for | some silly bits. But that was quickly reduced into a markup game | from resellers so it lost my interest. | | bless their hearts and billy-bookcases but they have never moved | me on much else. | | and i don't need my home-appliance obsolescence bar to descend | even further towards flat-pack territory. | Havoc wrote: | The emphasis on flow rate misses a feature that is more important | to me - live measurement and adjustment of fan speed dynamically. | | I don't want a turbine that cranks out the decibels 24/7 | regardless of state of air | varispeed wrote: | Isn't IKEA now mostly branded Chinese tat with a slightly premium | pricing? I have noticed that you can buy good quality Chinese | stuff cheaper without having to pay for Western branding. Now | that Western corporations are outsourcing whatever they can to | make extra profit, basically becoming a shell and investment | vehicle rather that a company actually making something, I think | that it is now more ethical to actually buy from Chinese | corporations without Western involvement. These greedy | corporations are a part of the reason why Western economies are | tanking. No meaningful jobs and people can't keep up paying off | their debts. They also lobbied governments to put regulations on | top of regulations so only big corporations could keep up with | changes and it wouldn't be possible for a small business to even | start unless they also outsource to Asia. I am sorry for quite a | rant, but when I see IKEA it hits a nerve. | r12343a_19 wrote: | I am legit wondering if air purifiers wouldn't be a good addition | in preschools. A classroom isn't that big and one of these things | would probably be enough. A school year would require 2-3 | replacements, ie. not much. | | Anybody did something like this? | mh- wrote: | Yes. Especially since covid. | | This was just the first link that came up, but there was state- | level funding going back to 2021 at least for this in some | places. | | https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-covid-funding-could-... | r12343a_19 wrote: | I knew that but funding was for big ventilation. I wonder if | any of these home-use devices have been deployed and if | there's some data with comparative results. | mh- wrote: | At the schools my kids were in, they deployed commercial- | looking freestanding units. I don't know if that was | intended to be a temporary measure until they got central | units installed. | | I haven't seen any data, agree it would be nice to know. | hypersoar wrote: | I don't know how it went, but I recall that improving | ventilation and filtering in schools was pushed among the many | Covid countermeasures. | Ataraxic wrote: | Looking at the wattage comparisons, the article talks about the | "Wirecutter recommended air purifier" but seems to go out of its | way to not mention it by name. Why? | | Second, I don't believe this air purifier, or really any | recommended air purifier is going to use 45 watts for any | extended period of time. The main power draw is simply the fan | and a fan using 45 watts is going to be extremely loud. | | Secondly, I think there is an argument to be made for an air | purifier quickly reducing particle count and then switching back | into a lower noise mode. | | The suspicious CADR numbers do require more investigation on the | wirecutter side though. | mbrubeck wrote: | > Second, I don't believe this air purifier, or really any | recommended air purifier is going to use 45 watts for any | extended period of time. | | The article says it is comparing to the Wirecutter's current | "small space" pick, which since April 2022 has been the Levoit | Core 300: | | https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-air-purifier... | | The Wirecutter measures it at "34.6 watts on medium (and 31.8 | watts on low)." The manufacturer's specs give a "Rated Power" | of 45W, which might correspond to the "high" setting: | | https://levoit.com/products/core300-true-hepa-air-purifier | | 45W for high is reasonable, but the other modes are weirdly | inefficient. Even the low power mode uses several times more | energy than _medium_ on the filter I have in my living room. | Maybe it 's using the extra power to mine bitcoin. | mlyle wrote: | > Looking at the wattage comparisons the article talks about | the "Wirecutter recommended air purifier" but seems to go out | of its way to not mention it by name. Why? | | He probably wants to avoid possible legal harassment by the | manufacturer. It's not material to his point against | Wirecutter, and it would poke one other party with resources to | annoy him. | Denvercoder9 wrote: | > seems to go out of its way to not mention it by name. Why? | | Bad publicity is still publicity. | gigaflop wrote: | I interpret that the lack of names (WC pick 1, 2, etc) is to | keep focus on the core message, and to not give out free | advertising. | | While I happily admit to use of certain products, I don't want | to serve as a billboard for them. | Ataraxic wrote: | Sure totally, it just makes it harder for me to verify | _their_ numbers though. | | Someone else replied to me and said it is the levoit core | 300. Their fan does seem weirdly inefficient, but comparing | the high mode of the levoit model to the ikea isn't really | the right comparison imo. | daenz wrote: | Protip: you can turn a box fan into an incredibly effective air | purifier[0] (particle measurements in thread). The one they show | is pretty elaborate, using 4 filters and some construction, but | you can also use a single filter and slap it on the back of the | box fan and have similar results. The air purifier industry is | more about aesthetics than it is function. | | 0. https://twitter.com/LazarusLong13/status/1425517352624410627 | adolph wrote: | Like generic drugs theres no money in practically free, | recycled or dual use. | jeromegv wrote: | I mean... I'm an IT professional. I have no time, energy, | desire or ability to build. my own fan, maintain it, and trust | that it does a good job. That's the reason I bought an air | purifier. | | The restaurant industry is also there for people that don't | want the time to learn to cook certain dishes themselves. And | (many) restaurants are still thriving. | postalrat wrote: | As an IT professional I find myself with the time, energy, | desire, and ability to do many projects like this myself. | | Are you sure you are a real IT professional? | prash_ant wrote: | We should appreciate the diversity of the 7,903,275,000 | people in the world. Everyone single one of us has | different opinions, ideas, abilities and interests. | lwelyk wrote: | Is it really inconceivable that someone might want to pay a | modest sum of money to avoid having to build and maintain a | custom-made version that is uglier? | spiderice wrote: | Surely this comment is satire | turtlebits wrote: | The problem is that on low, it's too loud and pushes/filters | too much air to be needed 24x7. It's also bulky. I rather use a | smaller profile one that can be left on all the time (even if | it costs more) | | I have the box fan and only use it when AQI is high (wildfire | season) | DantesKite wrote: | Thank you. This is amazing. Precisely what I've been searching | for. Something cheap, affordable, and most of all, moves a | large quantity of air within a short amount of time. Loudness | doesn't bother me one bit since I almost always have white | noise playing in the background. | donohoe wrote: | > The air purifier industry is more about aesthetics than it is | function | | Well, sure, to a point. | | I could make my own air purifier (like the one you link) but it | looks awful. I would not want that in my home. So yeah, | aesthetics do matter. Its _not_ the only thing but it is a | factor. | daenz wrote: | > it looks awful. I would not want that in my home. | | When west coast forest fires put dangerous levels of smoke | into peoples homes, box fan air filters are an extremely | valuable tool for lower income families. Consider yourself | extremely fortunate if you are able to choose form over | function on devices like this. | post_break wrote: | Your comment is hilarious. Buying an air purifier that | looks good makes sense, making an air purifier during times | of crisis also makes sense. They are not even remotely the | same thing. Oh boy you're so lucky you can get a Dyson, | we've got wild fires here in California! You see how | ridiculous that sounds? | daenz wrote: | The funny thing is, I agree with your comment. Which is | why I'm so confused about someone who sees an air | purifier that is clearly made for purposes other than | aesthetics and says "I don't want it because it's ugly." | It's not for you, obviously. | jeromegv wrote: | Of course, but nobody is preventing that information to be | shared. When I looked for air purifier last year, there was | tons of articles I saw on how to build your own. This isn't | hidden, there's tons of good resources out there. | | I don't understand why you try to shame us for choosing to | buy our own. Of course we are fortunate we can afford it. | We aren't talking of a sports car here, it's few hundreds | dollar, this is a perfectly fine trade off to decide to buy | one. | mlyle wrote: | > I don't understand why you try to shame us for choosing | to buy our own. | | I don't see anyone shaming anyone for choosing to buy | their own. I see someone pointing out it's possible to | make one, and I see someone else defending the choice to | make one by pointing out not everyone can buy an | expensive, pretty pre-made one. | daenz wrote: | I am being polite in explaining the low-income | perspective on devices like these. Looking at a device | designed for low-income people who are trying to breathe | healthy air and saying, essentially, "it's ugly, I would | never want that" is extremely tone deaf around why it | exists in the first place: because desperate people need | an inexpensive solution. If you feel shame from that | alternate perspective, I would suggest it comes from | within. | Dylan16807 wrote: | "Consider yourself extremely fortunate" for getting a $70 | model instead of a $40 model _is_ shaming them for making | that choice. You 're implying that some cheapass consumer | product is some grand luxury, that they're out of touch | with the world. | | As far as I can tell by your posts here, you brought up | desperate situations just to try to dunk on someone that | was only moderately impressed by your general purpose | "protip". | daenz wrote: | You're misquoting me. I never said they were extremely | fortunate for choosing one model over the other, I said | they were extremely fortunate for "being able to choose | form over function." When wildfire season rolls around | and air becomes very hazardous where I lived, local air | purifiers of all kinds were completely sold out, and the | box fan solution is all a lot of us had[0]. It's not just | inexpensive, it's about availability of materials. | | >just to try to dunk on someone | | You're attributing negative intentions to my posts, which | isn't appreciated. | | 0. https://twitter.com/seattlefire/status/142526070156897 | 0752 | Dylan16807 wrote: | Are you talking about emergencies, or are you talking | about "the low-income perspective"? | | Because you said you were doing the latter, and I was | criticizing your words using that context. In that | context, your words come across as judgemental. | | If you're actually talking about the former, then you | chose your words pretty poorly. | daenz wrote: | The low-income people are often the most impacted when an | emergency hits. I'm sure if someone had $1000 for an air | purifier, they could get one the next day, in most | circumstances. Though I'm not low income (now), I got a | reminder of it when local