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Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

• IndySun 4y ago
  Who or whatever dynomight is, they take things seriously. And I, for one, am grateful.
• Saint_Genet 4y ago
  Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but the IKEA one which they singled out as not recommended to buy is the only one in the article they don't earn a commission on when someone buys it
  • elromulous 4y ago
    This is definitely not a conspiracy theory. Incentives affect reviews, which is why truly unbiased review sources exist.
    • Nextgrid 4y ago
      Especially when they already have a proven track record of nastiness: https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to-play-model https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to...
      • GavinMcG 4y ago
        I've used the Wirecutter, so I'm not going to claim to be totally unbiased. But I'm just not seeing any nastiness there: the reason they gave for switching their recommendation (while retaining their original recommendation as an upgrade pick) seems entirely legitimate. And as much as the company wants to emphasize the use of the word "kickback" it's not really apt: Wirecutter's model has always been affiliate linking, and that's exactly what they reached out about in their first and second emails. And when turned down, they still published the recommendation and (later) still identified it as the best option if cost isn't an issue.
        • Nextgrid 4y ago
          But the problem is that it ultimately skews the incentives and contradicts their claim that the editors are totally isolated from the commercial part of their business. Their homepage currently suggests the following: > We independently review everything we recommend. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission [emphasis mine] The "about" page claims: > There’s no incentive for us to pick inferior products or to respond to pressure from manufacturers—in fact, it’s quite the opposite [emphasis mine] That's not really true when the same person who writes the reviews is the one trying to solicit kickbacks in the background, and puts the credibility of the entire website into question. Their adjusted review could be completely legitimate but there's no way to be sure so it's better to err on the side of caution.
          • GavinMcG 4y ago
            Sure, and I'm not saying there's no possible influence in any direction. At the same time, I suspect things are more separate than in 2014, and I don't see that claim on their pages from back then [0][1]. In fact they seemed to have independently reviewed the desks and only then asked about an affiliate program. When they switched their recommendation to Fully, they apparently didn't have an affiliate relationship with them, either. NextDesk calls that "false" — but based on Wirecutter linking to Amazon to earn a commission. That's a bizarre conflation (although like you said it's not nothing) but it's what Wirecutter usually did regardless of the product, and they were up front about it at the time [1]. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150603092537/https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-standing-desk/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150603092537/https://thewirecu... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150518125823/http://thewirecutter.com/how-to-support-the-wirecutter/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150518125823/http://thewirecut... (Wirecutter used the word "kickback" here, too, so if anything it seems like they were trying to be as uncharitable as possible about their own model.)
            • lozenge 4y ago
              Wirecutter's "business team" won't let their "editorial team" review the new iterations of the NextDesk product because if their "unbiased recommendation" is NextDesk, revenue will go down. The CEO was explicit in his email that he looks to maximise revenue on the standing desks page (and by implication, every other page on the site). The "business team" was explicit - the editorial team doesn't act directly, they can only get review units arranged by the business team - which is refusing to receive review units because no affiliate program is in place.
      • elromulous 4y ago
        Oh wow! I hadn't seen this. Thanks for sharing.
    • hammock 4y ago
      Sometimes conspiracy theories are true. They are still conspiracy theories
      • CharlesW 4y ago
        “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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
        • bombcar 4y ago
          Exactly, if they're true it's a conspiracy fact or just a conspiracy. And even if they do NOT take kickbacks, there's no financial incentive at all to "link" to a sales page that doesn't offer affiliate links, where there is one to link. And so the best way to handle this is to not review at all products that aren't available through said sites. Think Southwest tickets not being available from aggregators.
          • CharlesW 4y ago
            > And even if they do NOT take kickbacks, there's no financial incentive at all to "link" to a sales page that doesn't offer affiliate links… And yet Wirecutter does this. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-stuff-from-ikea/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-stuff-from-i...
        • jstanley 4y ago
          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.
          • Gigachad 4y ago
            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.
  • rahimnathwani 4y ago
    This is mentioned in the first line of the article: "you should instead buy a different purifier that totally coincidentally happens to pay affiliate marketing commissions."
    • clairity 4y ago
      i literally ran into this with wirecutter when searching for an air purifier years ago. they recommended an inferior performing coway when their own tests concluded that blueair (211+) was significantly better. they've long since removed the chart showing this discrepancy, and they still recommend coway, no doubt because that's their affiliate partner. i bought the 211+ and have been mostly satisfied with it for my studio apartment, but beware, filters are relatively expensive. in any case, if you really care about effective air purification, buy the largest/most powerful fan you can get (CADR tries to proxy this, but is an imperfect measure), because the critical factor is getting as much of the air volume through the filters before the dust settles (literally). filter effectiveness isn't nearly as critical as throughput. nowadays i'd probably opt for two of the ikeas instead, and put them on opposite sides of the room (but not against a wall). that'd be cheaper and likely just as effective.
  • sumeno 4y ago
    There are other categories where they do recommend IKEA as the top option despite not getting a commission
  • arkitaip 4y ago
    You know what the messed up thing about Wirecutter's affiliate marketing is? Their Amazon links are consistently broken to the point where the links don't point to products but are faulty search queries. Like, if you are going to compromise your reputation doing affiliate marketing, at least get the damn links right so I don't have to perform a Amazon search to find the actual product.
    • bombcar 4y ago
      Some might say this is intentional, the whole point for the link is to corrupt your Amazon cookie so that they get credit for the (next?) purchase you make. At least that's how I've always assumed the links work, not that you have to buy the exact product immediately.
      • hackernewds 4y ago
        This blew my mind. And would be highly unethical that Amazon should know, since the accounting often happens on the publisher's side
        • bombcar 4y ago
          https://toolguyd.com/top-tool-deals-11122020/ https://toolguyd.com/top-tool-deals-11122020/ has some comments on what the site owner can see, things like which links work better than others, etc. Surprisingly large amounts of info could leak without anyone really realizing it, even if everything is entirely "anonymized" there's still the total dollar amount paid out, etc.
        • harrisonjackson 4y ago
          The product link not resolving doesn't improve this payout for the publisher. The cookie gets dropped _either way_ and when a purchase happen Amazon will check for a referral cookie and payout accordingly for whatever qualifies in that cart. As long as you end up on amazon's site, then the cookie was likely dropped and your next purchase may pay out affiliate commission to whichever publisher's links you most recently clicked through.
  • asojfdowgh 4y ago
    They recommend against a bunch of things even if they get commission
  • stjohnswarts 4y ago
    Do you have proof of that? Otherwise it kind of is conspiracy theorist. I assume Hanlon's razor here rather than malice on the part of NYT/WC.
  • dchest 4y ago
    I thought the same, but IKEA does have an affiliate program.
• dubswithus 4y ago
  Levoit seems to be recommended by /r/AirPurifiers/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VVK39F7/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VVK39F7/ The replacement filters are quite expensive though.
  • reaperducer 4y ago
    I don't recommend Levoit. I've had two of the very expensive ones die in the last year. Both the same kind of death where the software gets confused and it does not respond to any commands and won't boot. Crazy that we live in an age where a fan+filter+sensor needs to boot an operating system.
  • pkulak 4y ago
    I've been super happy with my Winnex and Coway. Pretty sure they are the ones that Wirecutter likes as well. The Levoits just don't seem to move much air. I like big, quiet fans that move lot's of air.
  • mthoms 4y ago
    I've got a Blue Air 211+ and am pretty happy with it. I have extraordinarily bad seasonal allergies. Well, I'm happy except the fact that the filters have gone up in price by 40% in the past year. I suspect this must be standard industry practice; launch a new purifier and price the filters at (near) cost. Once all the reviews have been written and the initial sales start to trail off, raise the filter price considerably. Luckily there are knockoff filters.
  • latchkey 4y ago
    While we are recommending filters, I absolutely love my Mila. Their best filter is about $100 and about once a year. I put the sock on there and clean that regularly and I suspect that makes the filter last a lot longer.
• rhexs 4y ago
  The air purifier review market is about as useful as searching for a credible mattress review. Snake oil everywhere.
• vorpalhex 4y ago
  This is good work.
