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.
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).
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. :)
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.
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.
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
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.
The big problem with most YouTube review channels is that they're reliant on the vendors to provide them with free test units and other forms of access in order to grow their channels, and Linus is no exception.
I actually came across a "why I'm shutting down my channel" video a while back in which the host showed emails from the company whose product she was reviewing (it was a drawing tablet or something like that) pressuring her to show the product in a more favorable light.
It's so hard to tell who's actually objective in those review videos and who's censoring themselves at the request of a vendor.
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.
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.
What's the profit model for LMG? Ads? I'm not sure how long that will sustain even a smallish channel with no expenses, let alone electronic testing equipment and products to test.
Gamersnexus has been similarly expanding their capabilities with very expensive fan testing equipment. They seem to be one of the better sources of consumer tech journalism these days.
> 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.
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.
I already mentioned it above, but repeating it here.
I would also recommend The Torque Test Channel as very similar in approach to Project Farm, maybe a bit more technical and thorough. Their focus was on impact drivers, but they have branched out into other power tools, LED lights and hand tools.
Project Farm rules for the types of products he tests, which is pretty narrow.
It seems like the only way to really get a review is to find someone on youtube who shows the product being used in a way you plan to use it, or someone who does a re-review after a period of time like a year etc
> I like America's Test Kitchen for kitchen-y stuff.
For me, America’s Test Kitchen compromises on quality too much for the sake of convenience. And perhaps that is their target audience, but they dismissed Demeyere’s cookware out of hand for being too heavy and unwieldy, whereas a site like centurylife uses IR cameras and probe thermometers to actually measure heat distribution and retention across different cookware sets.
I don’t understand the “too heavy” complaint anyway; people cook with cast iron (Lodge / Le Creuset) all the time, and it is significantly heavier than Demeyere.
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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!"
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
To add to that: most sites just compare the features at best. I’m interested in actual usability and durability, things you might need more than five minutes or just reading the specs to find out. E.g. how do headphones handle multiple devices, how long will the battery survive, what are the options when they are broken?
Yes, assessing devices is far from trivial. In case of air purifier reviews, there's little focus on two crucial elements:
* Real energy consumption and performance when the filter is a bit dirty
* Fan noise and vibrations when the device has already been in use for a year or two
For example, in my experience, the top pick from Wirecutter (Coway) excels on the first item but fans tens to become misaligned after a while and vibrate a lot at low speeds. It happened to 2/2 units I bought.
I had the privilege of working in a co-working space in Tahoe that also subleted out to outdoorgearlab.com/techgearlab.com.
Having been on their private list where they resell items that I purchased I can say that they do purchase and touch every single item that they’ve used.
I also find the reviews tend towards a higher priced end of the spectrum because it is affiliate paid. Nevertheless, I was pretty impressed by how much they put everything through its paces.
For the record, I haven’t talked to anyone there since 2016 and have no reason to pump them.
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.
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
The reviews as actual reviews are terrible. And the retro tech series - well if you know anything about the items being discussed you'll find quite a few inaccuracies. It's pure entertainment.
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.
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.
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);
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".
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.
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.
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).
Adding my personal beef with the majority of tech 'reviews': The lack of honest distinction between a (medium-term usage) product review, and hands-on/impressions. Even with some hard data/testing methodologies- when you're a media outlet relying on page views and advertising, and you're racing to get your 'reviews' posted sooner or at least at the same time as the other sites- the reviews are going to be based on increasingly short-term impressions.
We need a better place than reddit where a wide variety of users can congregate and honestly discuss their experiences with products. Very hard problem when the market is basically at odds with what consumers want, in this regard.
A good specialized site and YouTube channel is Garage Gym Reviews [1]. Their reviews are clear and thorough and should be useful references for people buying gym equipment for the home.
The owner can go into obsessive detail about equipment features that I, at least, have never thought about, like knurling on barbells [2]. I have learned a lot from his videos.
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.
Nonsense. As a non-profit founded in 1926 with 50 testing labs and partnerships with outside labs, the proof is in the test after test after test after test that is unbiased and, more importantly, the criteria and testing methods are always available and reproducible! So when you don't agree with their rankings you can at least agree that there methods are clear, not based on SEO, not based on spam, not based on money, and pro-consumer.
As somebody not familiar with Wirecutter’s history or legacy, I always considered them to be one of the paid fake review websites that pretend to offer very shallow reviews, mostly just built based on referral links and information that can be harvested from product descriptions. I just don’t agree that they are a real website that does actual testing. 0/10. Would block form Google if I could.
I'm very happy that in the Netherlands we have tweakers.net. Not only do they do tech news and reviews, they also have an amazing parametric search/price watch tool that I'm reasonably sure is a major contributing cause to how competitive pricing is here compared to neighboring countries. Every time I happen to use Amazon I die a little inside because of how bad their search is.
Also, to use Amazon I search for the 1/2/3-star reviews and see if I disagree with the given reason for the low review. If I disagree, I will contemplate buying the product.
The sites I've found to be at least making an honest evaluation are:
choice.com.au (Australian context, Aus version of consumer reports) Their reviews just seem to miss the mark sometimes, but at least you can count on the fact its an honest take so you can kind of pick specific facts from the reviews and take them as true, maybe don't rely on their overall recommendations though. funded through magazine/web subscritoions
rtings.com - tech stuff, detailed and with a good table tool for comparison. funded through subscriptions
notebookcheck.com - funded by ads, but does a very good job of highly detailed and consistent reviews. same as choice where you don't necessarily follow their recommendation, but they give you lots of information that you can compare. Their model is a red flag, but my impression is of general trustworthiness.
I subscribe to choice and rtings to support them because honest brokers are so rare in this space.
I also subscribe to choice. They do lots more than product reviews. They have general guides on how to get the best use out of products, mystery shoppers reviewing customer service, tools to compare health insurance, etc. The reason I stay subscribed is they campaign about consumer rights issues which actually cause industries as a whole to change, e.g. bank fees. They also have the shonky awards which usually gets a bit of media attention each year, where they shame companies for poor behaviour, quality, outright scams, etc. I think of it like a lobby to help us consumers out, which we need more of. Too often we are listening to the advice of the industry bodies that represent the companies rather than the consumers.
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.
I have no faith whatsoever in WC‘s reviews or advice anymore. I’ve bought several of their recommendations post NYT acquisition and they’ve all turned out to be flawed in a way that I’d aimed to avoid by following their recommendations.
I find „site:Reddit.com“ a much much much better source of actual information that isn’t SEO spam.
'Gamers Nexus' (gamersnexus.net) is striving to deliver reliable impartial consumer advice for Computer stuff. Unlike LTT (unless something changed and Linus started hiring people who know what they are doing) GN is leaning heavily on industry best practices instead of 'this feels good' opinions:
On the continuum between “highly flawed” and imperfect I find WC to be generally good intentioned and skewed more toward the latter than the former. Is there something that keeps it from thus threshold in your view?
RTINGS is a pretty good actual review site for electronics. Sometimes I find their focus on measurable data a bit annoying. Intangibles matter aswell. But they are exhaustive reviews and make comparing very easy.
The challenge with picking an air purifier is everyone's situation is different given the reason for purification, room(s), price, and maintenance costs. Someone who has allergies vs pets vs volatile chemicals all need something very specific, so the BS one size fits all wirecutter recommendation would have you believe it's the best. Unless you can talk to a real expert who matches up the model(s) you need, reading reviews and YT is pretty much worthless. In the world of purifiers, you definitely get what you pay for.
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.
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.)
Yeah. I want to read about the real opinions and experiences of real people, not some paid-for marketing piece. I used to search reddit for that kind of thing but it's probably been compromised by now. I wonder if there even is a place that isn't. Real place gets created, real people start going there, marketers realize that's where the people are and immediately start working the place.
