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Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

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Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#301

Post by cush »

mrkwse wrote: post #70
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…

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).

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

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#302

Post by etchalon »

csours wrote: post #293
etchalon wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that the difference between 0.9005 and 0.90005 is "small" is … weird. The moment I read that I checked out on the rest of the authors opinions.

The author explicitly states that it's small in the home use context. If you're talking about medical or cleanroom manufacturing contexts, yes it's a huge difference.

Small home or not, homes are not sealed environments. A 10x difference is a 10x difference.

Using one small number or produce another small number, so the difference looks small, doesn't hide the 10x change.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#303

Post by inferiorhuman »

geekamongus wrote: post #120
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…

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".

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#304

Post by Der_Einzige »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #137
breput wrote: post #111

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 n…

That air filter will move such a small volume of air, it's basically useless unless you're in a small closet.

But little to no dust will get into your computer, meaning less cleaning is necessary.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#305

Post by inferiorhuman »

aiisjustanif wrote: post #143
allenu wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ad…

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 th…

"Why you should trust us" or not, I take issue with Wirecutter specifically with their air purifier reviews. They've continued to recommend Blueair and Coway despite being faced with complaints. I don't care why Wirecutter claims you should trust them but I do care when they just stick their head in the ground WRT feedback.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#306

Post by brnt »

jve wrote: post #295

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" f…

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#307

Post by etchalon »

weaksauce wrote: post #260
etchalon wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that the difference between 0.9005 and 0.90005 is "small" is … weird. The moment I read that I checked out on the rest of the authors opinions.

> The idea that the difference between 0.9005 and 0.90005 is "small" is … weird. it is. that's one minute of filtration and the difference is minuscule. over time, this would trend to zero. in 10 minutes you'd expect to be near the steady state of the room. (obviously not completely steady state since you are filtering some already filtered air and probably introducing more particulates but close enough for an approx…

It's a 10x difference. It's not small.

In a sealed environment, you're right, you'd eventually end up with all particles filtered.

But homes are not sealed environments.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#308

Post by Scoundreller »

ethbr0 wrote: post #212
underhill wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 editor…

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.

It doesn’t help that google has largely de-prioritized smaller sites.

For better or for worse, my reviews about banks and their products have now been replaced by 10 links in a row to different sub-pages of the bank’s domain.

At least it used to make sure a blog article and a forum would appear on most search term’s top10.

I get it for my “XYZ Bank’s Phone Number - talk to a human now” pages. They probably shouldn’t have out-ranked the bank’s own official site, but the bank’s own website was much less user friendly than my own despite the abuse potential.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#309

Post by bityard »

dan-robertson wrote: post #180
DeathArrow wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 befo…

It's a myth that Phillips screws designed or intended to cam out at a certain torque. Not least of all because, the correct amount of torque varies wildly by application, even for the same fastener.

I'll agree that Project Farm's videos can be a little formulaic and my least favorite thing about the presentation is that he shouts instead of talks.

However, he's WAY ahead most YouTube tool reviewers because he does NOT accept free tools for review, and he puts the tools to real work, often ending in the destruction of the tool in order to find its limits. I find his tests to be very well designed. He only has limited time to test so many things, but he generally hits the important points. He goes MUCH farther than any other reviewer I've ever seen and his home brew-rigs and testing methodology are an order of magnitude better than anything I've ever seen out of a "professional" outfit like Consumer Reports.

The only thing I _wish_ he would add regularly to his videos is tool teardowns so we can see and compare how cheaply various tools are made. (Although we all know these days, they are all made like crap due to the race to the bottom.)

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#310

Post by Der_Einzige »

chrischen wrote: post #14
kn0where wrote: post #9

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…

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.
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