• kn0where 4y ago
  Wirecutter really illustrates the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. Some of their recommendations are fine, but whenever they review something more niche than phone charger cables, I go to the comments/Reddit/forums to find out why their pick is overpriced/underperforming compared to whatever the community prefers. Edit: also, I’m finding Reddit to be a less useful term to append to my google searches over time. Many Reddit communities seem to attract novices who quickly learn to parrot the same frequently-upvoted claims without context, and the experts flee to niche forums instead.
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    I think that if a product requires that much hair splitting then at the end of the day it's a wash, pick any recommendation and live with it. Reddit is full of shills as well.
  • jacobolus 4y ago
    Warning: “community preferences” have plenty of their own arbitrary biases.
  • chrischen 4y ago
    I’ve noticed that problem with reddit as well. Someone will make a comment as if it is a well known fact but it turns out it was just one youtube reviewer saying it… and they don’t provide sources.
    • Der_Einzige 4y ago
      Stupid shit like this causes urban legends that don't die. People to this day still think that setting STALKER to "master difficulty" makes the player guns do more damage. They don't.
  • Gordonjcp 4y ago
    Reddit can be a hilarious example of the Dunning-Kruger effect writ large. I've had people argue with me about the exact working of various synthesizers in the synth subreddits, even when I've backed up my points with links to the extensive service documentation, circuit diagrams, and my own code disassembly of the firmware ;-) Like, yes, that's nice that you have an opinion, but here's the fat book I wrote on the topic, so let's see if we can work out who's right.
• jiveturkey 4y ago
  Glad to see some strong analysis backing up my decision to ignore wirecutter reviews for a couple of years now. Basically when they started publishing reviews for things they did not actually review.
  • shoelessone 4y ago
    I wasn't aware they did this. Any chance you have an example of this?
    • jiveturkey 4y ago
      Sorry I don't. But they were publishing various reviews based simply on product specs, or advertised/PR features. With affiliate links to buy of course. Maybe they don't do it anymore? I took a quick look across 3 random categories and didn't find any. I guess I have to apologize for the noise, since I can't back up my comment.
• EnderWT 4y ago
  On the first point in the article, there is a definition for HEPA which for ISO is 99.95% efficiency. The Ikea purifier doesn't meet this. It meets the EPA standard, hence the designation of E12 (99.5%).
  • adolph 4y ago
    As noted by the sibling comment, the parent comment mischaracterizes TFA's reference to "true-HEPA." It also makes the same hash of characterizing standards as the affiliate blogspam. Read TFA, which has an interesting characterization of the tradeoffs involved and not this comment.
  • rahimnathwani 4y ago
    The article didn't say HEPA has no definition. It said that 'true-HEPA' has no definition.
    • kllrnohj 4y ago
      Which seems intentionally nitpicky given that "HEPA" is defined and the Ikea one doesn't meet it while the others do. Therefore, "true-HEPA" almost certainly just means "HEPA", and the "true" just means "is actually HEPA" not some other special definition. The rest of the article's points are good, but this one comes across as just axe grinding.
      • rahimnathwani 4y ago
        Yeah. I'd assumed that 'true-HEPA' was a made-up term intended to trick people into thinking something is HEPA when it's actually worse. But that doesn't seem to be the case.
        • wlonkly 4y ago
          The Wikipedia HEPA article[1] says it's actually a reaction to people doing that -- some companies advertise "HEPA-type" or "HEPA-style", and so companies with actual HEPA filters market them as "True HEPA". It's a race to the bottom. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA#Marketing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA#Marketing
• pubby 4y ago
  If filters struggle to trap particles around some specific particle size, wouldn't it make sense to combine two filters with different ranges together?
  • gpm 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure that they all have their worst performance at roughly the same particle size, because they're all working on the same two mechanisms (discussed in the article), and that's the small area where neither mechanism works very well.
  • pkulak 4y ago
    They all struggle at the same size, is the issue.
• r12343a_19 4y ago
  I am legit wondering if air purifiers wouldn't be a good addition in preschools. A classroom isn't that big and one of these things would probably be enough. A school year would require 2-3 replacements, ie. not much. Anybody did something like this?
  • mh- 4y ago
    Yes. Especially since covid. This was just the first link that came up, but there was state-level funding going back to 2021 at least for this in some places. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-covid-funding-could-help-improve-air-quality-in-schools https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-covid-funding-could-...
    • r12343a_19 4y ago
      I knew that but funding was for big ventilation. I wonder if any of these home-use devices have been deployed and if there's some data with comparative results.
      • mh- 4y ago
        At the schools my kids were in, they deployed commercial-looking freestanding units. I don't know if that was intended to be a temporary measure until they got central units installed. I haven't seen any data, agree it would be nice to know.
  • hypersoar 4y ago
    I don't know how it went, but I recall that improving ventilation and filtering in schools was pushed among the many Covid countermeasures.
• Ataraxic 4y ago
  Looking at the wattage comparisons, the article talks about the "Wirecutter recommended air purifier" but seems to go out of its way to not mention it by name. Why? Second, I don't believe this air purifier, or really any recommended air purifier is going to use 45 watts for any extended period of time. The main power draw is simply the fan and a fan using 45 watts is going to be extremely loud. Secondly, I think there is an argument to be made for an air purifier quickly reducing particle count and then switching back into a lower noise mode. The suspicious CADR numbers do require more investigation on the wirecutter side though.
  • mlyle 4y ago
    > Looking at the wattage comparisons the article talks about the "Wirecutter recommended air purifier" but seems to go out of its way to not mention it by name. Why? He probably wants to avoid possible legal harassment by the manufacturer. It's not material to his point against Wirecutter, and it would poke one other party with resources to annoy him.
  • Denvercoder9 4y ago
    > seems to go out of its way to not mention it by name. Why? Bad publicity is still publicity.
  • gigaflop 4y ago
    I interpret that the lack of names (WC pick 1, 2, etc) is to keep focus on the core message, and to not give out free advertising. While I happily admit to use of certain products, I don't want to serve as a billboard for them.
    • Ataraxic 4y ago
      Sure totally, it just makes it harder for me to verify _their_ numbers though. Someone else replied to me and said it is the levoit core 300. Their fan does seem weirdly inefficient, but comparing the high mode of the levoit model to the ikea isn't really the right comparison imo.
  • mbrubeck 4y ago
• daenz 4y ago
  Protip: you can turn a box fan into an incredibly effective air purifier[0] (particle measurements in thread). The one they show is pretty elaborate, using 4 filters and some construction, but you can also use a single filter and slap it on the back of the box fan and have similar results. The air purifier industry is more about aesthetics than it is function. 0. https://twitter.com/LazarusLong13/status/1425517352624410627 https://twitter.com/LazarusLong13/status/1425517352624410627
  • turtlebits 4y ago
    The problem is that on low, it’s too loud and pushes/filters too much air to be needed 24x7. It’s also bulky. I rather use a smaller profile one that can be left on all the time (even if it costs more) I have the box fan and only use it when AQI is high (wildfire season)
  • adolph 4y ago
    Like generic drugs theres no money in practically free, recycled or dual use.
  • donohoe 4y ago
    > The air purifier industry is more about aesthetics than it is function Well, sure, to a point. I could make my own air purifier (like the one you link) but it looks awful. I would not want that in my home. So yeah, aesthetics do matter. Its not the only thing but it is a factor.
    • daenz 4y ago
      > 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.
      • jeromegv 4y ago
        Of course, but nobody is preventing that information to be shared. When I looked for air purifier last year, there was tons of articles I saw on how to build your own. This isn't hidden, there's tons of good resources out there. I don't understand why you try to shame us for choosing to buy our own. Of course we are fortunate we can afford it. We aren't talking of a sports car here, it's few hundreds dollar, this is a perfectly fine trade off to decide to buy one.
• bobcostas55 4y ago
  IKEA says the fornuftig is only for 8-10 square meter rooms. How "real" is that limitation?