Hey at least be happy you have some options! It’s 2022 and I cannot get a single reliable suggestion on ANY product, refrigerator or cell phone, in india. Which is fine for small electronics since I can lookup Wirecutter but for anything else where the models in india don’t match American ones, there’s absolutely nothing on the internet to guide you to an informed opinion. Market opportunity?
What about Rtings? For tech stuff, I found the reviews to be of good quality and it does not seem like it’s biased or sponsored.
> googling "reviews of X"
DDG produces somewhat better results, or at least does not rank the seo spam, generated garbage up to the first page. Also, I do not have ads following me everywhere for the next week.
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.
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.
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?
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.
The Project Farm channel on YouTube does a great objective and transparent set of reviews to follow along. It’s not exhaustive for every product on the market but does a reasonable sample and is a joy to watch.
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.
>'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
I'm also really skeptical about their impartiality; I wouldn't be surprised if they have a lot of underhanded deals with whatever they review and advocate for.
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.
> HEPA filters are good at capturing both particles smaller and larger than the 0.3 micron test standard
That is due to MPPS - the only thing that matters is the actual reference particle size, not larger or smaller particles, as these are ultimately easier to filter. That is, particles between 0.2 and 0.3 microns are the most difficult to effectively filter out.
> their focus is on PM2.5
Which doesn't mean it doesn't trap 0.3 micron particles, as PM2.5 is Particulate Matter up to 2.5 microns in size, not 2.5 microns and up.
> But it isn’t a true-HEPA purifier, or a very powerful purifier, period. It’s designed to capture PM2.5—that is, particles 2.5 microns in diameter and above, in contrast to the 0.3-micron HEPA standard. That means it’s optimized for larger airborne particles such as pollen and mold spores, rather than for very fine particulates like wildfire smoke, as HEPA filters are.
First, "True-HEPA" has no legal or scientific meaning, so that's not a great look.
Second, and a minor point, the 0.3-micron standard related to the US HEPA standard, not the EU one. It is true that acording to IKEA it doesn't meet the EU standard for HEPA (barely), but we don't know whether it meets the US one. Eliding the difference between different standards isn't helpful
Third, and more seriously, PM2.5 means particles 2.5 microns in diameter and smaller, not larger, and PM2.5 filters are designed to capture particles 2.5 microns and smaller. Mold spores are mostly 4 to 20 microns, pollen averages around 25 microns, so while the IKEA unit may or may not be good at filtering wildfire smoke, it is not optimised for mold and pollen and is probably terrible at it, so that entire line of analysis is just backwards.
That's a lot of errors to pack into a short passage, and it really gives the impression that the author doesn't really understand or care about the topic.
As for CADRs, the linked post digs into the tests pretty well, and I agree with the conclusion - they're not credible. Note specifically that they get a variance of over 2.4 times between tests, and in somes cases measure a CADR vastly higher than the manufacturers claimed CADR. If you're reading a benchmark of a new graphics card and someone ran a benchmark twice and got 100 FPS once and 240 FPS the second time, and they just shrug and pick the number most convenient for their conclusion, you'd probably think something was up.
(That being said, the linked post is a bit iffy too. I'd call out specifically that they could have done a better job of acknowledging that US HEPA standards are a thing, that PM2.5 filters are a thing even if they're not a standard, and that technically E12 filters aren't HEPA, even if that's an arbitrary distinction most people ignore. But they're quite right that the Wirecutter - on the review of the IKEA unit - does in fact seem to think air filters work like sieves. Certainly I can't think of any other explanation for that passage about PM2.5 being good for pollen!)
> Second, and a minor point, the 0.3-micron standard related to the US HEPA standard, not the EU one. It is true that acording to IKEA it doesn't meet the EU standard for HEPA (barely), but we don't know whether it meets the US one.
Wikipedia cites this statement:
> Common standards require that a HEPA air filter must remove—from the air that passes through—at least 99.95% (ISO, European Standard) [...] of particles whose diameter is equal to 0.3 μm
to "European Standard EN 1822-1:2009, "High efficiency air filters (EPA, HEPA and ULPA)", 2009". Have they made a mistake? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA )
The same sentence goes on to note that the American standard is similar, but more strict, requiring filtration of 99.97% of 0.3 μm particles. As such, it is not possible to meet the American standard while failing to meet the European standard, so there's no need to discuss the American standard separately.
> This article actually makes a bunch of claims itself that are false.
There's this howler:
> This passage implies that a (“true”?) HEPA filter is designed to capture particles that are 0.3 microns or larger. But an H13 filter must, by definition, capture 99.95% of particles of all sizes.
According to this guy, an H13 filter is required to capture 99.95% of neutrinos that pass through it. He's not in a position to accuse anyone of not knowing what they're talking about.
Moving to wikipedia, we see this text:
> 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 μm
I know which of those claims is more plausible. The standard described by wikipedia is theoretically capable of both being measured and being met. Neither is true of what dynomight.net says.
If you are, well, you will find that particles are contextually defined as pieces of matter in the solid or liquid phase which are suspended in the air.
I don't know if the standards body took pains to define matter in terms of atoms but if you want to run off and check? I won't stop you.
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.
I find that the Wirecutter is awesome for things I will never go into stupendous depth for on my own — like spatulas. For anything more serious than that, it has increasingly been on the decline for years.
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
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.
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.
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.
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)
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 × (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 × (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.
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.
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.
For EU standards, a filter removes X% of the hardest particle size to remove (called the Most Penetrating Particle Size or MPPS). That size varies between filters, but is often around 0.3 microns. Filters will do better than X% for particles both larger and smaller than the MPPS. So for the EU standard, we're saying "it'll do X% worst case, and better than X% for all other cases, meaning it'll always filter out more than X% of all particles, regardless of size".
If X% is 99.95% or higher and below 99.9995%, it's technically HEPA; 99.9995% and above it's ULPA, and below 99.95% (but 85% or higher) it's EPA.
So let's say you've got an E12 filter that removes 99.6% of particles. Technically not HEPA, but after one pass through the filter and you've got 0.4% of the particles left. Two passes and you've got 0.0016% left, three passes and it's 0.0000064% left.
An H13 filter might remove 99.97% of particles. One pass and you've got 0.04% left, two passes and you've got 0.000016% left.
Or in other words, one pass through a technically HEPA filter might leave you with 25 times more particles than two passes through a technically non-HEPA filter. So if the air is cirulating back through the filter (as it would in a closed room), what matters is both how good the filter is and how much air it can filter. And since at the high end the filters are all so good, the volume of air processed dominates. A filter that processes twice as much air is vastly better than one that filters out an extra fraction of a percent of particles.
(US standards are similar, but the cutoff for HEPA is 99.97% of 0.3 micron particles, not 99.95% of "whatever the filter is worst at". But the difference is generally irrelevant.)
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
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.
> 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).
I'm saying that I would have paid 3-4 years ago before I lost trust in the site. I have no issue with affiliate links (if the site remains neutral which seems almost impossible) but it's clear to me WC sold their soul a while back and subscription fees are a last-ditch attempt to get some more money out of it.
I almost did pay when they announced they were going the subscription route but after being burned or almost-burned (saved by reading reviews about a bait and switch) I decided I no longer cared about WC recommendations.
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.
It turned out that my local hardware store had a similar pre-manufactured offering with a slightly less Jerry-rigged aesthetic. We bought one for my son's allergies but I also noticed an improvement on the whole upper floor of our house. Box fans can move a lot of air. Furnace filters are cheap commodities with a large cross-sectional area that also allow a fair amount of flow.
There seems to be two main use cases for a room-sized air purifier:
If you live in a polluted city or are affected by wildfires, having a box fan-sized model is almost a necessity. It is going to be noisy and unsightly but undeniably more effective. Having a few furnace filters laying around for air quality emergencies is probably not a bad idea.
For day to day use in a low pollution area, where dust or pollen is the major concern, I really like the little 120mm fan purifier. It runs 24/7, unobtrusively, and is really effective for what it does.