materials were totally gone and | I would have had to pay through the nose to keep my place | breathable. It was bad. The hallways in our apartment | building had a haze of smoke 24/7. Fortunately the city | let everyone know about the box fan solution, so that's | what we did. | | For me, being unprepared in a new city, and for low | income people who aren't prepared, choosing form over | function was a luxury. | Dylan16807 wrote: | > The low-income people are often the most impacted when | an emergency hits. | | Yes, but it's not relevant to low-income people in | general. For someone getting an air purifier in a normal | situation, they can go for an ikea model about as well as | any other solution. Especially considering the box fan | uses a ton of power, costing money. | daenz wrote: | >Especially considering the box fan uses a ton of power, | costing money. box fan: $40 ikea: | $70 box fan electricity: 73W x 24 x 365 x | $0.11kWh = $70/year ikea electricity: 14W x 24 x | 365 x $0.11kWh = $13/year | | Assuming 24/7 usage, in the first year you'd save $27, | and in subsequent years, $57. | | But this isn't counting filters. You can get a much | higher range of standard filters for a box fan, meaning | you can run it much less and filter more. And when IKEA | discontinues the product, you're SOL finding filters, so | you have to buy something new, whereas you'll never have | that problem with a box fan. All things considered, I | think box fan would win on cost. | [deleted] | donohoe wrote: | Um. Okay. I was just responding to your comment about: | | "The air purifier industry is more about aesthetics than it | is function" | | I didn't mention anything about dangerous levels of smoke, | forest fires, low income families... | | I take your overall point but I think you need to keep the | context of which it was said and not add a different one. | daenz wrote: | >So yeah, aesthetics do matter. | | I'm not even sure what your point was. I never said | aesthetics didn't matter, nor did I say it is the only | factor. You seemed to feel inspired enough by the | ugliness of a product to speak out against it, without | recognizing why it exists. | goodpoint wrote: | First, a nice looking case does not justify the extortion | prices of most purifiers. Also many people have serious | allergies and don't have 200 $/euro to spare. | | Second, you know you can max a box yourself or hide a thin | purifier under a desk or above a tall cabinet? | Hamuko wrote: | I almost want to replace my old Electrolux EAP300 with an | IKEA one because it looks less like shit. The EAP300 is just | this big floor beheamoth with no aesthetics. Lower filter | costs wouldn't be bad either (if the IKEA filters last as | long as the Electrolux ones, they're under half the cost). | It's just so hard to justify as long as my old air filter | still functions. | stjohnswarts wrote: | I think the point is that aesthetics matter to you but not a | lot of people care if they have a box fan + air filter | stashed away in their bedroom for a cheap airfilter. Maybe if | it was more prominent in the living or guest bedrooms? | Der_Einzige wrote: | I now run a MERV 16 furnace filter (yes, my aprilair system | explicitly supports it, no I will not hurt my furnace) for | central air filtration alongside two box-fan filters (the easy | slap on the back kind - I think I'm using something equivalent | to MERV 13 on the back, can't go higher for the size) around | the house and a quiet regular air-filter in our room. | | All of my wives problems related to allergies or breathing have | gone completely away. Guests comment at how good/clean our | house smells. Stuff takes longer to mold when its left out. | 10/10 would recommend. | Rebelgecko wrote: | Compared to a dedicated air purifier, a box fan one is louder, | has higher energy consumption, and is uglier (I suppose the | last one is subjective). | | If it's something you only use a couple days a year when your | region is on fire, then absolutely go with the design with | lower upfront costs. But if you're running it 24/7, it's worth | thinking about the extra 40-80 watts that a box fan uses. | | For me, I figure the electricity difference comes out to around | $100/yr so getting a dedicated air purifier has paid for itself | (although I live in an area with fairly expensive electricity). | It also has some nice bonuses compared to a box fan like auto | adjusting speeds and a prefilter that hopefully helps the | "real" filter last longer. | 99_00 wrote: | Is that what you use? What is your personal experience with it? | | I think this is good if you are in a wild fire scenario and air | purifiers are sold out, or for your home work shop. | | Otherwise I suspect it is very energy inefficient and noisy. | [deleted] | daenz wrote: | I haven't used that specific construction, but I have used | this one[0] when I moved to a location without realizing the | extent of the wildfire smoke. It worked well, but yes it is | noisy on the highest setting. I continue to use it because | it's inexpensive and the parts are readily available. | | 0. https://deohs.washington.edu/edge/blog/how-make-box-fan- | filt... | ethbr0 wrote: | One thing that irks that shit out of me in reviews -- not | normalizing or banding for cost. | | Measuring performance without taking into account cost is | meaningless. | | Hat tip to (old) Tom's Hardware for being the first site I knew | that did this well, with their cpu / gpu hierarchy, which | attempted to rank the last 2 generations or so of product against | each other. | | It boiled it down to two columns (Intel, AMD), with gaps where | each manufacturer didn't have product for that performance. | | It really helped in "Should I buy previous gen +spec, or current | gen -spec, given they both have the same price now?" questions. | | Sadly, it seems to have devolved into this, which is less useful: | https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html | thehappypm wrote: | I don't think I agree. The world gets really confusing when you | take costs into account. Try buying a phone charger. The $5 one | might be overflowing with 5 star reviews saying how great it is | for the price, but it's just crap. Likewise the $100 one that's | amazing but some 3 star reviews for "too expensive". | londons_explore wrote: | I wish analysis like this would stop using tests of the filter | material to make any judgement about the purifier. | | If the air passed through the filter precisely once and then | ended up in your room, it would be valid. But it doesn't - the | air passes many times through the filter, and mixes with the room | air again and again each time. | | That means it is far less important to get 99.9% filtration, and | far more important to get more cubic feet passing through the | filter each minute. That dramatically changes the optimal design. | | To see why, imagine a room of 1000 cubic feet. Now filter one of | those cubic feet, and put it back into the same room. A good | 99.9% filter has just removed 0.0999% of the dirt. A bad 90% | filter with double the airflow removed 0.18% of the dirt. The bad | filter is much better! | TootsMagoon wrote: | Great points. I just scanned the article. Did Wirecutter do any | actual testing? They can refute and prove the claims are wrong | on paper...but it really comes down to testing. Where is | Wirecutter's test data? | addicted wrote: | This article actually makes a bunch of claims itself that are | false. For example, it claims that the Wirecutter believes air | filters work like sieves. Whereas the Wirecutter review page for | air purifiers goes into how they do not behave like sieves and | also references a NASA study that shows how HEPA filters are good | at capturing both particles smaller and larger than the 0.3 | micron test standard. | | It's pretty obvious that the Wirecutter has used HEPA standard | filters as a filter for whittling down the many air purifiers | that exist in the world. They eliminated the IKEA filters because | they do not meet HEPA standards (this blog's focus on he true- | HEPA marketing term is misguided, because the authors own | referenced wiki link shows that E12 is not considered HEPA). | However, they also reached out to IKEA about this, and the IKEA | spokesperson told them their focus is on PM2.5. | | They don't recommend the IKEA filter based not on its inability | to capturer finer particles, but because it's not AS efficient as | capturing finer particles as HEPA filters, AND because of its | lower CADR. | | It doesn't meet the standards they set, so they don't include it | for price comparisons. | | Maybe they haven't set the right standards. Maybe they should | have allowed for lower CADRs or for filters that meet lower | filtration standards than HEPA. | | However, the insinuation this article makes that they don't seem | to understand what they're talking about is completely wrong. | | Maybe this author should try reviewing over 20-30+ different air | purifiers at a minimum without setting arbitrary thresholds up | front and then get back to the Wirecutter folks. | yurodivuie wrote: | Probably more aggro than necessary... Wirecutter takes H13 to be | the minimum level that can be considered "HEPA" because that | seems to be the "H" in "H13", per the same chart that Dynomight | references in Wikipedia (though they cut off that column in their | own article). | hooloovoo_zoo wrote: | The Wirecutter takes that standard to be minimum as that is the | minimum necessary to be considered a HEPA filter, which the | author should presumably know as that is stated in 2 articles | they cited lol. | jldugger wrote: | What does the H in H12 stand for then? | adament wrote: | According to the table it is not H12 but E12 which | corresponds to Efficient Particulate Air filters (EPA), I.e. | not high-efficiency. | yurodivuie wrote: | It's actually E12 vs H13 - there is no H12. The "E" in "E12" | stands for "EPA", as opposed to "HEPA". | jldugger wrote: | aww jeez | bobcostas55 wrote: | IKEA says the fornuftig is only for 8-10 square meter rooms. How | "real" is that limitation? | enragedcacti wrote: | As the OP talks about a bit (see (math) in the "On Weakness" | section), the things that really matter are: | | 1. the rate at which clean air is replace with dirty air, the | ventilation half-life (e.g. steady state from an outside draft, | bursts from cooking) | | 2. the rate at which the purifier extracts particles (CADR) | | 3. your personal tolerance for particles. | | 4. (unstated in the OP) your tolerance for noise level. | | Ikea arrives at that size through some form of that math, but | if you live in a less polluted area, have a well sealed home, | or just have a higher tolerance then it could absolutely be | suitable for a larger room. | | You can buy air quality sensors to test this or purchase a | purifier with one built in, such as the Starkvind from Ikea. it | can automatically adjust the speed to satisfy some level of | pm2.5 particles (I'm not sure what that level is because I | don't have it connected to anything smart). I have this in my | bedroom and find that the vast majority of the time it stays on | setting 1 or 2. | dubswithus wrote: | Levoit seems to be recommended by /r/AirPurifiers/ | | https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VVK39F7/ | | The replacement filters are quite expensive though. | pkulak wrote: | I've been super happy with my Winnex and Coway. Pretty sure | they are the ones that Wirecutter likes as well. The Levoits | just don't seem to move much air. I like big, quiet fans that | move lot's of air. | reaperducer wrote: | I don't recommend Levoit. | | I've had two of the very expensive ones die in the last year. | Both the same kind of death where the software gets confused | and it does