5 ms·

I just ordered a carbon monoxide detector from Amazon, supposedly shipped from the manufacturer. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t immediately think of Amazon’s m

by danso 7y ago

I just ordered a carbon monoxide detector from Amazon, supposedly shipped from the manufacturer. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t immediately think of Amazon’s many counterfeit scandals before ultimately ordering it as I do most things, out of habit. Still, this is a thing for which silent failure is catastrophic, so maybe I’ll send it back tomorrow.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
RandomBacon 7y ago
> maybe Just do it. You'll sleep better at night, and you'll have a higher chance of waking up. I no longer buy any products from Amazon anymore that's made to go in, on, or protect my body.
- kadoban 7y ago
  Add most electronics, IMO, especially things like memory cards and hard drives.
  - buckminster 7y ago
    I bought a hard drive from Amazon about four years ago. It came in a large cardboard box half full of packing paper. The unprotected drive was rattling round in the empty half of the box. Never again. That's the last thing I bought there.
    - buildbot 7y ago
      They ship everything like that, including 30k cameras
      - astura 7y ago
        And glass products.
    - jrockway 7y ago
      I've had the opposite experience. Hard drives from Amazon have been in factory-original packaging (involving a lot of foam) whereas hard drives from Newegg have been in plastic clamshells rattling around in the box. In fact, 100% of hard drives I've ordered from Newegg have failed. (The replacements received from the manufacturer were packed like the drives I've gotten from Amazon.) I think the TL;DR is that resellers are clueless about how the products they sell work. No doubt in my case Newegg got a big box of them designed for OEMs that were putting them in fully-built computers, but instead shipped them out individually. Maybe it's because they don't care, or maybe it's because someone made a mistake. Either way, it's annoying. I am surprised people aren't selling fake m.2 SSDs yet, like they do with SD cards.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        Both Amazon and Newegg are marketplaces, and at least Amazon has commingling issues which can obscure the actual source from the customer, even when you think you are buying direct from Amazon. It's possible the differing experiences reflect different actual sources on the same marketplaces.
        beerandt 7y ago
        Newegg has recently had problems with their own stock being listed inaccurately, especially selling white box or oem as retail, or listed with incorrect warranty info. If you call to return it, many of the call center reps seem to get genuinely aggravated at the company for allowing this to repeatedly happen.
    - Rapzid 7y ago
      I just bought a 1TB nvme driver and they sent me a 500GB drive the first go. In isolation that's barely an anecdote you'd mention to people over drinks but this stuff happens ALL. THE. TIME. to me with Amazon.
Waterluvian 7y ago
In addition to doing so, just consider having multiples. I followed the fire code and then put an extra two in the basement near the furnaxe/water heater and fireplace. And an extra in the bedrooms hallways. One of those things where I think it's okay to overdo it.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  In addition to addition, consider testing it. Last time I was buying carbon monoxide detectors for myself & family, I also bought a "tester" - basically carbon monoxide in a spray can + a bag to put your detector in. Costed me extra $10 or something, but worth the peace of mind.
  - mnw21cam 7y ago
    Or you could just strike a match underneath the detector, which is what the manual for my detector says to do. Set it off after a few seconds.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Didn't know a burning match emits enough carbon monoxide to trigger the alarm. I always thought that with ample supply of oxygen, burning carbon compounds releases primarily carbon dioxide.
      - mnw21cam 7y ago
        That yellow flame should tell you all you need to know about how complete the combustion is. It's yellow because there isn't enough oxygen in the mix, which is generating little particles of soot, which are glowing yellow. Not enough oxygen also means carbon monoxide.
Rebelgecko 7y ago
I was recently looking for some dusk masks to have handy due to fires in my area. It's such a clusterfuck when you look on Amazon. They have special labels like "Amazon's choice" or "Editor Recommended" which have nothing to do with the efficacy of the mask. A lot of masks make claims about being NIOSH approved and N95 certified, but they don't provide the approval numbers and NIOSH has no records of the manufacturer. I even saw some masks that supplied an invalid NIOSH approval number (it had been revoked in 2014). Some of the cheaper listings from legitimate companies sound like they're either counterfeit or some weird bulk reseller. A lot of reviews complaining about how the masks just came loose in the Amazon box with no packaging. I ordered some legit looking masks but figure it's a bit of a crapshoot
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  > A lot of masks make claims about being NIOSH approved and N95 certified, but they don't provide the approval numbers and NIOSH has no records of the manufacturer. I even saw some masks that supplied an invalid NIOSH approval number (it had been revoked in 2014). IMO, this is criminal.
  - masonic 7y ago
    Just like the fake eclipse glasses of a couple of years ago. At one point, essentially all were found to be fake/not-as-spec and Amazon had zero available two weeks before the eclipse.
    - heavyset_go 7y ago
      I just don't understand why Amazon isn't held liable for the products they sell. If Walmart sold fake products that put people at risk or worse, lawyers would have a field day.
  - beerandt 7y ago
    Water filters. Are the worst. Besides a registration/ certification number, they should all have a stamped (not printed) serial number or date code or similar.
droithomme 7y ago
Just get a CO detector chip, along with an organic vapors detector, etc, with I2C protocols, from aliexpress, and jango it into your preexisting DIY R-Pi or etc smart home system, like all hackers do.
- mkl 7y ago
  Would you really trust your life to that?
  - loco5niner 7y ago
    \s
    - droithomme 7y ago
      Oh you know I was wondering why you thought he was being sarcastic. But I just now realized you think I was being sarcastic. No, I'm not, that's the system I have. There are as many relevant sensors on each RPi as make sense. For example in the bathroom I monitor methane. I obviously monitor humidity and temperature at all stations since having those values is useful to adjust the accuracy of the measurements from several of the other sensors. It works well, I have logs that allow me to understand effects of people being in places and various cycles during the day, which I find interesting. I trust it much more than Nest or whatever other crap is out their commercially which is on the most part designed by half-wits, marketed and maintained by sociopaths, and definitely is nothing one would want to trust their life to, or even trust it'll still be working 6 months from now after the company that took your money grows bored with the project and shuts their servers down. Who wants to share this sort of private and intimate household information with some sociopathic corporation anyway. IoT only makes sense when you have complete control of the servers your stuff communicates with, and full access to the software stack.
      - loco5niner 7y ago
        Cool! Guess I was wrong. Thanks for the follow up.
blibble 7y ago
similarly when I needed to replace my smoke alarm batteries I considered buying replacements off amazon (9V ones are pretty expensive) I decided against as I didn't want some counterfeit ripoff with weird failure modes if this sort of consumer behaviour becomes common it will be the death knell for their retail business
- zifnab06 7y ago
  I debated Amazon for this but decided to go to a hardware store instead. Found out they make smoke alarms with 10 year lithium batteries now, and they're not that much more expensive.
  - astura 7y ago
    In some states (NY is one) those 10 year battery ones are the only ones legal to sell. https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2019/04/01/new-york-smoke-detector-law-need-to-know/3329632002/ https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2019/04/01/n...
nkrisc 7y ago
I wouldn't trust my life with Amazon's inventory practices, given their track record.