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)
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
The channel is great in general for everything vacuum. As far as review goes they put a serious effort in them. The brief foray into air cleaners was a great parenthesis.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Yeah this was very bizarre to me. It seems like the author just missed the basic fact that the H13 is the same H that makes it 'true' HEPA.
He can (and did) argue that this distinction doesn't really matter, but the distinction is still part of a well-defined standard that The Wirecutter didn't invent.
That's not the point though - that part is technically true (EPA filters are 'Efficient Particulate Air' filters and HEPA are 'High Efficiency Particulate Air' filters, and the E and H correspond to those respectively).
The point of the article is that the Wirecutter authors don't understand the physics of air filters and gives the difference more emphasis than what actually matters - it doesn't actually make a massive difference in this particular application. For a purifier that intakes and exhausts in the same space, getting more airflow through the filter per hour can mean over time it's basically the same effectiveness, and using a slightly lower spec filter can be a good design trade-off because it doesn't require as much pressure so it can use less power per unit volume of air filtered.
Of course, in other applications, like bringing air into a cleanroom, it makes a massive difference, but that's not what we're talking about.
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.
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.
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 Förnuftig 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 Förnuftig 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.
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?
I'm pretty skeptical (and that's putting it mildly) of any website that uses affiliate marketing links. I can't see how objectivity can survive in that environment.
A concrete example is frequent flyer/travel blogs. I vaguely know the guy who runs the UK's largest one, I've met him in person several times, fairly nice bloke. He's worked very hard to build his site, publishes high-quality content, and is often the first to write about new places and routes of interest. His site has a thriving forum and allows comments on his posts.
He also pushes credit card offers and his site is littered with affiliate links.
Hmm, you say, that's OK, it doesn't necessarily mean he's lost his objectivity.
Except, his articles will say that the best way to book flight or hotel X is via offer Y (coincidentally in affiliate scheme Z, which is where the "book now" link sends you to). Then someone in the comments will pipe up to mention an alternative cashback route that is objectively better. He will delete that comment and any replies to it. So those who aren't aware of what's going on believe his article is the objective truth, and keep feeding the beast by clicking on his affiliate links. They miss out on all the better deals because they involve booking in ways that no-one's allowed to mention on his site.
This has happened over and over again. To me, affiliate marketing is basically a cancer.
There are categories where the incentives are equal enough across all the products so you can maybe possibly trust the reviews more.
If all the products are similarly priced and from the same retailer (ie amazon) then there isn't any incentive to recommend anything other than the best.
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.
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.
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.
Regarding the section about whether it is or isn't a true HEPA filter, the Wirecutter is a US based website targeting mostly US based consumers so maybe we should look at the major US standard regarding HEPA filters which is DOE-STD-3020-2015. This standard was originally developed to cover HEPA filters supplied by DOE contractors in nuclear facilities.
How does it define a HEPA filter? "High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) Filter: A throwaway, extended-medium, dry type filter with a rigid casing enclosing the full depth of the pleats. The filter shall exhibit a minimum efficiency of 99.97% when tested with an aerosol of 0.3 micrometer diameter."
So according to the standard in the target market for the review the IKEA air purifier does not use a true HEPA filter and the recommended unit does.
Edit: I looked closer at the European specification used in the article. By that specification the filter in the IKEA unit also is not a true HEPA filter but an EPA filter. The Exx designations mean it is a EPA filter and the Hxx designations mean a HEPA filter.
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.
"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:
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
This article falls into the trap of conflating the Wirecutter's misapplication of filtration standards with irrelevant minutiae about which terms and diameters they cite for the filter classes. So alongside a pretty cogent description of how fine-matter filtration works by particle size, there's the claim that "a 'PM2.5 filter' … isn’t a thing," despite the PM2.5 class of fine particulate matter being the range specifically mentioned in the Ikea product description in the screenshot. A cursory search will turn up lots of results for filters which show that this is a pretty common term. Where the Wirecutter review actually goes wrong is in taking 2.5 microns as the lower bound of the particulate range, whereas it's conventionally the upper bound.
Then there's the idea that "Neither size mentioned (0.3 microns or 2.5 microns) has any relationship to either of the design specs" [the EU E12 and H13 standards]. When I google "hepa" my first hit is a US EPA page giving the specification for the most penetrating particle size of HEPA filters as 0.3 microns, rather than the 0.15 microns given in the article (from the empirical research or EU standards, I'm not sure which). This is from North America, but then, the Wirecutter is an American review site. It's worth considering this kind of (IMO) misfire in light of the article making the least charitable possible inference, that the Wirecutter deliberately set out to discredit the Ikea product because it couldn't give an affiliate link.
I have both the Wirecutter pick which I've had for 7-8 years and the Förnuftig and I stopped using the Förnuftig 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...
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.
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.
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 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.
Saying it's 'tested' and 'corresponds to EPA12' means to say it meets the standard. They couldn't say that if they didn't mean it passes the spec for E12...
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).
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:
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.
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.
Oooo thank you so much! I can't believe I've never come across this word, and I love words! I thought it was a video came and that's it. I guess it's the short version of contradict?
I also think in the context of having Wirecutter, a website I've never heard of afterwards, also added to the confusion. Thanks so much!
Contra wirecutter is clearly invented for this article. But in short I take it to mean that it asserts a point of view that is in disagreement with the point of view asserted on the popular wirecutter.com product review site.
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.
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.
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”.
The issue is why they completely ignore costs and legacy substitution: vendor relations and content.
The true answer is often "The old version was just as good or better, don't upgrade."
But nobody gets a continual churn of review clicks and affiliate purchase cuts off of that.
Ignoring it with "price is hard" is disingenuous on the part of review sites. Notably, this was initially one of Wirecutter's key draws: presenting winners in a price-segmented manner.
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!
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?
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 μm, with the filtration efficiency increasing for particle diameters both less than and greater than 0.3 μm."
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).
> 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!)
The authors point is that if it takes 3 min to clean the room vs 1 min to clean the room, there’s essentially no difference. The efficiency just translates into time, and hardly much at that. Both will clean the room.
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.
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:
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.
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.
> 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.
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).
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.
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!
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.
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.
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?
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.
Wirecutter seems to make a big deal of the fact that the IKEA purifier doesn't use a "true HEPA" filter. As far as I can tell, neither does the Blueair purifier that is one of their top picks. Blueair claims to use "HEPASilent Ultra," while carefully avoiding claiming that their filter meets HEPA standards.
> HealthProtect™ is equipped with HEPASilent Ultra™, our most advanced filtration technology ever. Every component is uniquely designed in Sweden to provide the maximum performance and energy efficiency. This patent-pending technology combines electrostatic and mechanical filtration to remove 99%⁴ of bacteria and remove dust, pollen, dander, mold, VOCs, and odors. HEPASilent Ultra™ delivers 50% more clean air⁵, uses 55% less energy and has a 10% lower noise than traditional true HEPA filtration⁶.
There are actual measurements and you can sort by several categories. The manufacturers submit the measurements themselves, but the tests are at least supposed to be standardized. And they actually display the wattage used by each purifier. The electricity running costs can make up a large portion of the total cost of ownership of an air purifier if you have it running consistently.
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.
I'm under the impression Wirecutter's reviews are also influenced from being paid by some manufacturers. No way to prove it, just a feeling as a consumer. Yet, I still look at them as a source occasionally.
When getting a air purifiers over a year ago, I read Wirecutter, Amazon, Reddit, and a few other blog-like websites and used that data to compare. For instance, Wirecutter recommends the Coway units. Yet Amazon had many recent reviews of their units breaking. And filters are expensive year after year. Wirecutter also recommends Winix as a runner up, and even says it performs better than the Coways, but they liked the Coways because it looks nicer. That tells me Coway pays them to be #1. Because other sites tell me about the breakage and expensive filter cost. Wirecutter omits that Winix has cheaper filters and doesn't have manufacturing issues. But according to them it's uglier even if it slightly out performs the Coway.
That being said, I got several Winix units and they've been great. Wirecutter served it's purpose for me.
