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Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

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Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#321

Post by seoaeu »

s0rce wrote: post #189
99_00 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

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.

Yeah, the difference is whether you can run the same air through the filter multiple times.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#322

Post by rcoveson »

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.

The difference between 0.9005 and 0.90005 is not huge in a medical context, or in a chip fab context, or in any other practical context. We're not talking about the difference between 0.0005 and 0.00005. The numbers in question are 0.9005 and 0.90005, and the point being made is that the 0.9 problem dwarfs the 10x efficiency difference way over in the thousandths place.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#323

Post by UIUC_06 »

spiderice wrote: post #259
UIUC_06 wrote: post #204

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 en…

> 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 doe…

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#324

Post by [deleted] »

etchalon wrote: post #307
weaksauce wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[deleted]

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#325

Post by noxvilleza »

jorvi wrote: post #158
Night_Thastus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For headphones I just use Crinacle. It’s served me well so far. For other stuff, I usually check Wirecutter and cross-reference it with Reddit reviews. I also have noticed that Wirecutter seems.. less qualitative (?) since they got bought by The NY Times.

Crinacle is probably the best, but for headphones I think it's the kind of thing you actually need to try out yourselves: the comfort varies so much for people, as does the preference for different sound signature (and knowing how well headphones handle when they're EQ'd to your preferences).

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#326

Post by yurishimo »

zucked wrote: post #292
throw0101a wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And they include best picks that have actually been tested if you might not be able to afford the number 1. So many channels might make a passing comment about a cheaper option, but you never know if the quality is kind of close or just the best option for them to make some affiliate revenue off of. At least ATK has the pedigree to backup their testing claims and anecdotal evidence. Their best pick spatula for example, I've seen in every commercial kitchen I've worked in.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#327

Post by manishsharan »

matthewfcarlson wrote: post #187
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…

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#328

Post by rootlocus »

etchalon wrote: post #297
1986 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's a 0.05% difference, seems pretty small to me.

The difference between 99.5% and 99.95 is the difference between an event happening 1 in 200 times and happening and 1 in 2000 times. It's a 10x difference. The author's "I'll just times .1 by the percent of flow, and produce very small numbers that look fine! See! The numbers are so small!" trick is just … wrong. The author implies that the difference can be made up by the volume of air being processed, but that wou…

Consider a purifier that purifies 99.995%. According to your "probabilities", that's a 100x improvement. Now consider this purifier purifies 1 cubic millimeter of air per hour. That is to say, each hour 1 cubic millimeter of air is 99.995% purified (no probability). Would you say that this purifier is 100x better than the IKEA one with 99.5% purification at 1 cubic feet of air per minute? Considering air flow is not a trick.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#329

Post by fartcannon »

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).

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#330

Post by seoaeu »

Nextgrid wrote: post #118
tyre wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They make more money from me if their reviews are accurate. If they’re are only motivated by money, then that incentive favors honest reviews. If I buy products that they recommend and they’re shit, I won’t go back and click anything again in my life. Making an extra $3 from on purchase isn’t worth it.

But the problem is that there's a difference between "okay" and "shit". They indeed won't make money if they recommend shit that gets returned, but a lot of products can be "okay" enough for people to keep around even if there are better products out there (that the review site doesn't recommend because the "okay" product provides better kickbacks). The standing desk situation is actually a very good example of that…

Honestly, when I’m looking at buying something OK is usually all I’m looking for. Sure getting the best widget would be nice, but I’m happy as long as it doesn’t break right away or otherwise cause me problems.
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