> 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?
Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier
201–210 of 723 posts
Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier
#202I 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.
Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier
#203The 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…
I've always enjoyed Marques Brownlee (MKBHD)[0].
He's made a pretty lucrative career of great reviews, without selling his soul.
Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier
#204For 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.
Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 to…
I've read similar comments about interactions with Wikipedia editors
Endless back-and-forth about the Ensoniq EPS being a 13-bit sampler. Yes, "13-bit" makes no sense. Yes, "13-bit" sounds really unlikely.
No, I'm looking at the Otto datasheet right now, and the 2MB memory expansion on my bench which has three rows of 4-bit DRAMs and a row of 1-bit DRAMS. Yes, definitely 13-bit.
No, I agree it makes no sense, but there you go.
Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier
#206Agreed: 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 curv…
> 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
Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier
#207The 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…
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.
Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier
#208Protip: 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.
[deleted]
Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
You would be surprisingly sad to learn the number who do not even attempt to do this, and the "marketers" that encourage it.
Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier
#210Whoops 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).