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.
Feedback for the author: If you've never heard of "The wirecutter" then it's really hard to understand what you're saying.
Are you "The wirecutter"? It's not part of your domain name, if so.
"Contra", is that the series of games? Did you, Wirecutter, manage to port an old SNES game to the IKEA air purifier (like someone recently ported Doom to an IKEA lightbulb)?
I couldn't understand the title or the first few paragraphs.
I had to skim up and down the post to try to get context, in order to even understand the first paragraph.
I now believe that this is a critique of a review. A review that is not even linked to. If you don't want to link to them in any way (understandable, though I disagree) then at least define your terms.
I didn't get enough sleep last night, so I'm unusually stupid today. But I don't think I'm wrong.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
"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).
I have both Förnuftig (meaning sensible, great name) and a Coway Storm AP-1516D. I prefer the Coway, but it is much more powerful.
The only issue I have with the Förnuftig is the noise level, even on medium it is too loud for me. Apart from that, it is fine. It isn't as powerful and advanced as the Coway but everyone loves the look of it and asks what it is, and shows their spouses it.
Coway is big, powerful, quite silent but also clunky and in the way.
If filters struggle to trap particles around some specific particle size, wouldn't it make sense to combine two filters with different ranges together?
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.
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?
As an owner of a couple of Förnuftigs, 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 Trädfri.
I have had other air purifiers before, and have been happy with the Förnuftigs – the air purifying business is, IMHO, to a large degree a racket that was badly in need for disruption. I bought my two Förnuftigs with filters for less that what I would have needed to pay for a single filter change for the air purifier I used before.
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.
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.
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.
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?
> (Yeah, power usage goes down when you add the extra carbon filter to the IKEA purifier. I’ve confirmed this myself with a power meter. Physics is weird.)
Well it's not that weird is it? It went down because CADR went down, the airflow is lower so the motor's not 'pushing so hard'.
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.
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
Since we are among experts here, please recommend the best air filters available to retail customers and I will gladly whatever price for the peace of mind, since I am not an expert and trust sites like Wirecutter over Amazon type of reviews.
Wirecutter was great when it was independently owned. Since it was bought by NYT it doesn’t seem as neutral. They conveniently seem to favor products sold by Amazon or Walmart where they can get referral fees.
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.
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?)
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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%).
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.
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.
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.
Sorry I don't. But they were publishing various reviews based simply on product specs, or advertised/PR features. With affiliate links to buy of course. Maybe they don't do it anymore? I took a quick look across 3 random categories and didn't find any. I guess I have to apologize for the noise, since I can't back up my comment.
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.
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].
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.
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.
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.
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.
if there is a way to make more money by being dishonest, twisting definitions, or cutting corners they will. over and over again. we see this repeatedly.
greed, for power, for influence, for money, etc…
when the incentives push someone to “race to the bottom” in terms of quality, this is what they do. always. over and over again.
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.
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.
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).
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
1 reply →
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
24 replies →
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.
102 replies →
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
5 replies →
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.
3 replies →
The big problem with most YouTube review channels is that they're reliant on the vendors to provide them with free test units and other forms of access in order to grow their channels, and Linus is no exception.
I actually came across a "why I'm shutting down my channel" video a while back in which the host showed emails from the company whose product she was reviewing (it was a drawing tablet or something like that) pressuring her to show the product in a more favorable light.
It's so hard to tell who's actually objective in those review videos and who's censoring themselves at the request of a vendor.
2 replies →
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.
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.
1 reply →
What's the profit model for LMG? Ads? I'm not sure how long that will sustain even a smallish channel with no expenses, let alone electronic testing equipment and products to test.
Gamersnexus has been similarly expanding their capabilities with very expensive fan testing equipment. They seem to be one of the better sources of consumer tech journalism these days.
> 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.
ATK is, as far as I am concerned, the gold standard for kitchen reviews.
3 replies →
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.
3 replies →
I already mentioned it above, but repeating it here.
I would also recommend The Torque Test Channel as very similar in approach to Project Farm, maybe a bit more technical and thorough. Their focus was on impact drivers, but they have branched out into other power tools, LED lights and hand tools.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZem9C5rWjSb0B8tV3k2EZg
Project Farm rules for the types of products he tests, which is pretty narrow.
It seems like the only way to really get a review is to find someone on youtube who shows the product being used in a way you plan to use it, or someone who does a re-review after a period of time like a year etc
> I like America's Test Kitchen for kitchen-y stuff.
For me, America’s Test Kitchen compromises on quality too much for the sake of convenience. And perhaps that is their target audience, but they dismissed Demeyere’s cookware out of hand for being too heavy and unwieldy, whereas a site like centurylife uses IR cameras and probe thermometers to actually measure heat distribution and retention across different cookware sets.
I don’t understand the “too heavy” complaint anyway; people cook with cast iron (Lodge / Le Creuset) all the time, and it is significantly heavier than Demeyere.
1 reply →
> 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.
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...
14 replies →
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?
"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.
2 replies →
I used to laugh at my dad for subscribing to Which, but now I genuinely see the value in it.
Today’s modern review sites are skewed in favour of whoever pays the most commission. It warps recommendations which is a problem Which never had.
There is also Rtings (https://www.rtings.com).
On the topic of displays, and specifically monitors, also the excellent TFT Central ( http://tftcentral.co.uk/ ).
1 reply →
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.
23 replies →
Yes, for the things they cover Rtings is excellent.
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.
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.
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.
1 reply →
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
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.
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
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...
4 replies →
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.
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!"
2 replies →
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.
1 reply →
rtings.com is very good for certain types of products like TVs, headphones, etc.
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.
2 replies →
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.
9 replies →
Definitely trust rtings. They buy every product in store to do their testing.
Agree - they updated the review for Logitech G PRO X WIRELESS build quality while the SoundGuys still show build quality 9/10.
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.
In the UK, https://www.which.co.uk/ fills a similar niche to Consumer Reports.
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.
2 replies →
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.
Australia: https://www.choice.com.au/ New Zealand: http://consumer.org.nz/
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.
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.
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).
5 replies →
100% this. YouTube's fantastic for real reviews.
2 replies →
Project Farm is testing a lot of things:
https://youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm
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).
6 replies →
I love it. I love the accent, cadence and volume.
To add to that: most sites just compare the features at best. I’m interested in actual usability and durability, things you might need more than five minutes or just reading the specs to find out. E.g. how do headphones handle multiple devices, how long will the battery survive, what are the options when they are broken?
Yes, assessing devices is far from trivial. In case of air purifier reviews, there's little focus on two crucial elements:
* Real energy consumption and performance when the filter is a bit dirty
* Fan noise and vibrations when the device has already been in use for a year or two
For example, in my experience, the top pick from Wirecutter (Coway) excels on the first item but fans tens to become misaligned after a while and vibrate a lot at low speeds. It happened to 2/2 units I bought.
I had the privilege of working in a co-working space in Tahoe that also subleted out to outdoorgearlab.com/techgearlab.com.
Having been on their private list where they resell items that I purchased I can say that they do purchase and touch every single item that they’ve used.
I also find the reviews tend towards a higher priced end of the spectrum because it is affiliate paid. Nevertheless, I was pretty impressed by how much they put everything through its paces.
For the record, I haven’t talked to anyone there since 2016 and have no reason to pump them.
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
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.
3 replies →
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
MKBHD is good for entertainment purposes only.
1 reply →
The reviews as actual reviews are terrible. And the retro tech series - well if you know anything about the items being discussed you'll find quite a few inaccuracies. It's pure entertainment.
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.
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.
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.
5 replies →
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".
5 replies →
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.
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.
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).
Wirecutter is exceptionally "affiliaty".
Adding my personal beef with the majority of tech 'reviews': The lack of honest distinction between a (medium-term usage) product review, and hands-on/impressions. Even with some hard data/testing methodologies- when you're a media outlet relying on page views and advertising, and you're racing to get your 'reviews' posted sooner or at least at the same time as the other sites- the reviews are going to be based on increasingly short-term impressions.