not respond to any commands and won't boot. | | Crazy that we live in an age where a fan+filter+sensor needs to | boot an operating system. | mthoms wrote: | I've got a Blue Air 211+ and am pretty happy with it. I have | extraordinarily bad seasonal allergies. | | Well, I'm happy except the fact that the filters have gone up | in price by 40% in the past year. I suspect this must be | standard industry practice; launch a new purifier and price the | filters at (near) cost. Once all the reviews have been written | and the initial sales start to trail off, raise the filter | price considerably. | | Luckily there are knockoff filters. | latchkey wrote: | While we are recommending filters, I absolutely love my Mila. | Their best filter is about $100 and about once a year. I put | the sock on there and clean that regularly and I suspect that | makes the filter last a lot longer. | Spooky23 wrote: | The best air purifier is a $20 Lasco box fan with a 3M square | furnace filter duct taped to it. | | You can vary the cost and filtration ability based on the filter. | A super duper filter is like $35, and a midrange is about $20. | bitlax wrote: | Step it up to a comparetto. | | https://youtu.be/Y7eL2OAnqc8 | Mister_Snuggles wrote: | I've got this setup to deal with cat litter dust. It works very | well for that purpose and the filters are cheap (I get the | cheapest one that's not see-through, <$10CAD I think). | | That said, it's very loud even at the lowest setting. It's not | something you want to share a room with. I use my home | automation stuff to only run it when required, based on a | motion detector at the litter boxes. | s0rce wrote: | Box fan is too loud even on the lowest settings, good when the | air quality is horrible but not for general use, imho. | hypersoar wrote: | The Wirecutter is a highly flawed review site, but at least it's | a real one. There are vanishingly few left for general consumer | products. There's WC, Consumer Reports, and what else? They've | seem to have all been killed off. When I'm researching some | category of product, I feel lucky if I find any professional | reviews written by people who have actually touched the thing | they're reviewing. I know we've all had the experience googling | "reviews of X" only to get overwhelmed with SEO spam. Forget | finding something written by somebody who has experience with it. | It's hard enough to find something written by a _human_. | allenu wrote: | > I feel lucky if I find any professional reviews written by | people who have actually touched the thing they're reviewing | | I would say even Wirecutter doesn't always do this. I recall | doing research on some products before and encountering a | Wirecutter article and the research was essentially just what | they themselves pieced together from online sources. They | didn't actually try any of the products themselves (they | admitted as much in the article). It was very strange and very | disappointing. | aiisjustanif wrote: | I'm going to dissent here on this thread because I'm not | seeing any references. I personally feel the quality of | Wirecutter has gone down since NY Times just a bit. However, | after almost a decade of reading Wirecutter they have | overwhelming provided a decent "why you should trust us" | section for staple consumer items. There is a good example | from just today. [1] You can always say they should do more, | but honestly they do more research that many others in the | space. | | [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-air- | conditio... | criddell wrote: | I'd love for Tim Heffernan of Wirecutter to respond to this | article. It seems pretty damning and I think it hurts his | credibility. | charlie0 wrote: | In general, when a company gets bought out, quality tends | to drop. Maybe not immediately, but definitely with time. | The new owners have to make back their money and they'll | start to cut corners wherever they can. These cuts, even if | small, eventually have a negative impact. | | I've lost a lot of faith in Wirecutter after NYT bought | them out. This is my own very subjective feel on the topic | and this article has vindicated my feelings. | Majromax wrote: | > In general, when a company gets bought out, quality | tends to drop. | | I think you can simplify that to "in general, quality | tends to drop." | | It isn't malicious; it's reversion to the mean. An | organization's reputation comes from its high-water mark | of making the most impact and having the widest reach, | and being solidly average after that looks like a step | back. | | This correlates to buyouts because would-be corporate | parents (obviously and understandably) want to associate | themselves with the prestigious up-and-comer. | | However, replacement-level output doesn't compare to the | historic highs. This is made more visible because the | buyout acts as a nice "before/after" marker even if it | has no structural impact, and it remains in the public | eye because a high-profile corporate overlord can't let | their new acquisition fade into obscurity. | | See also the results of Electronic Arts' independent | studio buyouts, where they buy out a developer at the top | of their game only to see quality fade _before_ corporate | meddling sets in. | wgjordan wrote: | >> They didn't actually try any of the products themselves | (they admitted as much in the article). | | > I'm going to dissent here on this thread because I'm not | seeing any references. | | OK, here's one such reference in "The Best Baby Formula" | [1]: | | > We didn't do any testing for this guide, because babies | have minds of their own, and it would be impossible to | control for all of the variables that might make a baby | prefer one formula over another. | | Now there might be various reasons why actually testing the | product is difficult or unnecessary to produce a helpful, | well-researched review article, but there are definitely | examples of this. | | [1] https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-baby- | formula... | xapata wrote: | Testing is different from research. | tobylane wrote: | That seems justified. (IMO I'd want a review of the | ingredients, then it's up to my kid to prefer flavours.) | That choice isn't related to the choices for products for | adults, which is what we care about. | wgjordan wrote: | The only point was to confirm that Wirecutter doesn't | always actually test all of the products they review, | regardless of whether it's (arguably) justified in each | individual case. | aylons wrote: | This actually speaks a lot in favor of Wirecutter. I wish | more guides would be upfront about limitations like this | and this is a very reasonable justification. | inferiorhuman wrote: | "Why you should trust us" or not, I take issue with | Wirecutter specifically with their air purifier reviews. | They've continued to recommend Blueair and Coway despite | being faced with complaints. I don't care why Wirecutter | claims you should trust them but I do care when they just | stick their head in the ground WRT feedback. | astura wrote: | Is Tom's Hardware still around? | | Personally, I don't trust reviews unless I personally know the | reviewer. Too much garbage out there. | msbarnett wrote: | Yeah but it's little more than an SEO farm these days. | ethbr0 wrote: | They sold the property in 2007. It's not the worst now, but | it's certainly no longer the most editorially-independent. | bombcar wrote: | ServeTheHome does some review-like stuff, but its not | entirely detailed though they do actually run the hardware | and measure things like noise, power, etc. | bayindirh wrote: | There is also Rtings (https://www.rtings.com). | SmellTheGlove wrote: | I wish rtings had a Boolean on tvs so we could search | explicitly for non smart models. That is basically the only | thing else I'd want from that site, it's really good. | mschild wrote: | I think the main problem is probably finding any mainstream | consumer TVs that are non-smart. I have looked and beyond | some obscure brands or short of incredibly expensive | commercial models there are barely any options. | applecrazy wrote: | Any TV is stupid if you don't connect it to the Internet. | plushpuffin wrote: | I haven't bought a TV in about ten years and I've started | shopping recently, knowing I'll probably have to get one | soon. What I'm interested in, knowing I'll probably have | to do this (smart TV with no internet), is what the out- | of-box experience is without internet. | | Will it have preloaded ads that will never change because | it can't download new ones? Will there be huge gray boxes | where the ads should be in the UI? Will it try to connect | to open WiFi or use HDMI to share my streaming box's | internet connection? Will it nag me with an alert box in | the middle of the screen asking me to connect it? Will it | disable features if I don't give it internet access? Will | there be bugs and performance problems requiring me to | update the firmware, and if I do, will that firmware | update introduce any of the above? | duskwuff wrote: | Even if the "smart" features of a TV are rendered | nonfunctional by not giving it a network connection, | you're still stuck with a TV that takes a while to boot | up (yes, really), and which may be built around a UI | designed to navigate its smart features (like booting to | a home screen instead of passing through HDMI input). | epolanski wrote: | I've never seen a recent mid budged tv take longer than 4 | seconds to boot | duskwuff wrote: | I have a Sceptre TV from a few years ago that takes about | 15 seconds from power-on to even display a boot screen. | It takes another 10 seconds or so after that to actually | become usable. | | Maybe it's just an outlier? It's certainly slow, though. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | My tb takes 40 seconds from click8ng power button untill | even HDMI input works. The smart features take another | minute. | baq wrote: | Look for digital signage displays and be prepared to pay | double the price. | mwt wrote: | I'm with you, but I wonder if this is the sort of "only | people on this site care and the vast majority of the | readership wouldn't use it" thing ... I'm not sure it is, | but it could be, and I wonder if somebody with their ear to | the ground/access to more analytics knows. | mrandish wrote: | Yes, for the things they cover Rtings is excellent. | ethbr0 wrote: | On the topic of displays, and specifically monitors, also the | excellent TFT Central ( http://tftcentral.co.uk/ ). | permo-w wrote: | in the UK, there's _Which?_ , which is pretty good | Splendor wrote: | For synthesizers and other music gear, there's loopop on | YouTube. His reviews are so in-depth that they can often | function as replacements for the product's user manual. | | https://www.youtube.com/c/loopop | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | I've always enjoyed Marques Brownlee (MKBHD)[0]. | | He's made a pretty lucrative career of great reviews, without | selling his soul. | | [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/marquesbrownlee | ferongr wrote: | MKBHD is good for entertainment purposes only. | ReaLNero wrote: | He's great at getting there first with the unboxing or review | with insane visuals and editing, but the content itself is | very lacking. He's very heavily biased towards Apple devices, | and doesn't dig deep at a technical level, preferring more | subjective judgements which are difficult to compare across | devices. I don't find his advice any more objective than a | Reddit comment. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | I tend to use reviews as a "try this door" kind of thing, | and do my own research. Probably the most awesome review | site that I used to rely on was DPReview[0]. I haven't | really looked at that site, in the last five years, but | they used to be absolutely top-shelf, and full of geek | value. | | I tend to be heavily Apple-biased, myself (I write native | Swift software for Apple devices). Other sites tend to be | heavily biased towards Intel/AMD (usually gaming review | sites). | | [0] https://dpreview.com | nexus7556 wrote: | I think he is entertaining, but I don't find his reviews | critical enough. He typically reads off a spec sheet and | shares subjective opinions of just a few days of use. I need | deeper, more critical reviews | bombcar wrote: | Toolguyd reviews tools and is open about where he gets them and | when he's in a sponsorship relationship: | https://toolguyd.com/category/tool-reviews/ | | But it's not all tools and often aren't super detailed. | | AvE also reviews tools in slightly unorthodox ways: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztpWsuUItrA&list=PLvgS71fU12... | | Terry Love has toilets: https://www.terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm | KennyBlanken wrote: | Being open about when you are in a sponsorship "relationship" | is not something that earns you an internet cookie, _it 's | required by the FCC_ | https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/sponsorship- | identificat... | bombcar wrote: | You would be surprisingly sad to learn the number who do | _not_ even attempt to do this, and the "marketers" that | encourage it. | syedkarim wrote: | Those FCC regulations are for broadcasters. | anamexis wrote: | No they're not: https://www.ftc.gov/business- | guidance/resources/disclosures-... | | Whoops, missed FCC vs FTC. Anyways, there are similar | regulations from the FTC. | lifeisstillgood wrote: | I actually subscribe to _Which_ a UK consumer reports guide. | And mostly it 's kind of like subscribing to the Guardian | newspaper - putting a few quid where my shrivelled liberal | conscience used to sit. | | Oddly there is a episode on this on BBC podcast - | https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-bottom-line/id2643... | | This podcast is not the best (it's often too lightweight and | too frightened to dig deep, or the format is wrong or | something). But anyway this week was particularly terrible - | hardly any teeth at all. But in amoung at all the annoying self | serving justifications of the guests, it did try to raise the | fundamental problem - truth, trust, and a sea of opinions, | mendacious or not. How do we deal with it all? | gerdesj wrote: | "I actually subscribe to Which a UK consumer reports guide." | | I used to too, for quite a few years. | | However, their IT related reviews boiled down to "Windows PC: | Good, Apple: Pretty, Linux and Open Source: Not on my watch". | A Consumer Forum "for good" completely ignores Open Source - | why? Personally I think it is down to a lack of imagination | rather than anything politically motivated. | | I did find many of their reviews useful - you get some great | details on their working and they spend a decent amount of | time on reviewing non IT stuff. The content articles were | also often very decent, well written and often thought | provoking. Their consumer campaigning has got as far as | making changes to Laws too in the past so I do think _Which_ | is a general force for good. | | I just got pissed off that as soon as a laptop or desktop or | software article came along, the usual turgid crap would come | out. Perhaps this has improved since around 2015 when I | ditched them after being a subscriber for over 10 years. | wly_cdgr wrote: | I think all the good reviewers have moved to YT | elbigbad wrote: | Outdoor Gear Lab is another good one for outdoor gear. Actual | things reviewed by real people, though perhaps flawed in the | same way as wire cutter. At least it's real people putting the | products through the paces in real use cases. | | https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/ | wgd wrote: | Regarding "reviews written by people who have actually touched | the thing they're reviewing", I'm not sure Consumer Reports | deserves to be listed these days either. | | I bought a subscription a few months ago because I needed to | buy several large appliances for my home, but all I found | behind that paywall curtain was computer-generated tables of | star ratings and statistics about mechanical reliability. Which | is probably useful to somebody, but isn't something I found | valuable. | | I ended up ignoring CR's data tables, cancelling my | subscription, and buying the same models of appliances my | parents have because at least I could try those out in person | and verify that they worked decently well without any glaring | flaws. | thechao wrote: | I have a service tech for appliances. I just ask him what I | should buy. He usually has suggestions from all the cost- | ranges. Sometimes, I buy used through him (built-in fridge); | sometimes I buy new. Since I had the opportunity to buy a | bunch of equipment this year (a _huge_ power surge from my | HVAC fried appliances, and bad luck): | | Built in fridge: GE monogram; | | Dish washer: anything that is quiet (below 42 dB); | | Dryer: anything with turn-timers; and, | | HVAC: American Standard. | watersb wrote: | Clothes washer: Staber | | My repair guy would bring other techs over to my house to | see our Staber washing machine. Nothing else comes close. | | https://www.staber.com | ethbr0 wrote: | So much this. Find someone who does a lot of residential | repairs of X. Ask a few of them for recommendations, | specifically on what not to buy. | | As the Farmer's Insurance jingle goes, "They know a thing, | because they've seen a thing." | | Every service tech I've ever asked has immediately had a | "Never buy {popular brand}, because they all {have shoddy | part | catastrophic design error}." | | And it's night and day between what service techs all know | vs what even the most detailed internet sleuthing would | give you, because they actually see a representative sample | size. | selykg wrote: | My library has a subscription to consumer reports, don't have | to pay for it. I only bring this up because you said you paid | for it. Worth checking if you have some local resource that | has a subscription already. | bombcar wrote: | I've noticed a tendency for them to review spec sheets; the | whole point of a reviewer should be to do the in-depth | checking and verification that I _cannot_ do. I want someone | to speak to how long the model has been sold, parts | availability, repairability, etc. | | Some of this can't be entirely determined until years after | the product is released but you can check the company. | | As for me, I went with SpeedQueen for the washer/dryer and | wish I could find an equivalent company for refrigerators, | but I basically consider those disposable. | lozenge wrote: | I found similar at the UK take, Which. Everything is boiled | down to star ratings and then Mail Merge creates the review | text. | | Apparently, each air purifier which can handle a large room | is big, heavy and loud. And the air purifiers that score | highly on being quiet have the downside that they can only | handle small rooms. Oh, and they did measure the CADR, and | will tell you that "this air purifier scored five stars on | our CADR test". | rkagerer wrote: | For air purifiers, if cost is no constraint, my IQAir GC | has worked like a champ. The lower three speeds are | reasonably quiet, and speed 6 cleans out the room in no | time when my partner burns the cooking. Comes with a 10 | year warranty. | jfim wrote: | Keep in mind air purifiers are just a fan with filters in | front of it. A box fan with a furnace filter strapped to | it, while ugly, will do similarly for reducing the amount | of particles in the room. | | What you're paying for is basically three things: a | design that looks acceptable in a room, a fan that's | reasonably quiet, and ability to source filters in the | future. | rkagerer wrote: | Check, check and check. And also a filter quality and | seal design that's been tested and proven to work (they | do a QA particulate test on each individual unit before | it ships https://imgur.com/a/exTrjU7). | nextos wrote: | IQAir are really good. My only complaint is that they are | expensive and that their fan uses too much energy. | | I wish they would release a smaller machine that was a | bit cheaper and could compete in price and energy usage | with mid-sized Coway models. | prvit wrote: | I have a few, just wish I could link them with an air | quality sensor. | darzu wrote: | YouTube or google site:reddit.com usually yields the best | actual human reviews for me. | | Or specific categories like America's Test Kitchen for kitchen | stuff. | AussieWog93 wrote: | 100% this. YouTube's fantastic for real reviews. | idoh wrote: | site:reddit.com works and I use it often. But I do wonder how | long it will be until reddit starts to get gamed as well (if | it isn't already). | kettleballroll wrote: | It regularly gets gamed very hard. You can sell old high | karma accounts for quite a lot of money, because those are | best for such things. It's also a thin line between | astroturfing and fill on spamming products. But I have no | doubts that some reviews on Reddit are payed for. | KoftaBob wrote: | > You can sell old high karma accounts for quite a lot of | money, because those are best for such things. | | Why is the accounts karma important for something like | that? Does the Reddit algorithm favor high karma accounts | when deciding what posts to rank higher? | idoh wrote: | Just speculating, but if you create a new account and | then spam some positive reviews people will notice and | downvote / get you banned from the sub-reddit. If you | have some built up history it looks more legit to the | other community members. | ssully wrote: | I wouldn't use Reddit for anything but general product usage | information. You can get some honest reviews from Reddit | users, but I find a lot of it is people justifying their | purchase instead of honest feedback. | OrwellianChild wrote: | Just going to throw out https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/ as a | solid option for the climbing, hiking, and outdoor sport | equipment they review. Most reviews involve real-world | subjective testing, which is really what you need when you're | trying to figure out whether a jacket is warm or a rain shell | keeps you dry, etc. | GloriousKoji wrote: | I haven't trusted them for years, their testing is too | subjective and the "objective" tests aren't considering the | right things. | | For example I bought hiking boots based on their | recommendation. They were the most comfortable hiking boots | I've ever worn but their terrible traction literally nearly | got me killed despite their claims of having excellent | traction. I angrily returned those boots. | | I also bought a backpack based on their recommendation. They | have this volume test filling a backpack with pingpong balls. | It sounded like a great objective test in theory and my new | pack had a higher volume than my old pack but I couldn't fit | everything into it as the shape changed too much with a | sleeping back and bear can in it reducing usable volume. | | Finally I gave up on them when I was looking to buy a new | headlamp. They ranked a headlamp lower because it's battery | life was less than all the other headlamps being tested. But | that headlamp max brightness was 3x the lumens of the other, | batter life should have been tested at a comparable | brightness level. | charlie0 wrote: | I like this site as well. I trust them because I feel they | are upfront with the level of subjectivity they are | introducing. Also, it seems they at least buy and try out the | gear. | onemiketwelve wrote: | These