  • enragedcacti 4y ago
    As the OP talks about a bit (see (math) in the "On Weakness" section), the things that really matter are: 1. the rate at which clean air is replace with dirty air, the ventilation half-life (e.g. steady state from an outside draft, bursts from cooking) 2. the rate at which the purifier extracts particles (CADR) 3. your personal tolerance for particles. 4. (unstated in the OP) your tolerance for noise level. Ikea arrives at that size through some form of that math, but if you live in a less polluted area, have a well sealed home, or just have a higher tolerance then it could absolutely be suitable for a larger room. You can buy air quality sensors to test this or purchase a purifier with one built in, such as the Starkvind from Ikea. it can automatically adjust the speed to satisfy some level of pm2.5 particles (I'm not sure what that level is because I don't have it connected to anything smart). I have this in my bedroom and find that the vast majority of the time it stays on setting 1 or 2.
• fabian2k 4y ago
  I've never thought about air filters, but the explanation on why they also filter smaller particles is very similar to size exclusion chromatography, a very common method used in a biolab. This is also a method that might appear counter-intuitive at first. The idea there is to separate molecules according to their size. So you press them through a column of porous beads. Small molecules can enter these pores, which delays them and they travel through the column slower than large molecules that cannot enter them. This is pretty counter-intuitive, especially as other similar methods work as you'd expect with smaller molecules being faster to move through the material because they don't bump into it as much as larger molecules.
• joshstrange 4y ago
  Wirecutter has gone to shit and stopped being useful about 3-4 years ago. Their move to a paid subscription was very odd to me because they had also lost all my trust by that point. There are countless examples of recommends products doing a bait and switch (changing the materials/product after the wirecutter article recommending them came out) and just cases of Wirecutter giving bad recommendations.
  • istjohn 4y ago
    The worst is that they've deleted comments calling out bad recommendations.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    > There are countless examples of recommends products doing a bait and switch This is a larger problem than just Wirecutter, it would be interesting to have an industry trade body or something similar that would document when material changes have happened to the same product name/number. Sure, many would be immaterial, but there are substantial ones that happen all the time (if the product is big enough to have "fans" they notice and track this stuff).
  • dfdz 4y ago
    > Their move to a paid subscription was very odd above several people note that > the IKEA one … is the only one in the article they don't earn a commission on when someone buys it How do you want wirecutter to stay economically viable?
    • joshstrange 4y ago
      I'm saying that I would have paid 3-4 years ago before I lost trust in the site. I have no issue with affiliate links (if the site remains neutral which seems almost impossible) but it's clear to me WC sold their soul a while back and subscription fees are a last-ditch attempt to get some more money out of it. I almost did pay when they announced they were going the subscription route but after being burned or almost-burned (saved by reading reviews about a bait and switch) I decided I no longer cared about WC recommendations.
• bryanlarsen 4y ago
  Their humidifier recommendations have similar problems. If you want a humidifier, I recommend checking out Technology Connections on YouTube. For anything else, Consumer Reports. They don't accept advertising or commissions.
• ilamont 4y ago
  they refer to the IKEA purifier as using a “PM2.5 filter” Take a European brand. Add some mysterious spec numbers to the name, and turn a milquetoast product into something cool or respectable. My favorite: the "Merkur XR4Ti" which was basically a Ford Sierra hatchback (family car) with a vaguely sporty look and slightly higher performance engine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkur_XR4Ti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkur_XR4Ti
• ck2 4y ago
  Particle sizes visualized, note PM2.5 vs PM10 https://i.imgur.com/dU990L8.jpg https://i.imgur.com/dU990L8.jpg
• Androider 4y ago
  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.
  • pnathan 4y ago
    Same. The Coway is very quiet, and it works rather well, as measured by the Dylos particle counter elsewhere in the room.
    • SrslyJosh 4y ago
      I have four of them to cover both floors of a two-story house. They work well (so long as you remember to clean the prefilter every month or two!) and are very quiet on the lower fan speeds. The only thing I'd ding them for is not having a fan speed setting in between "nearly silent" and "jet engine", but you should only need the highest setting in unusual circumstances.
    • inferiorhuman 4y ago
      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.
  • roldie 4y ago
    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.
• diebeforei485 4y ago
  Note that Ikea also sells a more powerful air filter called the Starkvind. This one is able to detect the air quality and automatically turn itself on. It is sold either as a standalone device or integrated into a nightstand / small coffee table: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-table-with-air-purifier-stained-oak-veneer-dark-brown-30501958/#content https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-table-with-air-purifi...
  • yurodivuie 4y ago
    Levoit also sells more powerful air purifiers with particle detection, though. I think the point of this article was to compare the bottom end.
• jefftk 4y ago
  Agreed: the Wirecutter's emphasis on HEPA is not right for a purifier that sits in a room. Once you get to reasonably high removal efficacy (even 90%, let alone 99.5% vs 99.97%) flow rate matters far more than filter spec. I also wish the Wirecutter would publish more detailed logs. They just check the particle density after half an hour, which is generally super low. Instead they could show the particle density curves, or the minute-over-minute decreases (ex: https://www.jefftk.com/p/testing-air-purifiers https://www.jefftk.com/p/testing-air-purifiers)
  • 99_00 4y ago
    >HEPA is not right for a purifier that sits in a room Why not? I don't know anything about HEPA, or quality, air flow, etc.
    • jefftk 4y ago
      The article explains it well: Here’s a thought experiment: Take a 1000 cubic feet room and a purifier that processes 100 cubic feet of air per minute. (I follow Wirecutter in using vulgar imperial units.) Assume pessimistically that all particles are the worst-case size. If you run that purifier with an E12 filter, the fraction of particles that will remain after one minute is .1 × (1-.995) + .9 = 0.9005. That’s because 10% of the air goes through the purifier and has 99.5% of particles removed, while 90% of the air doesn’t go through the purifier at all. Meanwhile, if you run that purifier with an H13 filter instead then the fraction of particles that remain will be .1 × (1-.9995) + .9 = 0.90005. If you noticed that 0.9005 and 0.90005 are almost identical then congratulations—you understand air filters better than the Wirecutter. Both 99.5% and 99.95% are close enough to 100% that performance is almost entirely determined by the volume of air they process.
      • etchalon 4y ago
        The idea that the difference between 0.9005 and 0.90005 is "small" is … weird. The moment I read that I checked out on the rest of the authors opinions.
• CodeWriter23 4y ago
  Not surprising given Wirecutter was acquired by NYT a few years back and mainstream media’s obsession with not-quite-robust “fact checking”
• flanbiscuit 4y ago
  Here's the original Wirecutter review: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/ikea-fornuftig-air-purifier/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/ikea-fornuftig-air-p... "Our pick among small-space purifiers, the Levoit Core 300, is not much more expensive, is a true-HEPA machine, and has a CADR of 135, which means it’s effective in rooms up to 200 square feet." Non-affiliate direct link to the one Wirecutter recommends: https://levoit.com/products/core300-true-hepa-air-purifier https://levoit.com/products/core300-true-hepa-air-purifier Just linking for information in case anyone else was curious.
• Spooky23 4y ago
  The best air purifier is a $20 Lasco box fan with a 3M square furnace filter duct taped to it. You can vary the cost and filtration ability based on the filter. A super duper filter is like $35, and a midrange is about $20.
  • bitlax 4y ago
    Step it up to a comparetto. https://youtu.be/Y7eL2OAnqc8 https://youtu.be/Y7eL2OAnqc8
  • s0rce 4y ago
    Box fan is too loud even on the lowest settings, good when the air quality is horrible but not for general use, imho.
  • Mister_Snuggles 4y ago
    I've got this setup to deal with cat litter dust. It works very well for that purpose and the filters are cheap (I get the cheapest one that's not see-through, <$10CAD I think). That said, it's very loud even at the lowest setting. It's not something you want to share a room with. I use my home automation stuff to only run it when required, based on a motion detector at the litter boxes.
• yurodivuie 4y ago
  Probably more aggro than necessary... Wirecutter takes H13 to be the minimum level that can be considered "HEPA" because that seems to be the "H" in "H13", per the same chart that Dynomight references in Wikipedia (though they cut off that column in their own article).
  • hooloovoo_zoo 4y ago
    The Wirecutter takes that standard to be minimum as that is the minimum necessary to be considered a HEPA filter, which the author should presumably know as that is stated in 2 articles they cited lol.
  • jldugger 4y ago
    What does the H in H12 stand for then?