We need a better place than reddit where a wide variety of users can congregate and honestly discuss their experiences with products. Very hard problem when the market is basically at odds with what consumers want, in this regard.
A good specialized site and YouTube channel is Garage Gym Reviews [1]. Their reviews are clear and thorough and should be useful references for people buying gym equipment for the home.
The owner can go into obsessive detail about equipment features that I, at least, have never thought about, like knurling on barbells [2]. I have learned a lot from his videos.
[1] https://www.garagegymreviews.com/
[2] https://youtu.be/5rFSsUx_KDI
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.
Nonsense. As a non-profit founded in 1926 with 50 testing labs and partnerships with outside labs, the proof is in the test after test after test after test that is unbiased and, more importantly, the criteria and testing methods are always available and reproducible! So when you don't agree with their rankings you can at least agree that there methods are clear, not based on SEO, not based on spam, not based on money, and pro-consumer.
I gave up on Consumer Reports many, many years ago when they got caught taking kickbacks from tire manufacturers.
2 replies →
As somebody not familiar with Wirecutter’s history or legacy, I always considered them to be one of the paid fake review websites that pretend to offer very shallow reviews, mostly just built based on referral links and information that can be harvested from product descriptions. I just don’t agree that they are a real website that does actual testing. 0/10. Would block form Google if I could.
I'm very happy that in the Netherlands we have tweakers.net. Not only do they do tech news and reviews, they also have an amazing parametric search/price watch tool that I'm reasonably sure is a major contributing cause to how competitive pricing is here compared to neighboring countries. Every time I happen to use Amazon I die a little inside because of how bad their search is.
Agree. https://www.tweakers.net rocks !
Also, to use Amazon I search for the 1/2/3-star reviews and see if I disagree with the given reason for the low review. If I disagree, I will contemplate buying the product.
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...
The sites I've found to be at least making an honest evaluation are:
choice.com.au (Australian context, Aus version of consumer reports) Their reviews just seem to miss the mark sometimes, but at least you can count on the fact its an honest take so you can kind of pick specific facts from the reviews and take them as true, maybe don't rely on their overall recommendations though. funded through magazine/web subscritoions
rtings.com - tech stuff, detailed and with a good table tool for comparison. funded through subscriptions
notebookcheck.com - funded by ads, but does a very good job of highly detailed and consistent reviews. same as choice where you don't necessarily follow their recommendation, but they give you lots of information that you can compare. Their model is a red flag, but my impression is of general trustworthiness.
I subscribe to choice and rtings to support them because honest brokers are so rare in this space.
I also subscribe to choice. They do lots more than product reviews. They have general guides on how to get the best use out of products, mystery shoppers reviewing customer service, tools to compare health insurance, etc. The reason I stay subscribed is they campaign about consumer rights issues which actually cause industries as a whole to change, e.g. bank fees. They also have the shonky awards which usually gets a bit of media attention each year, where they shame companies for poor behaviour, quality, outright scams, etc. I think of it like a lobby to help us consumers out, which we need more of. Too often we are listening to the advice of the industry bodies that represent the companies rather than the consumers.
1 reply →
Is Tom's Hardware still around?
Personally, I don't trust reviews unless I personally know the reviewer. Too much garbage out there.
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.
Yeah but it’s little more than an SEO farm these days.
1 reply →
I have no faith whatsoever in WC‘s reviews or advice anymore. I’ve bought several of their recommendations post NYT acquisition and they’ve all turned out to be flawed in a way that I’d aimed to avoid by following their recommendations.
I find „site:Reddit.com“ a much much much better source of actual information that isn’t SEO spam.
The German consumer reports are also quite good: www.test.de
In many countries there are similar consumer reports organizations.
'Gamers Nexus' (gamersnexus.net) is striving to deliver reliable impartial consumer advice for Computer stuff. Unlike LTT (unless something changed and Linus started hiring people who know what they are doing) GN is leaning heavily on industry best practices instead of 'this feels good' opinions:
We Bought Apple's Old Acoustic Testing Mini-Chamber https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n97ot-gXXVw
This Thing is Huge: Fan Tester Setup, Install, & Overview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikRcG1xE3xs
If you happen to speak German, Stiftung Warentest is great and reviews a wide range of stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest
On the continuum between “highly flawed” and imperfect I find WC to be generally good intentioned and skewed more toward the latter than the former. Is there something that keeps it from thus threshold in your view?
RTINGS is a pretty good actual review site for electronics. Sometimes I find their focus on measurable data a bit annoying. Intangibles matter aswell. But they are exhaustive reviews and make comparing very easy.
The challenge with picking an air purifier is everyone's situation is different given the reason for purification, room(s), price, and maintenance costs. Someone who has allergies vs pets vs volatile chemicals all need something very specific, so the BS one size fits all wirecutter recommendation would have you believe it's the best. Unless you can talk to a real expert who matches up the model(s) you need, reading reviews and YT is pretty much worthless. In the world of purifiers, you definitely get what you pay for.
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.
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.)
Yeah. I want to read about the real opinions and experiences of real people, not some paid-for marketing piece. I used to search reddit for that kind of thing but it's probably been compromised by now. I wonder if there even is a place that isn't. Real place gets created, real people start going there, marketers realize that's where the people are and immediately start working the place.
Hey at least be happy you have some options! It’s 2022 and I cannot get a single reliable suggestion on ANY product, refrigerator or cell phone, in india. Which is fine for small electronics since I can lookup Wirecutter but for anything else where the models in india don’t match American ones, there’s absolutely nothing on the internet to guide you to an informed opinion. Market opportunity?
What about Rtings? For tech stuff, I found the reviews to be of good quality and it does not seem like it’s biased or sponsored.
> googling "reviews of X"
DDG produces somewhat better results, or at least does not rank the seo spam, generated garbage up to the first page. Also, I do not have ads following me everywhere for the next week.
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.
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
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?
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...
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."
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.
The Project Farm channel on YouTube does a great objective and transparent set of reviews to follow along. It’s not exhaustive for every product on the market but does a reasonable sample and is a joy to watch.
Maybe Rtings? Not for “all the stuff”, but many things, especially TVs snd monitors.
https://www.rtings.com/
in the UK, there's Which?, which is pretty good
https://www.rtings.com/ It’s really good at what they cover.
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
rtings.com only covers a few categories but they cover those categories really well and they do a excellent job of testing those products.
Doesn't the blog post clearly show thats its not a real review site. It's also not that hard to find things written by humans.
Which? in the UK is pretty excellent.
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/
>'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
I've found Rtings to be pretty good for audio/visual products.
Don't forget about the huge amount of paid reviews now too!
The Dutch "Consumentenbond" is real and paid for by real users. But alas, it's in Dutch, and most is paywalled.
https://www.consumentenbond.nl/
I'm also really skeptical about their impartiality; I wouldn't be surprised if they have a lot of underhanded deals with whatever they review and advocate for.
gamersnexus for pc gaming hardwear is another
I think all the good reviewers have moved to YT
HDTVTest is good for TVs. The reviews are boring as they come; the same objective measurements on every TV.
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.
> HEPA filters are good at capturing both particles smaller and larger than the 0.3 micron test standard
That is due to MPPS - the only thing that matters is the actual reference particle size, not larger or smaller particles, as these are ultimately easier to filter. That is, particles between 0.2 and 0.3 microns are the most difficult to effectively filter out.
> their focus is on PM2.5
Which doesn't mean it doesn't trap 0.3 micron particles, as PM2.5 is Particulate Matter up to 2.5 microns in size, not 2.5 microns and up.
There are inconsistencies between their main air filter recommendation article and the specific review; if you haven't, read the article about the IKEA filter here: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/ikea-fornuftig-air-p...