guys were the first thing I thought of but to be honest | for me, their suggestions have been a bit off. Ofc it's all | subjective but I remember distinctly buying two full face | helmets they had on their list because their ratings were so | different from the concensus from reviews. I could'nt tell | who to trust. The gearlab suggestion was very obviously | inferior beyond first impressions | s0rce wrote: | I like to read their subjective discussions as one point of | view but its really hard to get much use from their rankings. | One obvious example is at one point in time all their highest | ranked ultralight sleeping bags were quilts (ie. open back, | no zippers) and then all of a sudden the quilts dropped to | the bottom and were replaced with more traditional zip up | bags. I assume the reviewer changed and simply doesn't like | quilts, which is totally reasonable, they don't work for | everyone but it wasn't clear how the rankings are useful when | they just shuffled so drastically. | OrwellianChild wrote: | Agreed on the challenges with subjectivity and I probably | should have clarified - I like their full-length | testimonials. Never did figure out how their star rating | and badges worked... | mrkwse wrote: | It will be interesting if LMG can pull off what Linus is aiming | for with the massive investment in a laboratory environment. | There are huge parts of the tech market where the most critical | reviewing you can find is anecdotal accounts of if the reviewer | liked a product or not (or the more clinical reviews are | drowned out by the anecdotal noise). | donmcronald wrote: | I think the review industry is so bad that even a mediocre | quality endeavor could gain a ton of traction. The problem | with the current tech review industry IMO is that it seems | like the benchmarking and review part of it are treated like | separate business units that need to be self sustaining / | profitable. | | If you go by what LMG says on their podcast it sounds like | the intent is for the lab to give them credibility and to act | as an eyeball funnel, even if it needs to be subsidized by | the entertainment side of the business. They've already shown | that it's possible to make entertaining reviews if you keep | the technical details light, so what they really need is hard | data to back them up when they trash a product or get accused | of being a corporate puppet. | | I personally find their videos to be entertaining, so if I'm | looking to buy something and I know they evaluate tech | products, I'll go to their labs site, look for entertainment | videos that are produced from that data, and watch those | videos. Then when I find something I think looks like a good | fit for me I'll jump back to the labs side to look at the | details. | | IMO the thing that might make LMG's effort different is that | they're going into the space as a new participant. I think | they realize the technical aspect of the lab is basically | going to be content that needs to exist, but that no one | reads (enough to be profitable) and their monetization is set | up to accommodate that scenario. Compare that to traditional | reviewers (and SEO spammers) that rely on page views for | their revenue. | | The whole review industry is going to keep shifting towards | video and the low cost, low value SEO spam sites are a big | part of that. Any existing review businesses that aren't | shifting towards a hybrid model like the LMG / Labs plan are | going to get crushed IMO. Even if it's not LMG doing it, it's | going to happen eventually. | fartcannon wrote: | Do you trust Linus, though? He often promotes himself as | without bias, but he very clearly hates Apple (except the | watch). He also loves things he already understands (anything | Microsoft). He's got heavy duty fanboyitis. And he's clearly | someone you can buy demonstrated by his flip flopping | AMD/Intel/NVidia praise. | | I don't think he outwardly lies (at least not in a way that | matters), or anything, but he's got pretty good soft selling | skills which he definitely uses for evil/to make money. | | All LMG channels are great. But to me anyways, they're great | because they're basically comedies. | teh_klev wrote: | > And he's clearly someone you can buy demonstrated by his | flip flopping AMD/Intel/NVidia praise. | | He gives praise where praise is due, that isn't bias. Many | times on the WAN show he's reminded viewers and especially | Red/Green/Blue fanboys that none of these companies are | your friend. And big deal if he's more productive using | Windows than Linux. | | I'm in no way defending Linus, there's a bunch of stuff him | and another staffer get up to that's utterly cringeworthy. | But as to the rest of your comment I think it's your own | biases that are playing in your head. | p1necone wrote: | > flip flopping AMD/Intel/NVidia praise | | This is a silly take. Tech evolves and companies release | more than one product at a time. It would be weird if LTT | /didn't/ have "flip-flopping" takes on various companies. | p1necone wrote: | Not having bias doesn't mean not having an opinion on | things. It's a review channel, it doesn't work unless he | "likes" some things and "hates" others, as long as he | elaborates on the /reasons/ for those opinions. | fartcannon wrote: | Well, no, it would work way better if he had no bias. | Otherwise you have to trust that he's aware of his bias | and is somehow capable of separating his opinion from | reality. Otherwise how does it help anyone make a | financial choice? | | I like the show(s). They're fun. But I don't use them to | determine which CPU to buy or whatever. Their opinion | changes depending on who is sponsoring them, no? | crummy wrote: | Are there reviewers you would recommend without any | biases at all? | fnimick wrote: | He's also vocally anti-union and actively tried to stop his | employees from marketing themselves on personal social | media (to stop them from building a following and then | leaving, I'm guessing), so I refuse to watch any of his | content or support his business in any way now. | junkieradio wrote: | I watch one of his employees stream on twitch, I found | out about his channel from a Linus tech tips video, I | don't think your second claim is all that true. | fartcannon wrote: | I googled it and there's this. I'm not sure if it's what | OP is talking about or not. Here you go: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bTHSwBZVNI | nighthawk454 wrote: | a lot of LMG employees have personal social media and | either YouTube or Twitch streams, often getting viewers | from fans of their persona on LMG videos. I think the | issue is only with competing content and/or leveraging | the LMG platform. For example, if an employee started a | GPU review channel and called it out in an LMG video, | like ok yeah probably not. More like non-compete than | some draconian restrictions | normaler wrote: | Can you elaborate in the anti-union thing? I can't seem | to find anyone discussing this. | rhyzomatic wrote: | Do you mind sharing some links to back up these claims? | | Just watched a video [0] where he clearly comes across as | being pro workers rights, and against passing prop 22 in | California. He seems to be generally pro-union while | still trying to point out some general issues with them. | He also says he would be "offended" if his employees | unionized at LMG, which while maybe is a bit stupid to | say, I don't think counts as anti-union. | | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpyiNOD-MOk | bradlys wrote: | People should also understand why he said he would be | offended. He would be offended because it meant they | didn't talk to him and work with him - and that he did | such a bad job as a manager that they decided to | unionize. | | He's pro-union - he just hopes he is a good enough boss | that his employees don't feel like they need to unionize. | He clarified his viewpoint in later videos. Offended was | probably not the best choice of word - and he admits that | too. I don't recall the video but someone can find it. | (I'm on mobile and on vacation - idk why I'm even here) | fartcannon wrote: | Ah, that's pretty brutal. Thanks for the information I | will keep that in mind. Seems less funny now. :/ | armadsen wrote: | I know this is completely subjective, and his millions of | subscribers tell me my opinion is far from ubiquitous, | but he's also just straight up obnoxious to me. One of | those people whose voice, demeanor, appearance, | everything, just immediately turns me off. | Dracophoenix wrote: | Because he sounds like the stereotype of a Hot Topic- | shopping turbonerd c.2002? Personally, I find it | nostalgic, and even endearing. | girvo wrote: | I find his semi-rare discussions of 2000s tech nostalgic. | | Yes sir, very Atomic. I miss that era. | p1necone wrote: | Yeah it's kinda awesome to me too. I want to travel back | in time and go to a lan party with 16 year old Linus. | fartcannon wrote: | Hah! I think I _was_ that guy. :/ | | .. I still might be. | cush wrote: | Phones and anything Apple are reviewed to oblivion. There are | some incredible consumer product review YouTube channels out | there too.. The Best one imo is project farm | (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vO3UX4oEnZI). If you're into | headphones, Crinacle's site/YT are on a completely different | level than any other review site | | I really hope LMG does videos in these styles with their lab | jterrys wrote: | Project Farm is pretty great. Got great advice for water | filters, car wax, and drills | | There really are brands out there that charge 200% more for | a shittier product to just get carried by brand recognition | alone. | manchmalscott wrote: | I believe their intention with the lab is to focus more on | written articles instead of video content? He's complained | on his podcast (in the context of talking about the lab) | about the decrease in quality print journalism in the tech | space. | Smoosh wrote: | I would also recommend The Torque Test Channel as very | similar in approach to Project Farm. | | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZem9C5rWjSb0B8tV3k2EZg | McAtNite wrote: | It will be nice if they do come up with an experiment based | approach to reviews. Personally I really enjoy Gamer Nexus | since they already do this. | | Their coverage of the Nvidia cooler design change was really | interesting to watch, and they went into depth on their | testing methodology with both its strengths and weaknesses. | | Their channel really convinced me to take a more critical | look at other "reviews" and how they conduct them with either | lazily held thermal camera or smoke machines. | unwind wrote: | Just in case not everyone are in the loop, LMG is Linus Media | Group [1] which is the publishing agency behind the popular | YouTube channel "Linus Tech Tips" [2]. It is a different | Linus, not Torvalds. :) | | [1]: https://linusmediagroup.com/ | | [2]: https://www.youtube.com/c/LinusTechTips | kitsunesoba wrote: | I'm hopeful for LMG's lab too. It's still a bit of a gamble, | but from the sound of it the company is set up such that they | can review products in an objective, data-backed way and tank | any blowback from manufacturers that occurs as a result. | | It's much more focused on enthusiast computer hardware, but | Gamers Nexus[0] is doing good things in this space too. Their | style is much more dry and data-dense than LMG's though, | which isn't everybody's cup of tea. | | [0]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChIs72whgZI9w6d6FhwGGHA | girvo wrote: | While they don't focus on the same equipment, Hardware | Unboxed scratches that data-dense itch for monitors, | processors and other components. | Brakenshire wrote: | https://www.notebookcheck.net/ also seems to do a lot of | their own testing. | hansword wrote: | I want to second the gamers nexus recommendation here. | | (To be frank, I think LMG labs is very much inspired by | what GN has been doing over the last year or two.) | ajolly wrote: | For detailed tech reviews with lots of data of really been | enjoying Igor'slab from Germany lately | wincy wrote: | I'm curious about this too. He did a breakdown of how much | money they get from ads and it's not much considering how | many employees they have. They have a lot of sponsorships and | selling swag but I'm just not sure what their maximum size is | as just another YouTube channel, even one with lots of | revenue streams. | AussieWog93 wrote: | Honestly, I think Linus has reached the point where even if | his endeavour fails his family will be OK. Plus, he'd get | to spend more time with them. | fnimick wrote: | Dude literally has a brand new house where he wrote off | all the renovation as business expense as he was filming | it for his channel. He's totally fine. | malermeister wrote: | If you happen to speak German, Stiftung Warentest is great and | reviews a wide range of stuff. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest | nojs wrote: | Depends how you define "real". It's a standard issue affiliate | marketing site that recommends products according to deals they | have with manufacturers: https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter- | standing-desk-review-pay-to... | dangus wrote: | The worst part about Consumer Reports is that they barely test | anything. | | They're only useful for a specific set of popular products. | | There are too many categories where the content says "sorry, we | stopped testing this category, this information is old." | guelo wrote: | It's a real shame Consumer Reports were so bad at transitioning | from their 20th century business model to the online era. We | really need non-commercially funded reviews but it feels like | CR is barely functioning anymore. | a_f wrote: | gamersnexus for pc gaming hardwear is another | throw0101a wrote: | > _The Wirecutter is a highly flawed review site, but at least | it 's a real one. There are vanishingly few left for general | consumer products. There's WC, Consumer Reports, and what | else?_ | | I like America's Test Kitchen for kitchen-y stuff. | | Project Farm (on YouTube) for tools / DIY stuff perhaps. | zucked wrote: | ATK is, as far as I am concerned, the gold standard for | kitchen reviews. | yurishimo wrote: | And they include best picks that have actually been tested | if you might not be able to afford the number 1. So many | channels might make a passing comment about a cheaper | option, but you never know if the quality is kind of close | or just the best option for them to make some affiliate | revenue off of. At least ATK has the pedigree to backup | their testing claims and anecdotal evidence. Their best | pick spatula for example, I've seen in every commercial | kitchen I've worked in. | birdman3131 wrote: | I like a lot of project farm's videos but his electrical tape | video was far off the mark of what actually matters. They | were good tests for tape but bad tests for Electrical tape. | TheCraiggers wrote: | Fair, and I'd also say that many of the tests he does could | really use more data points. For example, testing torque | using bolts- I've had a few bad bolts in my life that were | weaker than they should have been. I really hope he does | that but edits it out. | | However, I would say that's the price you pay for an | independent reviewer these days. He's (presumably) not | simply reading a carefully prepared script by the vendor. | That he actually pays for all the things he reviews is | astonishing. Likewise, I'll forgive him the occasional bad | video. | | Speaking of, in the electrical tape video you mention, he | tests for things he cares about. Presumably you would have | want him to test resistance I presume? I would think so | too, but in doing some research while responding to your | post, that doesn't seem what anybody actually cares about. | Most tapes advertise heat resistance only. I can't actually | find a mention of tape in the NFPA, aside from checking it | for heat-damage, which makes sense as in house wiring you | would be using wirenuts, not tape to actually bridge and | insulate connections. | | Frankly, I can't think of a single time I've ever cared | about it being an insulator since I was a kid hacking | together batteries and wires. All that said, on second | thought, I guess his video is fine after all; in my book, | at least. | [deleted] | callahad wrote: | In the UK, https://www.which.co.uk/ fills a similar niche to | Consumer Reports. | pbhjpbhj wrote: | I used to subscribe and they were generally good, but they | made no account of cost. | | So you might have (made up example) an Electrolux vacuum | getting a score of 73, but a Dyson gets a score of 74 and | wins their "recommended buy" then you see the Dyson is, like, | twice the price. | | I can see they might do the review price-blind, but it does | make one suspicious that they get some sort of financial | benefit from having top picks be vastly more expensive | products. | | Useful reviews though. | permo-w wrote: | It is good to be sceptical, but _Which?_ is a charity that | doesn 't take advertising money, and keeps afloat with paid | subscriptions. If it got out that they were taking | kickbacks, even setting aside the probable illegality, | they'd never sell a subscription again. | | It's one thing for some shady website with little to no | reputation to lie about these things, but Which is an old | company whose model is entirely based on trust. | gmac wrote: | Which? annoys me in various ways, but not taking the cost | into account in their ratings is I think actually one of | their better moves. | | In your example, you can see very plainly that the | Electrolux is a much better buy. If they'd included cost in | the rating, you'd probably be left wondering whether the | Dyson was worth the extra. | bityard wrote: | I used to subscribe to Consumer Reports back in the day, and | basically regretted it. They rarely described their testing | methodologies and more often than now, when they did, I | wasn't impressed. Their testing usually just boiled down to | whether or not the specs met the manufacturers claims, not | anything useful like how well it was built and how long it is | likely to last. | viktorcode wrote: | There is Rtings for television, and other specialised sites for | other product categories. I don't think you can stick to any | general review source and consistently get quality reviews. | matthewfcarlson wrote: | I've quite enjoyed rtings.com but they only cover a few | categories. I remember growing up that my grandparents were | huge consumer reports fans | manishsharan wrote: | rtings.com only covers a few categories but they cover those | categories really well and they do a excellent job of testing | those products. | underhill wrote: | I feel like the crowd-sourcing / SEOing / optimization of | reviews on the internet has, for all its benefits, made | everything too noisy and untrustworthy. I know myself and a lot | of other people first search reddit now instead of google | because it's impossible to get anything written by a real | nonbiased human otherwise. | | For similar reasons I've used things like Yelp less and less | and tried to use professionally editorialized reviews (Eater, | The Infatuation, Bon Appetit, etc) for food, well-known travel | sites/bloggers for hotels, etc. There's still some paid | incentives there too obviously but I can at least calibrate it | to how much I align with the publication. | bityard wrote: | Heh. The biggest problem I have with Amazon isn't even the | fake reviews, it's the people who leave reviews and don't | even know what a review is, which is almost all of them. | | "My gadget just arrived today and I haven't even used it yet | but it looks well-made and I'm sure it will last forever. | Five stars!" | closewith wrote: | A five star preview. | ethbr0 wrote: | I (about half-honestly) blame Amazon, and more recently | Google Maps. | | All reviewers are not created equal. | | In the early days before mass-SEO, you at least got the | benefit of most reviewers being authentic, even if inept. | | Now, we have the worst of all possible words: mass fake | reviews + a public trained to expect only amateur-level | reviews. | Scoundreller wrote: | It doesn't help that google has largely de-prioritized | smaller sites. | | For better or for worse, my reviews about banks and their | products have now been replaced by 10 links in a row to | different sub-pages of the bank's domain. | | At least it used to make sure a blog article and a forum | would appear on most search term's top10. | | I get it for my "XYZ Bank's Phone Number - talk to a human | now" pages. They probably shouldn't have out-ranked the | bank's own official site, but the bank's own website was | much less user friendly than my own despite the abuse | potential. | systemvoltage wrote: | I wonder if we can ever have a centralized review site that | also has the subject matter expertise in each area. The future | of in-depth and unbiased reviews is distributed and perhaps | there is a dire need to collect all the scattered reviews on a | central platform. Like a sub stack of product reviews. | okdood64 wrote: | A lot of times, after I get a product, I disagree with the WC | review on many points about a recommended product and have to | end up returning it. That said, I still use it to inform my | purchase decisions. | | Anyways, how specifically is it "highly flawed" though? | tediousdemise wrote: | Consumerlab.com is a paid but excellent resource for obtaining | information about various foods and supplements that we can | find on the shelves. | | Just last night I was eating some of my favorite organic | roasted seaweed from Costco and spit it out half-way when I | read that they are laced with lead, cadmium and arsenic, which | was confirmed by independent third party testing [0]. | | This website has opened my eyes that many foods and supplements | we have access to are deceptively unsafe. | | [0] https://www.consumerlab.com/reviews/seaweed-snacks-and- | foods... | | > All of the products contained the heavy metals lead, cadmium, | and arsenic at levels often exceeding tolerable upper intake | levels. It is no secret that there are heavy metals in seaweed | snacks, in fact, many have warning labels indicating that they | may pose a risk of reproductive harm or cancer (typically due | to lead), as this is a legal requirement for products sold in | California under its Prop 65 law. However, labels don't tell | you how much lead or other heavy metals are present in a | product. We even found that one product without a warning was | more contaminated than one with a warning. Our report shows | exactly how much iodine and heavy metal contamination we found | in each product (see What CL Found). | | Individual concentrations can be found in their product table | for paying customers. The subscription cost is worth more than | its weight in gold. | DeathArrow wrote: | Project Farm is testing a lot of things: | | https://youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm | fartcannon wrote: | I love it. I love the accent, cadence and volume. | dan-robertson wrote: | I watched a few of these a while ago and I can somewhat see | why they're popular as they have this fast-paced data-dump | look-at-all-this-testing format but I didn't really think | they were very good. I thought many of the tests were likely | poor metrics for actual quality and that results would | therefore be misleading. A stupid example would be trying to | measure how much