    • adament 4y ago
      According to the table it is not H12 but E12 which corresponds to Efficient Particulate Air filters (EPA), I.e. not high-efficiency.
    • yurodivuie 4y ago
      It's actually E12 vs H13 - there is no H12. The "E" in "E12" stands for "EPA", as opposed to "HEPA".
      • jldugger 4y ago
        aww jeez
  • stephen_g 4y ago
    That's not the point though - that part is technically true (EPA filters are 'Efficient Particulate Air' filters and HEPA are 'High Efficiency Particulate Air' filters, and the E and H correspond to those respectively). The point of the article is that the Wirecutter authors don't understand the physics of air filters and gives the difference more emphasis than what actually matters - it doesn't actually make a massive difference in this particular application. For a purifier that intakes and exhausts in the same space, getting more airflow through the filter per hour can mean over time it's basically the same effectiveness, and using a slightly lower spec filter can be a good design trade-off because it doesn't require as much pressure so it can use less power per unit volume of air filtered. Of course, in other applications, like bringing air into a cleanroom, it makes a massive difference, but that's not what we're talking about.
• hypersoar 4y ago
  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 experience googling "reviews of X" only to get overwhelmed with SEO spam. Forget finding something written by somebody who has experience with it. It's hard enough to find something written by a human.
  • edgefield 4y ago
    rtings.com is very good for certain types of products like TVs, headphones, etc.
    • throw90259475 4y ago
      Agree - they updated the review for Logitech G PRO X WIRELESS build quality while the SoundGuys still show build quality 9/10.
    • srhngpr 4y ago
      Definitely trust rtings. They buy every product in store to do their testing.
    • Night_Thastus 4y ago
      Agreed, minus the headphones. Their headphone reviews are a joke. It's also worth noting some products have a lot of variation due to poor QC (PC monitors) and they may get an unusually good/bad unit from time to time, skewing the review.
      • jorvi 4y ago
        For headphones I just use Crinacle. It’s served me well so far. For other stuff, I usually check Wirecutter and cross-reference it with Reddit reviews. I also have noticed that Wirecutter seems.. less qualitative (?) since they got bought by The NY Times.
• 99_00 4y ago
  Would the Ikea filter with gas cleaning help with my stinky farts? Honest question.
  • ksherlock 4y ago
    You can buy activated charcoal underwear or inserts. They're probably less obvious and more effective than strapping an air purifier to your derrière.
• fmajid 4y ago
  Also worth reading, in the same vein: https://danluu.com/nothing-works/ https://danluu.com/nothing-works/
• blobbers 4y ago
  I had a lot of trouble finding "the right" air purifier. Who knows if its even the right one. I found wirecutter (and the like) to have a bit of a feel of a fake affiliate marketing website. My take is: people currently trust their friends, and they trust influencers. They don't really trust "experts", or scientists. What are thoughts on a social network that was simply product endorsements from your social network. You can add influencers & friends and list the products you use. Yeah if influencers want to shill a product, that's up to them and you. If you trust them, then you trust what they shill. But if you want to see Kara Swisher uses a IQ Air or an Ikea product, you can trust them. Thoughts?
• jansan 4y ago
  IKEA really mussed the chance to provide a way to connect their air quality sensor with the air purifier. I was hoping to have an automated system that would start the air purifier when a certain threshold is reached, but there is no way to achieve this (except with intensive hacking). Also, the air quality sensor ALWAYS shows green. Did it show yellow or even red for anyone not living in Hotang?
  • enragedcacti 4y ago
    Home Assistant has air quality integrations although it does seem most solutions require a whole lot of hacking regardless of the sensor you choose and you would have to leave the air purifier on and use a smart plug to trigger it. An easier option is just forking over the cash for the Starkvind, which does exactly what you want and optionally comes in the form of a coffee table. https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-air-purifier-white-00461949/ https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-air-purifier-white-00...
  • bouvin 4y ago
    As an owner of a couple of Förnuftigs, I have each connected to a smart switch (which I already had) triggered over HomeKit by Eve air quality sensors (which I also had). Had the upgrade, the Starkvind, been on the market, when I got onboard, I would probably have opted for that instead, as it packs both a sensor and the ability to be controlled wirelessly over Trädfri. I have had other air purifiers before, and have been happy with the Förnuftigs – the air purifying business is, IMHO, to a large degree a racket that was badly in need for disruption. I bought my two Förnuftigs with filters for less that what I would have needed to pay for a single filter change for the air purifier I used before.
• throw90259475 4y ago
  On the same subject but from another source, some arguments in this video are off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uZKBlwLEFs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uZKBlwLEFs
• varispeed 4y ago
  Isn't IKEA now mostly branded Chinese tat with a slightly premium pricing? I have noticed that you can buy good quality Chinese stuff cheaper without having to pay for Western branding. Now that Western corporations are outsourcing whatever they can to make extra profit, basically becoming a shell and investment vehicle rather that a company actually making something, I think that it is now more ethical to actually buy from Chinese corporations without Western involvement. These greedy corporations are a part of the reason why Western economies are tanking. No meaningful jobs and people can't keep up paying off their debts. They also lobbied governments to put regulations on top of regulations so only big corporations could keep up with changes and it wouldn't be possible for a small business to even start unless they also outsource to Asia. I am sorry for quite a rant, but when I see IKEA it hits a nerve.
• bombcar 4y ago
  Whoops this wasn't meant to be a top level post. Erp. Moved it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31813424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31813424 sorry for those responding
  • abracadaniel 4y ago
    Project Farm is another great one for tools or anything you might find in a garage. - https://www.youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm https://www.youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm He buys everything himself, and does good comparisons and testing, often to failure.
    • bombcar 4y ago
      "Review to failure" is a good benchmark to see if they are actually really reviewing the tool, even if the failure is obscenely beyond any normal use of the product. Especially if they then can breakdown why it failed (and if they'd improve anything).
• highwaylights 4y ago
  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 the Starkvind smart purifiers as they’d be ideal, save for again not being able to get any decent information on filtration and flow rate. If the author ever reads this, I’d absolutely love a deep dive like this one on the Starkvind!
  • sampo 4y ago
    Ikea Starkvind flow rates: From https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-air-purifier-white-00461949/ https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-air-purifier-white-00... "Product details" and then "Other documents" gives you https://www.ikea.com/us/en/manuals/starkvind-air-purifier-white__AA-2286108-2-2.pdf https://www.ikea.com/us/en/manuals/starkvind-air-purifier-wh... and there the table on page 7 gives you the flow rates. The filter is EPA12. "The particle filter is tested according to EN 1822-1 and ISO 29463-3 which corresponds to class EPA12." https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-2-piece-filter-set-s99444197/ https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/starkvind-2-piece-filter-set-s9...
    • highwaylights 4y ago
      I appreciate this, and thanks. Sadly it seems like it’s essentially giving the same not-particularly-helpful stats as listed in the authors article. I’d love some independent particle test results for it (carried out properly as described in the article of course).
  • Mister_Snuggles 4y ago
    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 filters are different than the FORNUFTIG, so no filter sharing. Conceptually they're the same - a paper particle filter plus an optional carbon filter. At its highest setting it's louder than the FORNUFTIG's highest setting, but at its lowest it's virtually inaudible. If you leave it in Auto mode you'll hear it ramp up when it detects particulates in the air and ramp down when the air quality returns to normal. The main reason I bought the STARKVIND was the Zigbee interface. The IKEA Home Smart app is functional, but after the initial setup I only use Home Assistant to control it. In Home Assistant there are sensors for particulates and filter life, and controls for fan speed and mode (auto/manual). I'm using the IKEA gateway for my STARKVIND since deCONZ support wasn't completely ready at the time. Overall, it lives up to expectations as far as control goes.
• apendleton 4y ago
  I definitely feel like there's a bit of a Gell-Mann Amnesia effect going on with Wirecutter reviews: when they review things in areas I happen to know well, I often notice errors or missteps in their thinking in the review, but for some reason I still blindly trust their reviews in products that I know less about, even though obviously it's not particularly likely that they're uniquely inexpert in the areas I happen to know well. Posts like this are a good reminder to be skeptical of all of it.