The Wirecutter article is pretty bad though:
> But it isn’t a true-HEPA purifier, or a very powerful purifier, period. It’s designed to capture PM2.5—that is, particles 2.5 microns in diameter and above, in contrast to the 0.3-micron HEPA standard. That means it’s optimized for larger airborne particles such as pollen and mold spores, rather than for very fine particulates like wildfire smoke, as HEPA filters are.
First, "True-HEPA" has no legal or scientific meaning, so that's not a great look.
Second, and a minor point, the 0.3-micron standard related to the US HEPA standard, not the EU one. It is true that acording to IKEA it doesn't meet the EU standard for HEPA (barely), but we don't know whether it meets the US one. Eliding the difference between different standards isn't helpful
Third, and more seriously, PM2.5 means particles 2.5 microns in diameter and smaller, not larger, and PM2.5 filters are designed to capture particles 2.5 microns and smaller. Mold spores are mostly 4 to 20 microns, pollen averages around 25 microns, so while the IKEA unit may or may not be good at filtering wildfire smoke, it is not optimised for mold and pollen and is probably terrible at it, so that entire line of analysis is just backwards.
That's a lot of errors to pack into a short passage, and it really gives the impression that the author doesn't really understand or care about the topic.
As for CADRs, the linked post digs into the tests pretty well, and I agree with the conclusion - they're not credible. Note specifically that they get a variance of over 2.4 times between tests, and in somes cases measure a CADR vastly higher than the manufacturers claimed CADR. If you're reading a benchmark of a new graphics card and someone ran a benchmark twice and got 100 FPS once and 240 FPS the second time, and they just shrug and pick the number most convenient for their conclusion, you'd probably think something was up.
(That being said, the linked post is a bit iffy too. I'd call out specifically that they could have done a better job of acknowledging that US HEPA standards are a thing, that PM2.5 filters are a thing even if they're not a standard, and that technically E12 filters aren't HEPA, even if that's an arbitrary distinction most people ignore. But they're quite right that the Wirecutter - on the review of the IKEA unit - does in fact seem to think air filters work like sieves. Certainly I can't think of any other explanation for that passage about PM2.5 being good for pollen!)
> Second, and a minor point, the 0.3-micron standard related to the US HEPA standard, not the EU one. It is true that acording to IKEA it doesn't meet the EU standard for HEPA (barely), but we don't know whether it meets the US one.
Wikipedia cites this statement:
> Common standards require that a HEPA air filter must remove—from the air that passes through—at least 99.95% (ISO, European Standard) [...] of particles whose diameter is equal to 0.3 μm
to "European Standard EN 1822-1:2009, "High efficiency air filters (EPA, HEPA and ULPA)", 2009". Have they made a mistake? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA )
The same sentence goes on to note that the American standard is similar, but more strict, requiring filtration of 99.97% of 0.3 μm particles. As such, it is not possible to meet the American standard while failing to meet the European standard, so there's no need to discuss the American standard separately.
6 replies →
> This article actually makes a bunch of claims itself that are false.
There's this howler:
> This passage implies that a (“true”?) HEPA filter is designed to capture particles that are 0.3 microns or larger. But an H13 filter must, by definition, capture 99.95% of particles of all sizes.
According to this guy, an H13 filter is required to capture 99.95% of neutrinos that pass through it. He's not in a position to accuse anyone of not knowing what they're talking about.
Moving to wikipedia, we see this text:
> 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 μm
I know which of those claims is more plausible. The standard described by wikipedia is theoretically capable of both being measured and being met. Neither is true of what dynomight.net says.
You cannot possibly be serious.
If you are, well, you will find that particles are contextually defined as pieces of matter in the solid or liquid phase which are suspended in the air.
I don't know if the standards body took pains to define matter in terms of atoms but if you want to run off and check? I won't stop you.
4 replies →
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.
I find that the Wirecutter is awesome for things I will never go into stupendous depth for on my own — like spatulas. For anything more serious than that, it has increasingly been on the decline for years.
I’ve just learned to never trust them on headphones lol
1 reply →
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.
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
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."
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.
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.
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.
3 replies →
This is definitely not a conspiracy theory. Incentives affect reviews, which is why truly unbiased review sources exist.
Especially when they already have a proven track record of nastiness: https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to...
14 replies →
Sometimes conspiracy theories are true. They are still conspiracy theories
7 replies →
There are other categories where they do recommend IKEA as the top option despite not getting a commission
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.
I thought the same, but IKEA does have an affiliate program.
They recommend against a bunch of things even if they get commission
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)
>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.
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
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
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.
57 replies →
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.
4 replies →
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.
1 reply →
For EU standards, a filter removes X% of the hardest particle size to remove (called the Most Penetrating Particle Size or MPPS). That size varies between filters, but is often around 0.3 microns. Filters will do better than X% for particles both larger and smaller than the MPPS. So for the EU standard, we're saying "it'll do X% worst case, and better than X% for all other cases, meaning it'll always filter out more than X% of all particles, regardless of size".
If X% is 99.95% or higher and below 99.9995%, it's technically HEPA; 99.9995% and above it's ULPA, and below 99.95% (but 85% or higher) it's EPA.
So let's say you've got an E12 filter that removes 99.6% of particles. Technically not HEPA, but after one pass through the filter and you've got 0.4% of the particles left. Two passes and you've got 0.0016% left, three passes and it's 0.0000064% left.
An H13 filter might remove 99.97% of particles. One pass and you've got 0.04% left, two passes and you've got 0.000016% left.
Or in other words, one pass through a technically HEPA filter might leave you with 25 times more particles than two passes through a technically non-HEPA filter. So if the air is cirulating back through the filter (as it would in a closed room), what matters is both how good the filter is and how much air it can filter. And since at the high end the filters are all so good, the volume of air processed dominates. A filter that processes twice as much air is vastly better than one that filters out an extra fraction of a percent of particles.
(US standards are similar, but the cutoff for HEPA is 99.97% of 0.3 micron particles, not 99.95% of "whatever the filter is worst at". But the difference is generally irrelevant.)
> 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
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.
> 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).
The worst is that they've deleted comments calling out bad recommendations.
> Their move to a paid subscription was very odd
above several people note that
> the IKEA one … is the only one in the article they don't earn a commission on when someone buys it
How do you want wirecutter to stay economically viable?
I'm saying that I would have paid 3-4 years ago before I lost trust in the site. I have no issue with affiliate links (if the site remains neutral which seems almost impossible) but it's clear to me WC sold their soul a while back and subscription fees are a last-ditch attempt to get some more money out of it.
I almost did pay when they announced they were going the subscription route but after being burned or almost-burned (saved by reading reviews about a bait and switch) I decided I no longer cared about WC recommendations.
surely moving away from being ad or affiliate driven would create more trust?
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
Matthias Wandel recently did some experiments over several options. A decent furnace filter, when duct-taped to a box-fan, did surprisingly well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDZ9yUdM2wA
It turned out that my local hardware store had a similar pre-manufactured offering with a slightly less Jerry-rigged aesthetic. We bought one for my son's allergies but I also noticed an improvement on the whole upper floor of our house. Box fans can move a lot of air. Furnace filters are cheap commodities with a large cross-sectional area that also allow a fair amount of flow.
There seems to be two main use cases for a room-sized air purifier:
If you live in a polluted city or are affected by wildfires, having a box fan-sized model is almost a necessity. It is going to be noisy and unsightly but undeniably more effective. Having a few furnace filters laying around for air quality emergencies is probably not a bad idea.
For day to day use in a low pollution area, where dust or pollen is the major concern, I really like the little 120mm fan purifier. It runs 24/7, unobtrusively, and is really effective for what it does.
1 reply →
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.
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)
That air filter will move such a small volume of air, it's basically useless unless you're in a small closet.
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.
But little to no dust will get into your computer, meaning less cleaning is necessary.
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
> 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.
> 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.
15 replies →
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?
1 reply →
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
3 replies →
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.
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)
Is that a "pro" tip ?