by danso 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

RandomBacon 7y ago

> maybe Just do it. You'll sleep better at night, and you'll have a higher chance of waking up. I no longer buy any products from Amazon anymore that's made to go in, on, or protect my body.

kadoban 7y ago
Add most electronics, IMO, especially things like memory cards and hard drives.
- buckminster 7y ago
  I bought a hard drive from Amazon about four years ago. It came in a large cardboard box half full of packing paper. The unprotected drive was rattling round in the empty half of the box. Never again. That's the last thing I bought there.
  - buildbot 7y ago
    They ship everything like that, including 30k cameras
    - astura 7y ago
      And glass products.
  - jrockway 7y ago
    I've had the opposite experience. Hard drives from Amazon have been in factory-original packaging (involving a lot of foam) whereas hard drives from Newegg have been in plastic clamshells rattling around in the box. In fact, 100% of hard drives I've ordered from Newegg have failed. (The replacements received from the manufacturer were packed like the drives I've gotten from Amazon.) I think the TL;DR is that resellers are clueless about how the products they sell work. No doubt in my case Newegg got a big box of them designed for OEMs that were putting them in fully-built computers, but instead shipped them out individually. Maybe it's because they don't care, or maybe it's because someone made a mistake. Either way, it's annoying. I am surprised people aren't selling fake m.2 SSDs yet, like they do with SD cards.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      Both Amazon and Newegg are marketplaces, and at least Amazon has commingling issues which can obscure the actual source from the customer, even when you think you are buying direct from Amazon. It's possible the differing experiences reflect different actual sources on the same marketplaces.
      - beerandt 7y ago
        Newegg has recently had problems with their own stock being listed inaccurately, especially selling white box or oem as retail, or listed with incorrect warranty info. If you call to return it, many of the call center reps seem to get genuinely aggravated at the company for allowing this to repeatedly happen.
  - Rapzid 7y ago
    I just bought a 1TB nvme driver and they sent me a 500GB drive the first go. In isolation that's barely an anecdote you'd mention to people over drinks but this stuff happens ALL. THE. TIME. to me with Amazon.

