Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

dynomight.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 723 posts

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#341

Post by fartcannon »

fnimick wrote: post #334
fartcannon wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

He's also vocally anti-union and actively tried to stop his employees from marketing themselves on personal social media (to stop them from building a following and then leaving, I'm guessing), so I refuse to watch any of his content or support his business in any way now.

Ah, that's pretty brutal. Thanks for the information I will keep that in mind. Seems less funny now. :/

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#342

Post by highwaylights »

weaksauce wrote: post #257
highwaylights wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 captur…

> 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. To be fair, it took a pandemic for me to go to the literature of mask effectiveness and finally found the "on the filtration efficiency of fiberous filters" paper that showed the u shaped curve. it's not something that…

You might also enjoy this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cagRuiyAsio

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#343

Post by kbelder »

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.

No, a 10x difference would be between 0.9 and 0.09. What was given was about a 1.0005x difference. If you had a child that was .9005 meters tall and one that was .90005 meters tall, you couldn't tell which was taller without a precision ruler.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#344

Post by etchalon »

rootlocus wrote: post #328
etchalon wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 E12 filter filters out 99.5% of particles above 0.3 microns.

An H13 filter filters out 99.95% of particles above 0.3 microns.

Assuming a volume of 10000 particles above 0.3 microns:

An E12 filter will leave 50 particles.

An H13 filter will leave 5 particles.

The "rootlocus" filter would leave 0.5 particles.

So yes, I would say your filter is 100x better because it literally is.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#345

Post by highwaylights »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #291
highwaylights wrote: post #97

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 t…

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…

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#346

Post by Tade0 »

> 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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#347

Post by inferiorhuman »

pnathan wrote: post #262
Androider wrote: post #35

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#348

Post by junkieradio »

fnimick wrote: post #334
fartcannon wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

He's also vocally anti-union and actively tried to stop his employees from marketing themselves on personal social media (to stop them from building a following and then leaving, I'm guessing), so I refuse to watch any of his content or support his business in any way now.

I watch one of his employees stream on twitch, I found out about his channel from a Linus tech tips video, I don't think your second claim is all that true.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#349

Post by screye »

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.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#350

Post by daenz »

post_break wrote: post #168
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.

Your comment is hilarious. Buying an air purifier that looks good makes sense, making an air purifier during times of crisis also makes sense. They are not even remotely the same thing. Oh boy you're so lucky you can get a Dyson, we've got wild fires here in California! You see how ridiculous that sounds?

The funny thing is, I agree with your comment. Which is why I'm so confused about someone who sees an air purifier that is clearly made for purposes other than aesthetics and says "I don't want it because it's ugly." It's not for you, obviously.
Post reply on HN