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Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

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Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#71

Post by mlyle »

Ataraxic wrote: post #18

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 the…

> 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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#72

Post by adolph »

EnderWT wrote: post #13

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#74

Post by Denvercoder9 »

Ataraxic wrote: post #18

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 the…

> seems to go out of its way to not mention it by name. Why?

Bad publicity is still publicity.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#75

Post by mlyle »

jeromegv wrote: post #69
daenz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Of course, but nobody is preventing that information to be shared. When I looked for air purifier last year, there was tons of articles I saw on how to build your own. This isn't hidden, there's tons of good resources out there. I don't understand why you try to shame us for choosing to buy our own. Of course we are fortunate we can afford it. We aren't talking of a sports car here, it's few hundreds dollar, this is…

> I don't understand why you try to shame us for choosing to buy our own.

I don't see anyone shaming anyone for choosing to buy their own. I see someone pointing out it's possible to make one, and I see someone else defending the choice to make one by pointing out not everyone can buy an expensive, pretty pre-made one.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#76

Post by callahad »

hypersoar wrote: post #51

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 e…

In the UK, https://www.which.co.uk/ fills a similar niche to Consumer Reports.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#77

Post by varispeed »

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#78

Post by enragedcacti »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #21

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#79

Post by lozenge »

wgd wrote: post #67
hypersoar wrote: post #51

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 e…

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…

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".

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#80

Post by 99_00 »

daenz wrote: post #19

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/1425517352624…

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.

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