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Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

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Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#531

Post by MrDunham »

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 had the privilege of working in a co-working space in Tahoe that also subleted out to outdoorgearlab.com/techgearlab.com.

Having been on their private list where they resell items that I purchased I can say that they do purchase and touch every single item that they’ve used.

I also find the reviews tend towards a higher priced end of the spectrum because it is affiliate paid. Nevertheless, I was pretty impressed by how much they put everything through its paces.

For the record, I haven’t talked to anyone there since 2016 and have no reason to pump them.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#532

Post by oldgradstudent »

hammock wrote: post #59
elromulous wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely not a conspiracy theory. Incentives affect reviews, which is why truly unbiased review sources exist.

Sometimes conspiracy theories are true. They are still conspiracy theories

Every prosecutor is a conspiracy theorist. The courts decide whether the conspiracy theory corresponds to a real conspiracy.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#533

Post by Tagbert »

unwind wrote: post #192
mrkwse wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Just in case not everyone are in the loop, LMG is Linus Media Group [1] which is the publishing agency behind the popular YouTube channel "Linus Tech Tips" [2]. It is a different Linus, not Torvalds. :) [1]: https://linusmediagroup.com/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/c/LinusTechTips

Thank you. I had wondered about that.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#535

Post by dymax78 »

cush wrote: post #301
mrkwse wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> If you're into headphones, Crinacle's site/YT are on a completely different level than any other review site.

Audio Science Review was posting deep-dive technical reviews of amps, dacs, daps, iems, and headphones, years before crinacle made a post on headfi, and I say that as a member of the latter since ‘02. Many audio engineers and enthusiasts have attempted to remove the “reality distortion field” that permeates the prominent audiophile communities (headfi, audiogon) for years; ASR was one of the first to successfully to so (excluding sites dedicated to specialized equipment).

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#536

Post by stephen_g »

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.

So? We're talking about practical effectiveness here. The difference really only matters if you only have one chance to filter the air, like the filter in a ventilation system bringing air into a cleanroom (the article goes into this).

Since the air purifier intakes and exhausts in the same space (meaning filtered air gets re-filtered), all the slightly worse filter means it that you'd need to run it for a couple more minutes to get the room down to a similar concentration of particulate per unit volume... So the difference in particulate concentration would likely not be anywhere near 10x at steady state, it would be much smaller (but depends how much air leaks into the room from outside, the particulate content of the outside air, the volume of air you're getting through the purifier per unit time, etc.)

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#537

Post by sumoboy »

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…

The challenge with picking an air purifier is everyone's situation is different given the reason for purification, room(s), price, and maintenance costs. Someone who has allergies vs pets vs volatile chemicals all need something very specific, so the BS one size fits all wirecutter recommendation would have you believe it's the best. Unless you can talk to a real expert who matches up the model(s) you need, reading reviews and YT is pretty much worthless. In the world of purifiers, you definitely get what you pay for.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#538

Post by amluto »

etchalon wrote: post #485
rcoveson wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Saying, "OK, but as a total percent of the air in your home at any given time, the difference is tiny" is … weird. It's still a 10x difference. Using small numbers to make the difference look small doesn't hide that.

Sorry, you’re still missing the point.

If you are taking air, running it once through a filter, and using the air that comes out for an application that needs very few particles, then a 99.99% filter is “10x” as efficient as a 99.9% filter in the sense that the air coming out will have 1/10 as many particles. For example, a 99% efficient face mask is “10x” as efficient as a 90% efficient mask (assuming both fit perfectly, which they don’t, although a PAPR approximates a perfect fit).

But an air purifier doesn’t do this at all. It continuously sucks in air, removes particles from it, and sends the filtered air right back into the room to mix with all the other air. The performance of a 95% filter in this context is barely distinguishable from that of a hypothetical 100% filter. Your characterization would have the 100% air purifier being “infinitely” more efficient.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#539

Post by calsy »

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…

Doesn't the blog post clearly show thats its not a real review site. It's also not that hard to find things written by humans.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#540

Post by lathiat »

callahad wrote: post #76
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…

In the UK, https://www.which.co.uk/ fills a similar niche to Consumer Reports.

Australia: https://www.choice.com.au/ New Zealand: http://consumer.org.nz/
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