• breput 4y ago
  Big Clive made a video and wrote an OpenSCAD script[0] which allows you to 3D print a base and adapter to convert a regular 120mm computer fan into a "true" HEPA air purifier. You might already have a spare 120mm fan laying around - I am using a $8 ARCTIC P12 fan[1] which is very quiet and is designed to work with high static pressure. The generic filters[2] are two for $17, (supposedly) H13 grade, available from a number of suppliers, and last a very long time. You could use them one at a time but I stack the two filters on top of each other and seal them with electrical tape for more surface area. The fan isn't super powerful (56 CFM) and the appearance is not as polished as commercial models, but it does have a certain aesthetic to it. The area where I live rarely has any air quality issues but I have noticed it really cuts down on dust. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vmh2Ip2Vxg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vmh2Ip2Vxg (script in the Description) [1] https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GB16RK7 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GB16RK7 [2] https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08N1FP2WT https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08N1FP2WT
  • KennyBlanken 4y ago
    That air filter will move such a small volume of air, it's basically useless unless you're in a small closet.
    • breput 4y ago
      Well, my experience refutes that opinion, but yes, it sized for a smaller room or less polluted larger areas. My office is approximately 12' x 12' x 8' or 1,152 ft³. That means the room's air would (theoretically) completely pass through the filter every 20 1/2 minutes. As the article explains, even the lower quality filter in the Ikea air purifier is so close to 100% efficient that it isn't worth worrying about, so completely filtering the air three times per hour is nothing to sneeze at... And the cost is negligible - the fan might cost $0 to $10, filters are $20/year, and electricity usage is around 2 watts or probably under $2/year.
    • Der_Einzige 4y ago
      But little to no dust will get into your computer, meaning less cleaning is necessary.
• jackallis 4y ago
  s/he said they keep "I keep a big powerful purifier in the kitchen which I turn on as needed" down in conclusion section;i wonder what that is?
• bscphil 4y ago
  I'm inclined to debunk this debunking. To be clear, I do think that Wirecutter has problems. I don't like their practice of affiliate-linking. I think a review company should avoid even the "appearance of evil". But more importantly, their practices seem spotty: they tend to test only a relatively small number of models, which may not accurately reflect the market. But I think this article, while it does present a lot of facts, is wrong about many of its conclusions. On whether the IKEA purifier uses HEPA filters or not: > They make a big deal about this, which is weird since “true-HEPA” has no legal or scientific meaning. Meanwhile, they refer to the IKEA purifier as using a “PM2.5 filter” which also isn’t a thing. According to Wikipedia [1], "Common standards require that a HEPA air filter must remove—from the air that passes through—at least 99.95% (ISO, European Standard) or 99.97% (ASME, U.S. DOE) of particles whose diameter is equal to 0.3 μm, with the filtration efficiency increasing for particle diameters both less than and greater than 0.3 μm." So that's an "H13" or better to use the terminology of the article. (The H in the name literally indicates that it's a high efficiency, or HEPA, filter.) The IKEA filter, according to the website, is a "99.5%" filter; they claim this "corresponds" to EPA 12, but Wirecutter's test results (below) may cast doubt on this. (The author mocks Wirecutter for apparently not doing this "research".) However, this just proves Wirecutter's point: IKEA's filters are not HEPA filters, and their pick's filters are. Is this important? I don't know, but score one for Wirecutter in getting the terminology right. I'm not sure what Wirecutter is trying to say with the "PM2.5" language, but they may be trying to get across to consumers that these filters are more akin to a typical filter that you would get for your residential air conditioning unit. Notably, such filters are often categorized on the MERV scale, which does use minimum particle size effectively handled by the filter as a metric. Regardless, Wirecutter is somewhere between lazy and misleading on this, and the article is right to point this out. I'm no expert in the physics of filters, and it sounds like this author is not either, but I'm a little skeptical that repeated applications of a lower efficiency filter are just as good as applications of a higher efficiency filter. Their charts rest on the assumption that every pass, a HEPA filter will remove 99.95% of remaining particles - even though, over time, the particles that remain in the room are the particles that the filter had "trouble" catching on previous cycles. So you should expect to see reduced efficiency on later cycles, I would think. Regardless, what would really help is if someone had done some testing in an actual room. Oh wait, you're telling me Wirecutter did this?? > Even if we accepted all these test results (we don’t) that would just show the Wirecutter pick provides around 3.3 times as much cleaning per second. So, even though nitpicks are in order, Wirecutter's pick costing $100 vs the $70 IKEA will clean the air 3.3 times as efficiently?? That seems like a good deal. Even if it uses more electricity and more expensive filters, I'm not going to want to purchase 3 units when 1 will do. (This efficiency difference will obviously extend to large rooms in the same way!) > IKEA claims a CADR of 82.4 on high, and 53.0 on medium. So even taken at face value, this says that IKEA performs a bit above spec on 3.0-micron particles and a bit below spec on 0.3-micron particles. Uh, sure. The reported result was "CADR 56.3" for 0.3 micron particles on high. Notably, 0.3 microns is supposed to be the low point for filters tested according to the standards used for HEPA. So it's worrying to see IKEA underperform the stated efficiency by this much at exactly the particle size we most care about when testing for HEPA. If I had to guess, this is probably why Wirecutter calls the IKEA filter a "PM2.5" filter: they are at or above their stated efficiency for 3 micron particles, and considerably below it for particles used in testing HEPA filters. To my thinking that's a very important fact that this article just glosses over. At issue here is whether IKEA's claimed 99.5% efficiency, which this article touts, is only true of PM2.5 or also true for 0.3 micron particles. IKEA's product page is somewhat confusing and self-contradictory on this issue (which the article doesn't point out), but Wirecutter's test results would seem to cast doubt on the idea that the filter is 99.5% efficient by HEPA standards. On costs: point taken, IKEA is cheaper at the per-unit level, both at point of purchase and throughout its lifespan. But given the apparent efficiency differences, discussed above, I think someone going with the Wirecutter pick is not completely unreasonable. If you want to dispute this result, I think the only way to do that is to do your own testing (which this article does not do). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA
• nerdjon 4y ago
  I use the IKEA air purifier and love them, but I had a specific use case in mind. My cat boxes are in an enclosed big box with a single entrance, I wanted to put the filter in front of the opening (kinda creating a walkway) to help eliminate smell and dust. It does these tasks wonderfully. I don't think I could see myself using them for filtering an entire room, but they do a good job for what they are.
• GistNoesis 4y ago
  I am no professional but air quality as been a pet peeve of mine, here is my advice. The main problem with air purifier is that they create a false sense of security while doing only part of the job, and in many cases the job can be done better by opening the windows to change the air. The step number one if you care about your air quality, is getting an air quality monitor. They are quite cheap, and should display temperature, humidity, PM2.5, TVOC (total volatile organic compounds), and CO2. Then you can treat the problem adequately if you have one. If your home ventilation was well designed and you live in a non-polluted area the numbers should be OK. Then you only need an air purifier if you create some kind of dust and/or not ventilate during cooking. If they aren't : try opening windows a little and experiment to see if you can maintain the number in the correct range throughout the day and year. If you can't you'll probably have to have some form of professional installation to get the ventilation done properly or need to move. HEPA filters in air purifier, only remove particulates but have no effect on TVOC or CO2. HEPA filters are expensive and need to be changed regularly. TVOC and CO2 only grow indoor, the only thing you can impact is how fast they grow, and therefore how often you will have to change your air to maintain good enough quality. To reduce the growth rate of TVOC the first thing to do is track the sources of it and remove them (for example avoid bad paints, glues, remove clutter (the less object surfaces you have the less they emit and use inert surface materials), chemical bottles...), and then make sure that you keep temperature and humidity stable. To remove CO2, the only way is to have adequate ventilation (either by opening the windows or by mechanical ventilation), (and you can only get as low as the CO2 concentration of the outside air (which is growing...) ). This ventilation will bring fresh air from the outside. Then it all depends on where you live and the quality, temperature, humidity of the exterior air. For example if you live in a cold place, opening the windows will lose lot of heat, so you can mitigate this problem by using a ventilation that recover part of the loss heat. If you live in a humid place bringing you probably need some ventilation that dry the air. But the key is to ventilate as little as possible to maintain the number in the good range. If you live in a place where the quality of the exterior air is bad, you probably should move, but in the mean time you can use an air purifier to mitigate the PM2.5 problem. If you live in an old place that was designed without ventilation in mind, it will be quite expensive and may create some noise, and you probably should move.