Otherwise Vacuum Wars channel had an entertaining test on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QT8SQjp-y0
The channel is great in general for everything vacuum. As far as review goes they put a serious effort in them. The brief foray into air cleaners was a great parenthesis.
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.
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.
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...
Like generic drugs theres no money in practically free, recycled or dual use.
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).
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.
Yeah this was very bizarre to me. It seems like the author just missed the basic fact that the H13 is the same H that makes it 'true' HEPA.
He can (and did) argue that this distinction doesn't really matter, but the distinction is still part of a well-defined standard that The Wirecutter didn't invent.
That's not the point though - that part is technically true (EPA filters are 'Efficient Particulate Air' filters and HEPA are 'High Efficiency Particulate Air' filters, and the E and H correspond to those respectively).
The point of the article is that the Wirecutter authors don't understand the physics of air filters and gives the difference more emphasis than what actually matters - it doesn't actually make a massive difference in this particular application. For a purifier that intakes and exhausts in the same space, getting more airflow through the filter per hour can mean over time it's basically the same effectiveness, and using a slightly lower spec filter can be a good design trade-off because it doesn't require as much pressure so it can use less power per unit volume of air filtered.
Of course, in other applications, like bringing air into a cleanroom, it makes a massive difference, but that's not what we're talking about.
What does the H in H12 stand for then?
It's actually E12 vs H13 - there is no H12. The "E" in "E12" stands for "EPA", as opposed to "HEPA".
1 reply →
According to the table it is not H12 but E12 which corresponds to Efficient Particulate Air filters (EPA), I.e. not high-efficiency.
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.
That’s why you look at reviewers who have similar other opinions to yours, and look at pros / cons instead of the overall rating
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.
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 Förnuftig 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 Förnuftig 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.
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?
There's a whole section on the Wirecutter's tests, called "On tests."
This is somewhat addressed in paragraph about steady state.
I'm pretty skeptical (and that's putting it mildly) of any website that uses affiliate marketing links. I can't see how objectivity can survive in that environment.
A concrete example is frequent flyer/travel blogs. I vaguely know the guy who runs the UK's largest one, I've met him in person several times, fairly nice bloke. He's worked very hard to build his site, publishes high-quality content, and is often the first to write about new places and routes of interest. His site has a thriving forum and allows comments on his posts.
He also pushes credit card offers and his site is littered with affiliate links.
Hmm, you say, that's OK, it doesn't necessarily mean he's lost his objectivity.
Except, his articles will say that the best way to book flight or hotel X is via offer Y (coincidentally in affiliate scheme Z, which is where the "book now" link sends you to). Then someone in the comments will pipe up to mention an alternative cashback route that is objectively better. He will delete that comment and any replies to it. So those who aren't aware of what's going on believe his article is the objective truth, and keep feeding the beast by clicking on his affiliate links. They miss out on all the better deals because they involve booking in ways that no-one's allowed to mention on his site.
This has happened over and over again. To me, affiliate marketing is basically a cancer.
There are categories where the incentives are equal enough across all the products so you can maybe possibly trust the reviews more.
If all the products are similarly priced and from the same retailer (ie amazon) then there isn't any incentive to recommend anything other than the best.
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.
Same. The Coway is very quiet, and it works rather well, as measured by the Dylos particle counter elsewhere in the room.
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.
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.
I have the Coway Mighty in my living room and the Blue Air 411 in my bedroom. Both are great, and I would recommend them to anyone.
And I have the same sentiment as others, Wirecutter is definitely suspect, but at least for air purifiers their recommendations were spot on for me.
Regarding the section about whether it is or isn't a true HEPA filter, the Wirecutter is a US based website targeting mostly US based consumers so maybe we should look at the major US standard regarding HEPA filters which is DOE-STD-3020-2015. This standard was originally developed to cover HEPA filters supplied by DOE contractors in nuclear facilities.
How does it define a HEPA filter? "High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) Filter: A throwaway, extended-medium, dry type filter with a rigid casing enclosing the full depth of the pleats. The filter shall exhibit a minimum efficiency of 99.97% when tested with an aerosol of 0.3 micrometer diameter."
So according to the standard in the target market for the review the IKEA air purifier does not use a true HEPA filter and the recommended unit does.
Edit: I looked closer at the European specification used in the article. By that specification the filter in the IKEA unit also is not a true HEPA filter but an EPA filter. The Exx designations mean it is a EPA filter and the Hxx designations mean a HEPA filter.
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.
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.
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.
> 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
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.
> 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.
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.
This article falls into the trap of conflating the Wirecutter's misapplication of filtration standards with irrelevant minutiae about which terms and diameters they cite for the filter classes. So alongside a pretty cogent description of how fine-matter filtration works by particle size, there's the claim that "a 'PM2.5 filter' … isn’t a thing," despite the PM2.5 class of fine particulate matter being the range specifically mentioned in the Ikea product description in the screenshot. A cursory search will turn up lots of results for filters which show that this is a pretty common term. Where the Wirecutter review actually goes wrong is in taking 2.5 microns as the lower bound of the particulate range, whereas it's conventionally the upper bound.
Then there's the idea that "Neither size mentioned (0.3 microns or 2.5 microns) has any relationship to either of the design specs" [the EU E12 and H13 standards]. When I google "hepa" my first hit is a US EPA page giving the specification for the most penetrating particle size of HEPA filters as 0.3 microns, rather than the 0.15 microns given in the article (from the empirical research or EU standards, I'm not sure which). This is from North America, but then, the Wirecutter is an American review site. It's worth considering this kind of (IMO) misfire in light of the article making the least charitable possible inference, that the Wirecutter deliberately set out to discredit the Ikea product because it couldn't give an affiliate link.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/what-hepa-filter
I have both the Wirecutter pick which I've had for 7-8 years and the Förnuftig and I stopped using the Förnuftig 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...
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.
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.
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.
1 reply →
Ok. How would you describe SSC's revenue model and incentives, then?
2 replies →
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...
Levoit also sells more powerful air purifiers with particle detection, though. I think the point of this article was to compare the bottom end.
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.
Saying it's 'tested' and 'corresponds to EPA12' means to say it meets the standard. They couldn't say that if they didn't mean it passes the spec for E12...
Who or whatever dynomight is, they take things seriously. And I, for one, am grateful.
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.
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.
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.
Oooo thank you so much! I can't believe I've never come across this word, and I love words! I thought it was a video came and that's it. I guess it's the short version of contradict?
I also think in the context of having Wirecutter, a website I've never heard of afterwards, also added to the confusion. Thanks so much!
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/
"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
Contra wirecutter is clearly invented for this article. But in short I take it to mean that it asserts a point of view that is in disagreement with the point of view asserted on the popular wirecutter.com product review site.
Ah ok, I thought wirecutters we things used for cutting wires.
1 reply →
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.
Step it up to a comparetto.
https://youtu.be/Y7eL2OAnqc8
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.
Box fan is too loud even on the lowest settings, good when the air quality is horrible but not for general use, imho.
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
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”.
The issue is why they completely ignore costs and legacy substitution: vendor relations and content.
The true answer is often "The old version was just as good or better, don't upgrade."
But nobody gets a continual churn of review clicks and affiliate purchase cuts off of that.
Ignoring it with "price is hard" is disingenuous on the part of review sites. Notably, this was initially one of Wirecutter's key draws: presenting winners in a price-segmented manner.
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!
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?
Also worth reading, in the same vein:
https://danluu.com/nothing-works/
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 μm, with the filtration efficiency increasing for particle diameters both less than and greater than 0.3 μm."
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
> 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!)
The authors point is that if it takes 3 min to clean the room vs 1 min to clean the room, there’s essentially no difference. The efficiency just translates into time, and hardly much at that. Both will clean the room.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> seems to go out of its way to not mention it by name. Why?
Bad publicity is still publicity.
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).
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?
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!
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.
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.
1 reply →
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...
I appreciate this, and thanks.
Sadly it seems like it’s essentially giving the same not-particularly-helpful stats as listed in the authors article.
