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

441–450 of 723 posts

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#441

Post by harha »

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…

To add to that: most sites just compare the features at best. I’m interested in actual usability and durability, things you might need more than five minutes or just reading the specs to find out. E.g. how do headphones handle multiple devices, how long will the battery survive, what are the options when they are broken?

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#443

Post by roldie »

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.

I have the Coway Mighty in my living room and the Blue Air 411 in my bedroom. Both are great, and I would recommend them to anyone.

And I have the same sentiment as others, Wirecutter is definitely suspect, but at least for air purifiers their recommendations were spot on for me.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#444

Post by phnofive »

addicted wrote: post #392

This article actually makes a bunch of claims itself that are false. For example, it claims that the Wirecutter believes air filters work like sieves. Whereas the Wirecutter review page for air purifiers goes into how they do not behave like sieves and also references a NASA study that shows how HEPA filters are good at capturing both particles smaller and larger than the 0.3 micron test standard. It’s pretty obvious…

> HEPA filters are good at capturing both particles smaller and larger than the 0.3 micron test standard

That is due to MPPS - the only thing that matters is the actual reference particle size, not larger or smaller particles, as these are ultimately easier to filter. That is, particles between 0.2 and 0.3 microns are the most difficult to effectively filter out.

> their focus is on PM2.5

Which doesn't mean it doesn't trap 0.3 micron particles, as PM2.5 is Particulate Matter up to 2.5 microns in size, not 2.5 microns and up.

There are inconsistencies between their main air filter recommendation article and the specific review; if you haven't, read the article about the IKEA filter here: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/ikea-fornuftig-air-p...

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#445

Post by nextos »

harha wrote: post #441
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…

To add to that: most sites just compare the features at best. I’m interested in actual usability and durability, things you might need more than five minutes or just reading the specs to find out. E.g. how do headphones handle multiple devices, how long will the battery survive, what are the options when they are broken?

Yes, assessing devices is far from trivial. In case of air purifier reviews, there's little focus on two crucial elements:

* Real energy consumption and performance when the filter is a bit dirty

* Fan noise and vibrations when the device has already been in use for a year or two

For example, in my experience, the top pick from Wirecutter (Coway) excels on the first item but fans tens to become misaligned after a while and vibrate a lot at low speeds. It happened to 2/2 units I bought.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#446

Post by rcoveson »

etchalon wrote: post #387
kbelder wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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. That's a 10x difference.

The only point the author was making with the 0.9005 vs 0.90005 example was that if you're only processing 10% of the air, then the efficiency of your filter doesn't matter. The entire section honestly would have been better without numbers, because they cause some amount of confusion and they don't really help make the point since it's obvious. If your room's air is recycled with outside air fully over the course of one day, and your filters take ten days to work through the volume of air in your room, then the efficiency of your filter doesn't matter.

That's it. Yes, one filter is 10x as efficient. It doesn't matter because in this example they aren't moving enough air relative to the room size/leakiness for it to matter.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#447

Post by fartcannon »

bradlys wrote: post #409
rhyzomatic wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind sharing some links to back up these claims? Just watched a video [0] where he clearly comes across as being pro workers rights, and against passing prop 22 in California. He seems to be generally pro-union while still trying to point out some general issues with them. He also says he would be "offended" if his employees unionized at LMG, which while maybe is a bit stupid to say, I don't think counts as an…

People should also understand why he said he would be offended. He would be offended because it meant they didn’t talk to him and work with him - and that he did such a bad job as a manager that they decided to unionize. He’s pro-union - he just hopes he is a good enough boss that his employees don’t feel like they need to unionize. He clarified his viewpoint in later videos. Offended was probably not the best choice…

Pro-union but would be offended if his employees made a union?

That's the kinda double speak I'm talking about.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#448

Post by addandsubtract »

epolanski wrote: post #390
duskwuff wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the "smart" features of a TV are rendered nonfunctional by not giving it a network connection, you're still stuck with a TV that takes a while to boot up (yes, really), and which may be built around a UI designed to navigate its smart features (like booting to a home screen instead of passing through HDMI input).

I've never seen a recent mid budged tv take longer than 4 seconds to boot

My TCL takes 2:40 to boot up. There is (or rather, used to be) a fast boot option, but it stopped working after the second firmware update.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#449

Post by wpietri »

screye wrote: post #353
wpietri wrote: post #282

Who is Dynomight? For me this piece leans pretty heavily on authorial confidence. But I couldn't find any indication of who the author is, or what his expertise is. I get why he's casting aspersions on their revenue model and how it might affect what they write. But then he doesn't disclose what his revenue model and personal interests might be.

As a reader, if I had to generalize; Dynomight is a SF-rationalist-substack-adjacent blogger with a good understanding of statistics. The 2 closest popular bloggers I associate him with are SSC and Gwern; both pretty popular on HN. I particularly loved his blogs on the homelessness[1] and drug[2] crisis in the US. He? digs deep, does the statistical due diligence and usually finds conclusions that richer-academics-me…

Ok. How would you describe SSC's revenue model and incentives, then?

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#450

Post by Gigachad »

jstanley wrote: post #170
CharlesW wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“A conspiracy theory is not the same as a conspiracy; instead, it refers to a hypothesized conspiracy…” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory

A conspiracy is when people collude in secret. A conspiracy theory is a theory that some people collude in secret. Conspiracy theories are true when they correspond to true conspiracies.

People get the idea that theory means wrong or imaginary when it really means the concept of something rather than the actual thing. But the concept can be correct and fully proven like the theory of math or physics.
Post reply on HN