  • 4y ago
• rossmohax 4y ago
  Looking for an indoor air quality monitor to buy, any recommendations?
  • Someone1234 4y ago
    To monitor what (e.g. what particular size, VOX, radon, etc)? And do you need logging? Because that almost entirely determines which one. For simple, cheap, PM2.5 and above, the Ikea "VINDRIKTNING" is a good choice. It only offers a simple traffic-light system though, no logging and numeric readout. USB-C powered (cable and power-brick sold separately). Around $25~ including buying the USB-C cable and power-brick, $13 alone.
    • rossmohax 4y ago
      Mainly to know when to open windows (CO2 monitor?) and to vacuum and its effect (PM2.5?) and maybe some generic stuff because why not (temperature, humidity, pressure). I probably want something more precise, that just a traffic light system, but don't plan to plot readings in Grafana either.
      • Someone1234 4y ago
        CO2 can be a little expensive, AirThings sell one but $200(!).
• hubraumhugo 4y ago
  Since most people are relying on Reddit for product research, this list of the most discussed air purifiers on r/AirPurifiers might be a good start too: https://looria.com/reddit/AirPurifiers/products https://looria.com/reddit/AirPurifiers/products What enthusiasts and authentic users say is far more valuable than an article that was made for views by some corporates. Redditors and other forum members are more interested in boosting their ego by showing their depth of knowledge on the topic (and correcting others on the topic), whereas corporate websites are more interested in raking profit by displaying (potentially) dishonest information.
• backtoyoujim 4y ago
  Ikea interested me when they worked with teenage engineering for some silly bits. But that was quickly reduced into a markup game from resellers so it lost my interest. bless their hearts and billy-bookcases but they have never moved me on much else. and i don't need my home-appliance obsolescence bar to descend even further towards flat-pack territory.
• syntaxing 4y ago
  A bit off tangent, but Blueair purifiers was the only brand where the output air was 0 PPM2.5 during wildfire season in the Bay Area (I have the $50 uncalibrated laser PPM sensor that purpleair uses so interpret this as you want). I tried Dyson, Winix, and making a V-shape DIY purifier with a vornado fan. Nothing was able to pull the indoor air below 15 besides Blueair so I recommend it to any of my family and friends.
  • garmanarnar 4y ago
    Which line of Blueair are you using? I use Bluepure and I think they do a great job, but I don't have any instruments to measure their efficacy.
    • syntaxing 4y ago
      I have the Pure and the classic. The classic is actually pretty affordable and has a built-in PPM sensor which makes me lean towards it more than the Pure.
  • kurizu4444 4y ago
    I did a good amount of research and I think the Mila is the best cost/performance you can get, especially for a non-closet sized room https://milacares.com https://milacares.com
  • jefftk 4y ago
    As the article explains, unless you're using the purifier to filter the air coming into a space, small differences in the purifier output PM2.5 level don't matter. If the output has 99% lower PM2.5 than the input vs 100% lower, that's dwarfed by all the existing particles that the output is about to be mixed back in with.
    • syntaxing 4y ago
      The output air of 0 vs 15 ug/m^3 is not negligible difference, especially when the air outside is 200+ during wildfires. The reality is, the great output air of Blueair filter + 350 cfm CADR is a pretty big difference. My indoor ambient air was about 10-15 ug/m^3 compared to 30-40 using the other solutions.
• wodenokoto 4y ago
  Does anyone know abut the noise level? My gf brought over her air purifier and it has this annoying high-pitched buzz. I wouldn't mind investing in the Ikea ones if they are tolerable to listen to.
• cosmodisk 4y ago
  I've done so much research about air purifiers that I think I could do a thesis if I were in academia. The vast majority of these devices fall under one category: rubbish. Lots of gimmicks performed when it comes to efficacy. Bending reality with borderline claims or inventing useless terms that mean nothing. If you are serious about indoor air quality, start with IQAir. Their products are bulky, contain multiple filters and you know that you'll be able to get replacement filters 5 years later. Blueair has some reasonable products too (ignore the smaller, cheap product lines).
  • jefftk 4y ago
    Most air purifiers are a high-quality filter and a fan to move air through it. That's a solid approach, and they perform close to how you'd expect given their flow rate and filter rating. Why are IQAir products especially good?
• amelius 4y ago
  > The EU HEPA filter spec—yours to download today for a bargain $1148.24— How can this be true? Weren't these standards produced with tax money?
  • Sebguer 4y ago
    Sort of. I'm not super familiar with the EN, but ISO is a non-governmental organization, and is funded by 'subscriptions' from every participating nation (which are apparently based on GDP?) They are also funded by selling access to their full standards reports. You can see a preview for the one in question here: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:29463:-1:ed-2:v1:en https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:29463:-1:ed-2:v1:en It's only 88 CHF (~90 USD, I think?) I'm a lot less familiar with the European Standards, and the ISO above is apparently derived directly from the $1148 doc mentioned in the article (https://www.emw.de/en/filter-campus/iso29463.html https://www.emw.de/en/filter-campus/iso29463.html)
• irishloop 4y ago
  I see a lot of discussion here about Wirecutter and/or Consumer Reports being untrustworthy. But I am not sure "reviews" are a solvable problem, really. The human element of perception is inherent to reviewing products. I might think something is genuinely better than you because it meets my needs better. Or because you got a bad part in yours through sheer bad luck. Or I had a migraine that day. I usually just try to google whatever product I am trying to understand and read a few articles and try to at least hone in on what might be the most authentic or at least reviews that are well-written and seem to care about the product. But there's no perfect system. I went through this whole process trying to figure out the best mattress and at some point you just gotta give up and say hey they're all basically glorified piles of hay let's just do this.
  • armchairhacker 4y ago
    That’s why you look at reviewers who have similar other opinions to yours, and look at pros / cons instead of the overall rating
  • pigbearpig 4y ago
    People should use Wirecutter and CR to find a list of products that they'll probably be happy with. The expectation that they can identify the absolute best product for everyone is impossible and this article/discussion is probably a bit unfair. If I'm an expert in a product area, then I'll find a more specific review site or do the analysis myself, but if I'm not, then Wirecutter and CR do a pretty good job of helping me avoid duds.
• UIUC_06 4y ago
  For kitchen devices, ATK or SeriousEats. Anything else: if you don't have a site you trust, then the only recourse is to look at LOTS of sites and read between the lines. By "sites" I also include "user forums." This also applies to movie reviews, btw. Rotten Tomatoes is trash. You can't average Trash opinions and end up with anything other than Trash. What you want to learn is "what is this movie like, and will I enjoy it?" So you should find some critics whom you think are intelligent, and just read them.
  • rexf 4y ago
    > Anything else: if you don't have a site you trust, then the only recourse is to look at LOTS of sites and read between the lines. By "sites" I also include "user forums." That's why Wirecutter is useful: convenience. They might not have the best product recommendations, but for items they "review", they provide an easy to click button to buy the product. No offense, but reading random review sites, reddit, yelp, forums, misc google SEO landing pages with affiliate links, etc to try to find the best product is a huge pain. If I can go to 1 review site that is good enough and just buy the thing, the convenience often wins out.
    • AlbertCory 4y ago
      No offense taken. You do have a site you trust, so you're all good. I find that if I read a whole lot of stuff, I start to get the gist.
