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Shark used to make an (otherwise excellent) upright consumer vacuum cleaner with a metal strip in the handle. The vacuum's power cable did not have a ground. T
by Hydraulix989 10y ago
Shark used to make an (otherwise excellent) upright consumer vacuum cleaner with a metal strip in the handle. The vacuum's power cable did not have a ground.
This vacuum had the most five-star reviews on Amazon, but then a minority of people started complaining and leaving one-star reviews, saying they were getting shocked.
The reactions from the fanboy crowd were non-sympathetic ("you're imagining it," "it's just static," etc.), and they mass downvoted every one-star review. Some of the people claimed they were getting shocked PRETTY HARD, too, as in it knocked them over. IIRC, even Shark responded saying that it was impossible for the vacuum to shock you.
I remember seeing this while looking at vacuums for my elderly mother who has a heart condition. To the electrical engineer in me, everything made sense!
I started defending every single one-star reviewer person, and I wrote my own very detailed review with photos of the handle. Soon, the tide turned, and more people started upvoting my review than downvoting it; and I even received personal "thank you" messages from the people who got shocked ("finally someone believes me").
It eventually got to the point where a year later in 2014, Shark released an updated model with no more metal strip. Seeing this, I bought the new model for my mother. I'd like to think I can give myself SOME credit for causing them to do that.
Not only that, the upvotes from that alone were a good part of the reason I became an Amazon Top Reviewer.
- nraynaud 10y agoI would separate the issues, vacuum cleaners are famous for electrically charging dust up to quite high voltages.
- Hydraulix989 10y agoI should clarify that the reports indicated that the shock originated from the hand touching the handle.
- nraynaud 10y agoI guess I should go further: some vacuum cleaners have to have a ground connection in the hose, to try to discharge the dust. If they removed it for unrelated reasons, they probably lowered the overall quality of the product overall.
- Hydraulix989 10y agoTo Shark's defense, I haven't seen too many non-commercial/consumer vacuums with grounded plugs.
- Hydraulix989 10y agoThat said, they (consumer vacuums) almost all have enclosures made entirely of plastic.
- sduff 10y agoWhy would you still buy from the same manufacturer that denied bad (and potentially deadly) design?
- Hydraulix989 10y agoLike I said, it was otherwise, an excellent vacuum. Any how, I know about Lenovo's Superfish and recently its attempts to block Linux installs, but I am still a die-hard Thinkpad user because these are very large organizations where all it takes is one single person's oversight to cause a mistake.
- creshal 10y agoThey didn't "attempt to block Linux", they just shipped hardware without a Linux driver. And later released a workaround to make the hardware work in a slower, more power consuming backwards compatibility mode so Intel can continue not properly supporting the hardware in Linux. But sure, it was totally "Lenovo blocking Linux".
- mavhc 10y agoHow come Intel is one of the top contributors to linux, but doesn't ship drivers for all their hardware?
- brianwawok 10y agoI'm guessing because Linux on laptops isn't a big money maker. Linux on server is where Intel focuses.
- creshal 10y agoDifferent divisions doing different things. Intel is extremely interested in Linux for their HPC Itanium/Xeon range, moderately interested in Linux for other server and business hardware, as well as mobile; and Intel's consumer PC division doesn't give a fuck at all.
- 10y ago