Waterluvian 7y ago

In addition to doing so, just consider having multiples. I followed the fire code and then put an extra two in the basement near the furnaxe/water heater and fireplace. And an extra in the bedrooms hallways. One of those things where I think it's okay to overdo it.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
In addition to addition, consider testing it. Last time I was buying carbon monoxide detectors for myself & family, I also bought a "tester" - basically carbon monoxide in a spray can + a bag to put your detector in. Costed me extra $10 or something, but worth the peace of mind.
- mnw21cam 7y ago
  Or you could just strike a match underneath the detector, which is what the manual for my detector says to do. Set it off after a few seconds.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Didn't know a burning match emits enough carbon monoxide to trigger the alarm. I always thought that with ample supply of oxygen, burning carbon compounds releases primarily carbon dioxide.
    - mnw21cam 7y ago
      That yellow flame should tell you all you need to know about how complete the combustion is. It's yellow because there isn't enough oxygen in the mix, which is generating little particles of soot, which are glowing yellow. Not enough oxygen also means carbon monoxide.

Rebelgecko 7y ago

I was recently looking for some dusk masks to have handy due to fires in my area. It's such a clusterfuck when you look on Amazon. They have special labels like "Amazon's choice" or "Editor Recommended" which have nothing to do with the efficacy of the mask. A lot of masks make claims about being NIOSH approved and N95 certified, but they don't provide the approval numbers and NIOSH has no records of the manufacturer. I even saw some masks that supplied an invalid NIOSH approval number (it had been revoked in 2014). Some of the cheaper listings from legitimate companies sound like they're either counterfeit or some weird bulk reseller. A lot of reviews complaining about how the masks just came loose in the Amazon box with no packaging. I ordered some legit looking masks but figure it's a bit of a crapshoot

heavyset_go 7y ago
> A lot of masks make claims about being NIOSH approved and N95 certified, but they don't provide the approval numbers and NIOSH has no records of the manufacturer. I even saw some masks that supplied an invalid NIOSH approval number (it had been revoked in 2014). IMO, this is criminal.
- masonic 7y ago
  Just like the fake eclipse glasses of a couple of years ago. At one point, essentially all were found to be fake/not-as-spec and Amazon had zero available two weeks before the eclipse.
  - heavyset_go 7y ago
    I just don't understand why Amazon isn't held liable for the products they sell. If Walmart sold fake products that put people at risk or worse, lawyers would have a field day.
- beerandt 7y ago
  Water filters. Are the worst. Besides a registration/ certification number, they should all have a stamped (not printed) serial number or date code or similar.

droithomme 7y ago

Just get a CO detector chip, along with an organic vapors detector, etc, with I2C protocols, from aliexpress, and jango it into your preexisting DIY R-Pi or etc smart home system, like all hackers do.

mkl 7y ago
Would you really trust your life to that?
- loco5niner 7y ago
  \s
  - droithomme 7y ago
    Oh you know I was wondering why you thought he was being sarcastic. But I just now realized you think I was being sarcastic. No, I'm not, that's the system I have. There are as many relevant sensors on each RPi as make sense. For example in the bathroom I monitor methane. I obviously monitor humidity and temperature at all stations since having those values is useful to adjust the accuracy of the measurements from several of the other sensors. It works well, I have logs that allow me to understand effects of people being in places and various cycles during the day, which I find interesting. I trust it much more than Nest or whatever other crap is out their commercially which is on the most part designed by half-wits, marketed and maintained by sociopaths, and definitely is nothing one would want to trust their life to, or even trust it'll still be working 6 months from now after the company that took your money grows bored with the project and shuts their servers down. Who wants to share this sort of private and intimate household information with some sociopathic corporation anyway. IoT only makes sense when you have complete control of the servers your stuff communicates with, and full access to the software stack.
    - loco5niner 7y ago
      Cool! Guess I was wrong. Thanks for the follow up.

blibble 7y ago

similarly when I needed to replace my smoke alarm batteries I considered buying replacements off amazon (9V ones are pretty expensive) I decided against as I didn't want some counterfeit ripoff with weird failure modes if this sort of consumer behaviour becomes common it will be the death knell for their retail business

zifnab06 7y ago
I debated Amazon for this but decided to go to a hardware store instead. Found out they make smoke alarms with 10 year lithium batteries now, and they're not that much more expensive.
- astura 7y ago
  In some states (NY is one) those 10 year battery ones are the only ones legal to sell. https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2019/04/01/new-york-smoke-detector-law-need-to-know/3329632002/ https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2019/04/01/n...

nkrisc 7y ago

I wouldn't trust my life with Amazon's inventory practices, given their track record.