I’d love some independent particle test results for it (carried out properly as described in the article of course).
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?
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.
Mi does some (not so) secret (anymore) authentication trying to force users into buying their genuine replacement filters cartridges.
Recently there was an article on HN on how someone got around this. [1]
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31540394
Wirecutter seems to make a big deal of the fact that the IKEA purifier doesn't use a "true HEPA" filter. As far as I can tell, neither does the Blueair purifier that is one of their top picks. Blueair claims to use "HEPASilent Ultra," while carefully avoiding claiming that their filter meets HEPA standards.
> HealthProtect™ is equipped with HEPASilent Ultra™, our most advanced filtration technology ever. Every component is uniquely designed in Sweden to provide the maximum performance and energy efficiency. This patent-pending technology combines electrostatic and mechanical filtration to remove 99%⁴ of bacteria and remove dust, pollen, dander, mold, VOCs, and odors. HEPASilent Ultra™ delivers 50% more clean air⁵, uses 55% less energy and has a 10% lower noise than traditional true HEPA filtration⁶.
https://www.blueair.com/sg/healthprotect-family-page.html
As an aside, for air purifiers and some other items I've found the energy star site useful:
https://www.energystar.gov/productfinder/product/certified-r...
There are actual measurements and you can sort by several categories. The manufacturers submit the measurements themselves, but the tests are at least supposed to be standardized. And they actually display the wattage used by each purifier. The electricity running costs can make up a large portion of the total cost of ownership of an air purifier if you have it running consistently.
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.
I'm under the impression Wirecutter's reviews are also influenced from being paid by some manufacturers. No way to prove it, just a feeling as a consumer. Yet, I still look at them as a source occasionally.
When getting a air purifiers over a year ago, I read Wirecutter, Amazon, Reddit, and a few other blog-like websites and used that data to compare. For instance, Wirecutter recommends the Coway units. Yet Amazon had many recent reviews of their units breaking. And filters are expensive year after year. Wirecutter also recommends Winix as a runner up, and even says it performs better than the Coways, but they liked the Coways because it looks nicer. That tells me Coway pays them to be #1. Because other sites tell me about the breakage and expensive filter cost. Wirecutter omits that Winix has cheaper filters and doesn't have manufacturing issues. But according to them it's uglier even if it slightly out performs the Coway.
That being said, I got several Winix units and they've been great. Wirecutter served it's purpose for me.
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.
Feedback for the author: If you've never heard of "The wirecutter" then it's really hard to understand what you're saying.
Are you "The wirecutter"? It's not part of your domain name, if so.
"Contra", is that the series of games? Did you, Wirecutter, manage to port an old SNES game to the IKEA air purifier (like someone recently ported Doom to an IKEA lightbulb)?
I couldn't understand the title or the first few paragraphs.
I had to skim up and down the post to try to get context, in order to even understand the first paragraph.
I now believe that this is a critique of a review. A review that is not even linked to. If you don't want to link to them in any way (understandable, though I disagree) then at least define your terms.
I didn't get enough sleep last night, so I'm unusually stupid today. But I don't think I'm wrong.
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.
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.
> 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.
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?
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-...
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.
1 reply →
I don't know how it went, but I recall that improving ventilation and filtering in schools was pushed among the many Covid countermeasures.
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
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.
"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).
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
I have both Förnuftig (meaning sensible, great name) and a Coway Storm AP-1516D. I prefer the Coway, but it is much more powerful.
The only issue I have with the Förnuftig is the noise level, even on medium it is too loud for me. Apart from that, it is fine. It isn't as powerful and advanced as the Coway but everyone loves the look of it and asks what it is, and shows their spouses it.
Coway is big, powerful, quite silent but also clunky and in the way.
If filters struggle to trap particles around some specific particle size, wouldn't it make sense to combine two filters with different ranges together?
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.
They all struggle at the same size, is the issue.
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?
As an owner of a couple of Förnuftigs, 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 Trädfri.
I have had other air purifiers before, and have been happy with the Förnuftigs – the air purifying business is, IMHO, to a large degree a racket that was badly in need for disruption. I bought my two Förnuftigs with filters for less that what I would have needed to pay for a single filter change for the air purifier I used before.
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...
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.
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.
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
> (Yeah, power usage goes down when you add the extra carbon filter to the IKEA purifier. I’ve confirmed this myself with a power meter. Physics is weird.)
Well it's not that weird is it? It went down because CADR went down, the airflow is lower so the motor's not 'pushing so hard'.
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.
Awesome, thanks for the tip!
The air purifier review market is about as useful as searching for a credible mattress review.
Snake oil everywhere.
Wirecutter has gone way downhill since NYT bought them, too. :(
The only review source I trust is https://www.youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm/videos
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
Since we are among experts here, please recommend the best air filters available to retail customers and I will gladly whatever price for the peace of mind, since I am not an expert and trust sites like Wirecutter over Amazon type of reviews.
Seriously. I’m just left sitting here wondering which damn air purifier to buy for my kitchen.
Likewise. All the debunking and debunking debunking means I have no actual choice. If anything things are more muddy. Welcome to adulthood I guess.
Wirecutter was great when it was independently owned. Since it was bought by NYT it doesn’t seem as neutral. They conveniently seem to favor products sold by Amazon or Walmart where they can get referral fees.
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.
On the same subject but from another source, some arguments in this video are off:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uZKBlwLEFs
From the very last line - "The only motive here is indignation."
Brilliant.
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.
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?
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.
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?
Particle sizes visualized, note PM2.5 vs PM10
https://i.imgur.com/dU990L8.jpg
> 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?
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)
Can someone recommend a good purifier available in Europe? I feel like Dyson is hyped up and there are better alternatives.
My biggest takeaway from this article is that it costs thousands of dollars just to see what EU standards actually say. Why?
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.
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.
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.
Warning: “community preferences” have plenty of their own arbitrary biases.
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.
I've read similar comments about interactions with Wikipedia editors
1 reply →
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.
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.
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.
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.
1 reply →
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
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.
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.
A more dense filter will just restrict air flow. What you want is a crappy filter with a large surface area.
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.
IKEA says the fornuftig is only for 8-10 square meter rooms. How "real" is that limitation?
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.
This blog post was just too long for the comment box, seemingly by out of touch armchair Wikipedian.
HEPA filters ahahahahah!!! Just look up TPA filters, and…. Airdog. That’s a filter..
Would the Ikea filter with gas cleaning help with my stinky farts? Honest question.
You can buy activated charcoal underwear or inserts. They're probably less obvious and more effective than strapping an air purifier to your derrière.
Looking for an indoor air quality monitor to buy, any recommendations?
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.
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.
1 reply →
For running/hiking shoes, check out www.runrepeat.com
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%).
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.
The article didn't say HEPA has no definition. It said that 'true-HEPA' has no definition.
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.
2 replies →
A little further into the article, it explains why this doesn't make any difference.
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.
I wasn't aware they did this. Any chance you have an example of this?
Sorry I don't. But they were publishing various reviews based simply on product specs, or advertised/PR features. With affiliate links to buy of course. Maybe they don't do it anymore? I took a quick look across 3 random categories and didn't find any. I guess I have to apologize for the noise, since I can't back up my comment.
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.
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/
TLDR - Where is Wirecutter's test data?
[dead]
Levoit seems to be recommended by /r/AirPurifiers/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VVK39F7/
The replacement filters are quite expensive though.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh great, Wirecutter is full of paid shills now too.
Why the fuck does everything turn to shit?
Fuck Google.
if there is a way to make more money by being dishonest, twisting definitions, or cutting corners they will. over and over again. we see this repeatedly.
greed, for power, for influence, for money, etc…
when the incentives push someone to “race to the bottom” in terms of quality, this is what they do. always. over and over again.
greed leads to a race to the bottom.
This is good work.
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
Not surprising given Wirecutter was acquired by NYT a few years back and mainstream media’s obsession with not-quite-robust “fact checking”