torque a Phillips head screwdriver can apply | before camming out because the point of the screw design is | that screw drivers should cam out at a certain torque (so | better screw drivers shouldn't necessarily let you go | tighter). | mgdlbp wrote: | Re: Phillips drive, it's actually a common misconception | that this was an intentional feature of the design. The | original patent for the driver[1] specifically describes | _resistance_ to "camming out" (seemingly in the modern | sense of the phrase). Omitting some of the verbose context: | | > One of the principal objects of the invention is the | provision of a recess in the head of a screw which is | particularly adapted for firm engagement with a | correspondingly shaped driving tool or screw driver, and in | such a way that there will be no tendency of the driver to | cam out of the recess when united in operative engagement | with each other. (https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/se | arch?q=pn%3DUS20468...) | | And the patent for the drive (I don't know why under patent | law several consecutive patents mostly saying the same | thing had to be filed) uses the word to refer to the | ejection of trapped debris instead of the driver: | | > This same angular formation of both elements is | especially designed to also create what might be termed a | camming action during the approach of these angular faces | toward one another with respect to any substances which | might have become lodged within the recess of the screw. (h | ttps://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search?q=pn%3DUS20468 | ...) | | Edit: Wikipedia notes that a later patent acknowledged the | tendency to cam out and its effect of preventing damage to | screw heads...perhaps meaning that the head would be saved | from snapping off--the drive itself surely isn't! | sgerenser wrote: | I'll also agree that his reviews aren't perfect, but the | one on automotive scratch removers was enlightening. I had | used a random product before that basically did nothing. I | bought Meguiar's ultimate compound on his recommendation, | and it did indeed work surprisingly well (with just hand | polishing, no buffer) on the multitude of surface scratches | as I was preparing a car for resale. | bityard wrote: | It's a myth that Phillips screws designed or intended to | cam out at a certain torque. Not least of all because, the | correct amount of torque varies wildly by application, even | for the same fastener. | | I'll agree that Project Farm's videos can be a little | formulaic and my least favorite thing about the | presentation is that he shouts instead of talks. | | However, he's WAY ahead most YouTube tool reviewers because | he does NOT accept free tools for review, and he puts the | tools to real work, often ending in the destruction of the | tool in order to find its limits. I find his tests to be | very well designed. He only has limited time to test so | many things, but he generally hits the important points. He | goes MUCH farther than any other reviewer I've ever seen | and his home brew-rigs and testing methodology are an order | of magnitude better than anything I've ever seen out of a | "professional" outfit like Consumer Reports. | | The only thing I _wish_ he would add regularly to his | videos is tool teardowns so we can see and compare how | cheaply various tools are made. (Although we all know these | days, they are all made like crap due to the race to the | bottom.) | mattacular wrote: | Consumer Reports used to be good but it seems to have gone | through change in management or something because now it is | indistinguishable from the avg SEO spam site. | [deleted] | technothrasher wrote: | I gave up on Consumer Reports many, many years ago when they | got caught taking kickbacks from tire manufacturers. | dredmorbius wrote: | Please provide a source for your claim. | bryanlarsen wrote: | That's a very serious accusation that I don't believe and | Google can't find. | geekamongus wrote: | CNN Underscored is trying to be a competitor with legit | reviews, as I understand it, but it still feels a little | "affiliaty," if you will. (Disclaimer: I work for CNN Digital). | inferiorhuman wrote: | Wirecutter is exceptionally "affiliaty". | olivermarks wrote: | >'The Wirecutter is a highly flawed review site, but at least | it's a real one.' Since it was bought by the NYT company I no | longer trust their quality. This great air filter contra | article is a great example and I appreciate the link and the | person who took the time to write it | tuna-piano wrote: | rtings.com has great reviews for electronics, measuring | detailed metrics and putting them through various tests. (for | example, their AirPods Pro review: | https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/apple/airpods- | pro-...) | | Outdoor Gear Lab for outdoor product reviews: | https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/topics/camping-and-hiking/bes... | oezi wrote: | The German consumer reports are also quite good: www.test.de | | In many countries there are similar consumer reports | organizations. | iancmceachern wrote: | It's not a review site, but the YouTube channel "project farm" | is this. He not only has great objective comparison reviews but | he shares his test setup, results and data so its clear its a | great objective review. | jonahhorowitz wrote: | Since some are throwing out good, more specific, gear tests. | I'd like to throw out Baby Gear Lab | (https://www.babygearlab.com) if you need baby stuff. They're | way better than the Wirecutter because they're run by experts | in baby gear. (I'm not affiliated in any way, but I'm a new | parent that found it super useful.) | edgefield wrote: | rtings.com is very good for certain types of products like TVs, | headphones, etc. | srhngpr wrote: | Definitely trust rtings. They buy every product in store to | do their testing. | Night_Thastus wrote: | Agreed, minus the headphones. Their headphone reviews are a | joke. It's also worth noting some products have a lot of | variation due to poor QC (PC monitors) and they may get an | unusually good/bad unit from time to time, skewing the | review. | jorvi wrote: | For headphones I just use Crinacle. It's served me well so | far. | | For other stuff, I usually check Wirecutter and cross- | reference it with Reddit reviews. | | I also have noticed that Wirecutter seems.. less | qualitative (?) since they got bought by The NY Times. | ethbr0 wrote: | Also on headphones, head-fi ( https://www.head-fi.org/ ). | ferongr wrote: | Nope. Head-fi is audiowoo fairy land. Members generally | loathe scientific testing and subjective, unsubstantiated | claims are regularly made. There's even a cable forum, | that, last time I went there, banned double-blind testing | completely. | Night_Thastus wrote: | I don't like head-fi either, but scientific | testing/measurements are (mostly) worthless. Really, the | only useful test is an in-home trial in my view. If you | like it, buy it. If not, don't. | | Here's a good video detailing some of why: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa1y9JRip68 | noxvilleza wrote: | Crinacle is probably the best, but for headphones I think | it's the kind of thing you actually need to try out | yourselves: the comfort varies so much for people, as | does the preference for different sound signature (and | knowing how well headphones handle when they're EQ'd to | your preferences). | elabajaba wrote: | I trust their measurements, I just don't like how they score | things, and people tend to just use their scores instead of | looking at the pros+cons and measurements. (they weight all | the different subscores, and add them up, so eg. if there was | an excellent monitor except it had a 100:1 contrast ratio, | it'd still get great scores despite having such a huge flaw | that most people would consider it to be essentially | unusable). | | It's really bad for HDR monitors, where an edge lit "fake | HDR" monitor can get a 7, while failing the basics that are | necessary to give a proper HDR experience. Something like | TFTCentral or HardwareUnboxed's HDR checklists, and just | straight up failing monitors that don't meet all the | requirements would be much better than their current (imo | misleading) system that can give good SDR monitors high HDR | scores, when they're terrible at HDR. | bb010g wrote: | Sounds like those basic components should be weighted more | heavily, then? | bryanlarsen wrote: | Not really. If any single category is "good enough" then | the weights are reasonably correct. It's just when a | single category is a deal breaker that the simple metric | of adding them up doesn't work. | throw90259475 wrote: | Agree - they updated the review for Logitech G PRO X WIRELESS | build quality while the SoundGuys still show build quality | 9/10. | wodenokoto wrote: | Does anyone know abut the noise level? My gf brought over her air | purifier and it has this annoying high-pitched buzz. | | I wouldn't mind investing in the Ikea ones if they are tolerable | to listen to. | jackallis wrote: | s/he said they keep "I keep a big powerful purifier in the | kitchen which I turn on as needed" down in conclusion section;i | wonder what that is? | syntaxing wrote: | A bit off tangent, but Blueair purifiers was the only brand where | the output air was 0 PPM2.5 during wildfire season in the Bay | Area (I have the $50 uncalibrated laser PPM sensor that purpleair | uses so interpret this as you want). I tried Dyson, Winix, and | making a V-shape DIY purifier with a vornado fan. Nothing was | able to pull the indoor air below 15 besides Blueair so I | recommend it to any of my family and friends. | garmanarnar wrote: | Which line of Blueair are you using? I use Bluepure and I think | they do a great job, but I don't have any instruments to | measure their efficacy. | syntaxing wrote: | I have the Pure and the classic. The classic is actually | pretty affordable and has a built-in PPM sensor which makes | me lean towards it more than the Pure. | kurizu4444 wrote: | I did a good amount of research and I think the Mila is the | best cost/performance you can get, especially for a non-closet | sized room | | https://milacares.com | jefftk wrote: | As the article explains, unless you're using the purifier to | filter the air coming into a space, small differences in the | purifier output PM2.5 level don't matter. If the output has 99% | lower PM2.5 than the input vs 100% lower, that's dwarfed by all | the existing particles that the output is about to be mixed | back in with. | syntaxing wrote: | The output air of 0 vs 15 ug/m^3 is not negligible | difference, especially when the air outside is 200+ during | wildfires. The reality is, the great output air of Blueair | filter + 350 cfm CADR is a pretty big difference. My indoor | ambient air was about 10-15 ug/m^3 compared to 30-40 using | the other solutions. | jefftk wrote: | The difference between an output of 0 and 15 ug/m^3 with an | input of 200 ug/m^3 is negligible when considering the | performance of the filter in the room. Let's walk it | through, imagining 1000 CF room and a flow rate of 250 CFM, | and comparing something that's 100% effective (0 ug/m^3 | output) vs 92.5% effective (15 ug/m^3 output). | | At t=0 your room has a pm2.5 of 200 ug/m^3. At t=1min it | has filtered 250 CF which is at either 0 or 15 ug/m^3. The | remaining 750 CF is still at 200 ug/m^3. The air in the | room is now either: 100% effective: ( | 0*250 + 200*750)/1000 = 150 ug/m^3 92.5% effective: | (15*250 + 200*750)/1000 = 154 ug/m^3 | | Repeat this 20 times to simulate 20min and the room is at | at 0.6 ug/m^3 in the first case vs 1.1 ug/m^3 for the | second. The absolute difference is never larger than 7 | ug/m^3 (at minute #4), and quickly