  • spiderice 4y ago
    > You can't average Trash opinions and end up with anything other than Trash But Rotten Tomatoes doesn't take averages. The reason so many people take issue with Rotten Tomatoes is they don't know how to read the data. Rotten Tomatoes shows you the (number of promoters) / (number of detractors). In other words, it tells you what percent of the people like the movie. Not how much they like it. A score of 95% on RT doesn't mean it's a nearly flawless movie. It means that 95% of people/critics think it is, at the very least, good. Taken directly from the RT About page[1]: > The Audience Score, denoted by a popcorn bucket, represents the percentage of users who have rated a movie or TV show positively and > The Tomatometer score represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show If you understand that, RT is a very useful review site. [1]: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/about https://www.rottentomatoes.com/about
• dusted 4y ago
  excellent write.. I bought multiple of these airfilters after reading that review, because, honestly, I didn't believe it anyway, and my particle sensors clearly show when the filter is running. Unfortunately, the build quality is not exceptional, so there is a bit of noise from the unit, even at the low settings, but placed far enough from the bed, it's hard to notice. The particle count is higher during the night, but not as high as with the filter completely turned off. I can even see when my sleep is interrupted, and when I go to bed and wake up from the particle count graph. I must admit that I capture the data with the ikea "VINDRIKTNING" sensor, it has a TX pin exposed and that is easily hooked to RX on an ESP8265, which simply runs a TCP socket server that streams the reading via wifi.
  • vanous 4y ago
    Awesome, thanks for the tip!
• sydthrowaway 4y ago
  Oh great, Wirecutter is full of paid shills now too. Why the fuck does everything turn to shit? Fuck Google.
  • toofy 4y ago
    if there is a way to make more money by being dishonest, twisting definitions, or cutting corners they will. over and over again. we see this repeatedly. greed, for power, for influence, for money, etc… when the incentives push someone to “race to the bottom” in terms of quality, this is what they do. always. over and over again. greed leads to a race to the bottom.
• ethbr0 4y ago
  One thing that irks that shit out of me in reviews -- not normalizing or banding for cost. Measuring performance without taking into account cost is meaningless. Hat tip to (old) Tom's Hardware for being the first site I knew that did this well, with their cpu / gpu hierarchy, which attempted to rank the last 2 generations or so of product against each other. It boiled it down to two columns (Intel, AMD), with gaps where each manufacturer didn't have product for that performance. It really helped in "Should I buy previous gen +spec, or current gen -spec, given they both have the same price now?" questions. Sadly, it seems to have devolved into this, which is less useful: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html
  • thehappypm 4y ago
    I don’t think I agree. The world gets really confusing when you take costs into account. Try buying a phone charger. The $5 one might be overflowing with 5 star reviews saying how great it is for the price, but it’s just crap. Likewise the $100 one that’s amazing but some 3 star reviews for “too expensive”.
    • ethbr0 4y ago
      The issue is why they completely ignore costs and legacy substitution: vendor relations and content. The true answer is often "The old version was just as good or better, don't upgrade." But nobody gets a continual churn of review clicks and affiliate purchase cuts off of that. Ignoring it with "price is hard" is disingenuous on the part of review sites. Notably, this was initially one of Wirecutter's key draws: presenting winners in a price-segmented manner.
• charlie0 4y ago
  Legit review sites are pretty much dead. Most of them look and say exacy the same thing. Almost none of them have any objective measurements beyond what's stated already from marketing spec sheets. I've still had strong suspicion that even with the ones that do "objective" measurements are somehow misleading and that secretly, there are kickbacks for the top rated products. I have hope that Linus will bring legitimacy to the review space.
• rdl 4y ago
  Wirecutter has gone way downhill since NYT bought them, too. :( The only review source I trust is https://www.youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm/videos
• Havoc 4y ago
  The emphasis on flow rate misses a feature that is more important to me - live measurement and adjustment of fan speed dynamically. I don't want a turbine that cranks out the decibels 24/7 regardless of state of air
• londons_explore 4y ago
  I wish analysis like this would stop using tests of the filter material to make any judgement about the purifier. If the air passed through the filter precisely once and then ended up in your room, it would be valid. But it doesn't - the air passes many times through the filter, and mixes with the room air again and again each time. That means it is far less important to get 99.9% filtration, and far more important to get more cubic feet passing through the filter each minute. That dramatically changes the optimal design. To see why, imagine a room of 1000 cubic feet. Now filter one of those cubic feet, and put it back into the same room. A good 99.9% filter has just removed 0.0999% of the dirt. A bad 90% filter with double the airflow removed 0.18% of the dirt. The bad filter is much better!
  • TootsMagoon 4y ago
    Great points. I just scanned the article. Did Wirecutter do any actual testing? They can refute and prove the claims are wrong on paper...but it really comes down to testing. Where is Wirecutter's test data?
• watersb 4y ago
  Am I the only one to be put off by the fact that the value for filter performance - clean air diffusion rate (CADR) - is stored in the second value of the list structure? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_and_CDR https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_and_CDR
• wpietri 4y ago
  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.
  • screye 4y ago
    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-media houses have yet to find. I have found his arguments to be in good faith and are generally unencumbered by the political repercussions of said findings. [1] https://dynomight.net/homeless-crisis/ https://dynomight.net/homeless-crisis/ [2] https://dynomight.net/p2p-meth/ https://dynomight.net/p2p-meth/ my 2 cents. Don't actually know him or anything.
    • elxr 4y ago
      Great pitch, might add a few of his articles to my list. I'm a fan of Gwern too, but who is SSC? Haven't heard of this one.
      • screye 4y ago
        Scott Alexander of Slate-star-codex fame. Now at astralcodexten.substack.com It is funny you that you have never heard of SSC. Most people I know have found Gwern through SSC.
    • wpietri 4y ago
      Ok. How would you describe SSC's revenue model and incentives, then?
      • 4y ago
• TootsMagoon 4y ago
  TLDR - Where is Wirecutter's test data?
• wellthisisgreat 4y ago
  Wirecutter is just SEO spam and it makes very little sense to read it at all. You can't even go from the opposite of their recommendations as it's impossible to know which manufacturers caved in to their extortionist paid placement model
• jve 4y ago
  Great article. I myself have IKEA air purifier. Has anyone used https://www.mi.com/global/mi-air-purifier-3c https://www.mi.com/global/mi-air-purifier-3c ? Can it achieve lower noise per CADR? IKEA one on full speed is pretty loud (I may not know what loud air purifiers are, but I get concert of sounds at home I want to minimize - refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher, electric water boiler, air purifier) Does it work via LAN with Home-Assistant? Are they "smart" filters you are forced to change or "dumb" ones?
  • brnt 4y ago
    I have two Fornuftigs for bedroom and office, and a Winix Zero in the living room. The Winix definitely beats Ikea in terms of noise production on max airflow, it positively sounds like a jet is taking off. It moves quite a bit more air of course. I was rather surprised that the Fornuftig is nearly perfectly quiet at the lowest setting, which is really great for a bedroom and offce, although I don't know how much or little it stil does at that setting.
  • alleskleber 4y ago
    Mi does some (not so) secret (anymore) authentication trying to force users into buying their genuine replacement filters cartridges. Recently there was an article on HN on how someone got around this. [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31540394 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31540394
• swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
  I've tried out various air purifiers, the only one I've found that's truly quiet is RabbitAir. It's amazing how much noise pollution most air purifiers create.
• Tade0 4y ago
  > 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.
• screye 4y ago
  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.
  • rat9988 4y ago
    I'm not sure why you would trust them to have a good false positive ratio when the claim is thay their review is influence by their partnerships.
  • QuinnyPig 4y ago
    I find that the Wirecutter is awesome for things I will never go into stupendous depth for on my own — like spatulas. For anything more serious than that, it has increasingly been on the decline for years.
    • ramraj07 4y ago
      I’ve just learned to never trust them on headphones lol
      • SlimyHog 4y ago
        Yeah the one thing I've purchased on their recommendation that I'm not satisfied with is headphones.
• simias 4y ago
  Opinions about Wirecutter notwithstanding, I thoroughly enjoyed this article. I basically believed every singe "myth" exposed here, and especially that a better grade of filter was really important when in fact if you recirculate the air constantly it's really not a big deal. Also the fact air filters don't work like sieves is pretty mind blowing to me, I must confess.
• addicted 4y ago
  This article has basic misreading errors. It assumes that everything the Wirecutter says about the IKEA filters and non IKEA filters is a reflection of the difference between HEPA filters and non HEPA filters. But the wirecutter article does not imply that. It mentions the IKEA filter is not a true-HEPA filter and mentions other stuff about the IKEA filter which may or may not have derived from the true-HEPA claim. However, it’s likely true because the IKEA spokesperson they spoke to confirmed this and said it was a deliberate design decision. I also want to point out that this article makes a big deal of having found something on the IKEA website about its filtering capacity, but seems to miss the fairly obvious point that in the line it highlights, IKEA never states that it’s filters meet the E12 standard. It only states that it’s tested against that standard.