becomes tiny. | | _> the great output air of Blueair filter + 350 cfm CADR | is a pretty big difference. My indoor ambient air was about | 10-15 ug /m^3 compared to 30-40 using the other solutions._ | | My guess is your other solutions had a much lower flow rate | (and hence a much lower CADR). What are you comparing to? | elif wrote: | This blog post was just too long for the comment box, seemingly | by out of touch armchair Wikipedian. | addicted wrote: | In all it's bluster, this article forgets to add the fact that | the Wirecutter actually tested the IKEA device, and didn't just | go by theoretical specs. | | > Tim tested the Fornuftig in his 200-square-foot spare room, | using the methods described above. But rather than focusing on | its performance on 0.3-micron particles, he noted how well it | removed 3-micron particles from the air. (IKEA confirmed that | this was the appropriate size to look at; it's the closest to | PM2.5 that our TSI AeroTrak particle counter can measure | separately.) The Fornuftig disappointed, even when we considered | that the test room was larger than the machine is meant for, as | it removed just 85.2% of 3-micron particles in 30 minutes on high | and 73.6% in 30 minutes on medium. Its performance on 0.3-micron | particles was, as expected, worse: 64.5% removed on high and | 53.5% on medium. Compared with our budget/small-space pick, the | Levoit Core 300, which removed 97.4% and 92.6%, respectively, of | 0.3-micron particles and virtually all 3-micron particles on the | same settings, that's very poor. | ipsum2 wrote: | This is somewhat addressed in paragraph about steady state. | buildbot wrote: | Errr direct quote from the article: "These tests... are not | credible. | | Take the 3.0-micron tests on medium, where Wirecutter claims | "virtually all" particles were removed. If we take that to mean | 99%, that implies a CADR of 236.2. (The math is below.) That is | 75% higher than the manufacturer's claimed performance on high. | | It also contradicts the Wirecutter's own tests. On a different | page, they tested the same purifier on medium in a (smaller) | 1215 ft3 room and found only 92% of particles were removed. | This implies a (plausible) CADR of just 98.1. | | So we can either (a) accept that the purifier's performance | randomly varies by a factor of more than 2.4 or (b) conclude | that the Wirecutter did an extremely shoddy job of running | these tests." | | Why did you make three separate top level comments on this? | anamexis wrote: | There's a whole section on the Wirecutter's tests, called "On | tests." | fabian2k wrote: | I've never thought about air filters, but the explanation on why | they also filter smaller particles is very similar to size | exclusion chromatography, a very common method used in a biolab. | This is also a method that might appear counter-intuitive at | first. | | The idea there is to separate molecules according to their size. | So you press them through a column of porous beads. Small | molecules can enter these pores, which delays them and they | travel through the column slower than large molecules that cannot | enter them. This is pretty counter-intuitive, especially as other | similar methods work as you'd expect with smaller molecules being | faster to move through the material because they don't bump into | it as much as larger molecules. | thadk wrote: | I have both the Wirecutter pick which I've had for 7-8 years and | the Fornuftig and I stopped using the Fornuftig after 2 months | because it doesn't have a pre-filter and once dirty/filled, it | cannot be recovered without replacing the whole filter. It also | seems weak--the room can remain dusty indefinitely with it on. | The Coway filter is just night-and-day more capable. | | That said, in 2012, IKEA sold an amazing year-long-capacity-no- | maintenance fiberglass German "Flimmer" filter like the ones they | use over-head in their stores to keep products dust-free. That | was incredible but wasn't marketed well and its replacement | filters were discontinued in 2015: | https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/garden/sure-it-purifies-a... | charlie0 wrote: | Legit review sites are pretty much dead. Most of them look and | say exacy the same thing. Almost none of them have any objective | measurements beyond what's stated already from marketing spec | sheets. | | I've still had strong suspicion that even with the ones that do | "objective" measurements are somehow misleading and that | secretly, there are kickbacks for the top rated products. | | I have hope that Linus will bring legitimacy to the review space. | 99_00 wrote: | Would the Ikea filter with gas cleaning help with my stinky | farts? Honest question. | ksherlock wrote: | You can buy activated charcoal underwear or inserts. They're | probably less obvious and more effective than strapping an air | purifier to your derriere. | bscphil wrote: | I'm inclined to debunk this debunking. To be clear, I do think | that Wirecutter has problems. I don't like their practice of | affiliate-linking. I think a review company should avoid even the | "appearance of evil". But more importantly, their practices seem | spotty: they tend to test only a relatively small number of | models, which may not accurately reflect the market. | | But I think this article, while it does present a lot of facts, | is wrong about many of its conclusions. | | On whether the IKEA purifier uses HEPA filters or not: | | > They make a big deal about this, which is weird since "true- | HEPA" has no legal or scientific meaning. Meanwhile, they refer | to the IKEA purifier as using a "PM2.5 filter" which also isn't a | thing. | | According to Wikipedia [1], "Common standards require that a HEPA | air filter must remove--from the air that passes through--at | least 99.95% (ISO, European Standard) or 99.97% (ASME, U.S. DOE) | of particles whose diameter is equal to 0.3 mm, with the | filtration efficiency increasing for particle diameters both less | than and greater than 0.3 mm." | | So that's an "H13" or better to use the terminology of the | article. (The H in the name literally indicates that it's a _high | efficiency_ , or HEPA, filter.) The IKEA filter, according to the | website, is a "99.5%" filter; they claim this "corresponds" to | EPA 12, but Wirecutter's test results (below) may cast doubt on | this. (The author mocks Wirecutter for apparently not doing this | "research".) However, this just proves Wirecutter's point: IKEA's | filters are not HEPA filters, and their pick's filters are. Is | this important? I don't know, but score one for Wirecutter in | getting the terminology right. | | I'm not sure what Wirecutter is trying to say with the "PM2.5" | language, but they may be trying to get across to consumers that | these filters are more akin to a typical filter that you would | get for your residential air conditioning unit. Notably, such | filters are often categorized on the MERV scale, which _does_ use | minimum particle size effectively handled by the filter as a | metric. Regardless, Wirecutter is somewhere between lazy and | misleading on this, and the article is right to point this out. | | I'm no expert in the physics of filters, and it sounds like this | author is not either, but I'm a little skeptical that repeated | applications of a lower efficiency filter are just as good as | applications of a higher efficiency filter. Their charts rest on | the assumption that every pass, a HEPA filter will remove 99.95% | of _remaining_ particles - even though, over time, the particles | that remain in the room are the particles that the filter had | "trouble" catching on previous cycles. So you should expect to | see reduced efficiency on later cycles, I would think. | | Regardless, what would really help is if someone had done some | testing in an actual room. Oh wait, you're telling me Wirecutter | did this?? | | > Even if we accepted all these test results (we don't) that | would just show the Wirecutter pick provides around 3.3 times as | much cleaning per second. | | So, even though nitpicks are in order, Wirecutter's pick costing | $100 vs the $70 IKEA will clean the air 3.3 times as | efficiently?? That seems like a good deal. Even if it uses more | electricity and more expensive filters, I'm not going to want to | purchase 3 units when 1 will do. (This efficiency difference will | obviously extend to large rooms in the same way!) | | > IKEA claims a CADR of 82.4 on high, and 53.0 on medium. So even | taken at face value, this says that IKEA performs a bit above | spec on 3.0-micron particles and a bit below spec on 0.3-micron | particles. | | Uh, sure. The reported result was "CADR 56.3" for 0.3 micron | particles on high. Notably, 0.3 microns is supposed to be the low | point for filters tested according to the standards used for | HEPA. So it's worrying to see IKEA underperform the stated | efficiency by this much at exactly the particle size we most care | about when testing for HEPA. If I had to guess, this is probably | why Wirecutter calls the IKEA filter a "PM2.5" filter: _they are | at or above their stated efficiency for 3 micron particles, and | considerably below it for particles used in testing HEPA | filters_. To my thinking that 's a very important fact that this | article just glosses over. | | At issue here is whether IKEA's claimed 99.5% efficiency, which | this article touts, is only true of PM2.5 or also true for 0.3 | micron particles. IKEA's product page is somewhat confusing and | self-contradictory on this issue (which the article doesn't point | out), but Wirecutter's test results would seem to cast doubt on | the idea that the filter is 99.5% efficient by HEPA standards. | | On costs: point taken, IKEA is cheaper _at the per-unit level_ , | both at point of purchase and throughout its lifespan. But given | the apparent efficiency differences, discussed above, I think | someone going with the Wirecutter pick is not completely | unreasonable. If you want to dispute this result, I think the | only way to do that is to do your own testing (which this article | does not do). | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA | wellthisisgreat wrote: | Wirecutter is just SEO spam and it makes very little sense to | read it at all. You can't even go from the opposite of their | recommendations as it's impossible to know which manufacturers | caved in to their extortionist paid placement model | joshstrange wrote: | Wirecutter has gone to shit and stopped being useful about 3-4 | years ago. Their move to a paid subscription was very odd to me | because they had also lost all my trust by that point. | | There are countless examples of recommends products doing a bait | and switch (changing the materials/product after the wirecutter | article recommending them came out) and just cases of Wirecutter | giving bad recommendations. | bombcar wrote: | > There are countless examples of recommends products doing a | bait and switch | | This is a larger problem than just Wirecutter, it would be | interesting to have an industry trade body or something similar | that would _document_ when material changes have happened to | the same product name /number. Sure, many would be immaterial, | but there are substantial ones that happen all the time (if the | product is big enough to have "fans" they notice and track this | stuff). | istjohn wrote: | The worst is that they've deleted comments calling out bad | recommendations. | watersb wrote: | Am I the only one to be put off by the fact that the value for | filter performance - clean air diffusion rate (CADR) - is stored | in the second value of the list structure? | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_and_CDR ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-20 23:00 UTC)