  • stephen_g 4y ago
    Saying it's 'tested' and 'corresponds to EPA12' means to say it meets the standard. They couldn't say that if they didn't mean it passes the spec for E12...
• idk1 4y ago
  Can anyone tell me what 'Contra Wirecutter' means. It's like I've gone mad, everyone seems to know what this term means, both of these words mean nothing to me and I've spoken English my entire life. You're all acting like they're two words that make perfect sense. Haha. It would be really great is someone could explain the two words to me.
  • wlonkly 4y ago
    "Contra" means "against" or "in contrast to"[1]. The author has a position that is against Wirecutter's position. It is a Latin borrowing. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contra https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contra
  • 7402 4y ago
    Dictionary definition of contra: "against; in opposition or contrast to" So "Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier" means that it is an essay in opposition to the opinion of the Wirecutter.com website regarding the IKEA air purifier.
    • idk1 4y ago
      Oooo thank you so much! I can't believe I've never come across this word, and I love words! I thought it was a video came and that's it. I guess it's the short version of contradict? I also think in the context of having Wirecutter, a website I've never heard of afterwards, also added to the confusion. Thanks so much!
  • wux 4y ago
    Contra (preposition): 1: AGAINST — used chiefly in the phrase pro and contra 2: in opposition or contrast to (Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contra https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contra) Wirecutter: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/
  • spatley 4y ago
    Contra wirecutter is clearly invented for this article. But in short I take it to mean that it asserts a point of view that is in disagreement with the point of view asserted on the popular wirecutter.com product review site.
• addicted 4y ago
  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 that the Wirecutter has used HEPA standard filters as a filter for whittling down the many air purifiers that exist in the world. They eliminated the IKEA filters because they do not meet HEPA standards (this blog’s focus on he true-HEPA marketing term is misguided, because the authors own referenced wiki link shows that E12 is not considered HEPA). However, they also reached out to IKEA about this, and the IKEA spokesperson told them their focus is on PM2.5. They don’t recommend the IKEA filter based not on its inability to capturer finer particles, but because it’s not AS efficient as capturing finer particles as HEPA filters, AND because of its lower CADR. It doesn’t meet the standards they set, so they don’t include it for price comparisons. Maybe they haven’t set the right standards. Maybe they should have allowed for lower CADRs or for filters that meet lower filtration standards than HEPA. However, the insinuation this article makes that they don’t seem to understand what they’re talking about is completely wrong. Maybe this author should try reviewing over 20-30+ different air purifiers at a minimum without setting arbitrary thresholds up front and then get back to the Wirecutter folks.
  • phnofive 4y ago
    > 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-purifier/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/ikea-fornuftig-air-p...
  • Lazare 4y ago
• elif 4y ago
  This blog post was just too long for the comment box, seemingly by out of touch armchair Wikipedian.
• addicted 4y ago
  In all it’s bluster, this article forgets to add the fact that the Wirecutter actually tested the IKEA device, and didn’t just go by theoretical specs. > Tim tested the Förnuftig in his 200-square-foot spare room, using the methods described above. But rather than focusing on its performance on 0.3-micron particles, he noted how well it removed 3-micron particles from the air. (IKEA confirmed that this was the appropriate size to look at; it’s the closest to PM2.5 that our TSI AeroTrak particle counter can measure separately.) The Förnuftig disappointed, even when we considered that the test room was larger than the machine is meant for, as it removed just 85.2% of 3-micron particles in 30 minutes on high and 73.6% in 30 minutes on medium. Its performance on 0.3-micron particles was, as expected, worse: 64.5% removed on high and 53.5% on medium. Compared with our budget/small-space pick, the Levoit Core 300, which removed 97.4% and 92.6%, respectively, of 0.3-micron particles and virtually all 3-micron particles on the same settings, that’s very poor.
  • ipsum2 4y ago
    This is somewhat addressed in paragraph about steady state.
  • buildbot 4y ago
    Errr direct quote from the article: "These tests… are not credible. Take the 3.0-micron tests on medium, where Wirecutter claims “virtually all” particles were removed. If we take that to mean 99%, that implies a CADR of 236.2. (The math is below.) That is 75% higher than the manufacturer’s claimed performance on high. It also contradicts the Wirecutter’s own tests. On a different page, they tested the same purifier on medium in a (smaller) 1215 ft³ room and found only 92% of particles were removed. This implies a (plausible) CADR of just 98.1. So we can either (a) accept that the purifier’s performance randomly varies by a factor of more than 2.4 or (b) conclude that the Wirecutter did an extremely shoddy job of running these tests." Why did you make three separate top level comments on this?
  • anamexis 4y ago
    There's a whole section on the Wirecutter's tests, called "On tests."
• js2 4y ago
  True HEPA means exactly what it says: HEPA as defined by the US EPA. E12 is NOT a HEPA filter. Which is why it's called E12. HEPA starts at H13 and H14. This is right in the wikipedia page TFA links to: > The specification used in the European Union: European Standard EN 1822-1:2009, from which ISO 29463 is derived, defines several classes of filters by their retention at the given most penetrating particle size (MPPS): Efficient Particulate Air filters (EPA), HEPA and Ultra Low Particulate Air filters (ULPA). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA#Specifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA#Specifications So the IKEA filter is an Efficient Particulate Air filter, but not a HEPA filter. There is nothing wrong with The Wirecutter's review. TFA's allegation that The Wirecutter dismissed the IKEA filter because they don't get an affiliate fee from IKEA is without evidence or merit. The Wirecutter does in fact recommend other IKEA products: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-stuff-from-ikea/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-stuff-from-i... The Wirecutter is not a perfect site, but it's where I often start my product research and it has yet to let me down.
• thadk 4y ago
  I have both the Wirecutter pick which I've had for 7-8 years and the Förnuftig and I stopped using the Förnuftig after 2 months because it doesn't have a pre-filter and once dirty/filled, it cannot be recovered without replacing the whole filter. It also seems weak—the room can remain dusty indefinitely with it on. The Coway filter is just night-and-day more capable. That said, in 2012, IKEA sold an amazing year-long-capacity-no-maintenance fiberglass German "Flimmer" filter like the ones they use over-head in their stores to keep products dust-free. That was incredible but wasn't marketed well and its replacement filters were discontinued in 2015: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/garden/sure-it-purifies-air-but-can-it-save-the-galaxy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/garden/sure-it-purifies-a...
• wabain 4y ago
  This article falls into the trap of conflating the Wirecutter's misapplication of filtration standards with irrelevant minutiae about which terms and diameters they cite for the filter classes. So alongside a pretty cogent description of how fine-matter filtration works by particle size, there's the claim that "a 'PM2.5 filter' … isn’t a thing," despite the PM2.5 class of fine particulate matter being the range specifically mentioned in the Ikea product description in the screenshot. A cursory search will turn up lots of results for filters which show that this is a pretty common term. Where the Wirecutter review actually goes wrong is in taking 2.5 microns as the lower bound of the particulate range, whereas it's conventionally the upper bound. Then there's the idea that "Neither size mentioned (0.3 microns or 2.5 microns) has any relationship to either of the design specs" [the EU E12 and H13 standards]. When I google "hepa" my first hit is a US EPA page giving the specification for the most penetrating particle size of HEPA filters as 0.3 microns, rather than the 0.15 microns given in the article (from the empirical research or EU standards, I'm not sure which). This is from North America, but then, the Wirecutter is an American review site. It's worth considering this kind of (IMO) misfire in light of the article making the least charitable possible inference, that the Wirecutter deliberately set out to discredit the Ikea product because it couldn't give an affiliate link. [1] https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/what-hepa-filter https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/what-hepa-filter
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• aceazzameen 4y ago
  I'm under the impression Wirecutter's reviews are also influenced from being paid by some manufacturers. No way to prove it, just a feeling as a consumer. Yet, I still look at them as a source occasionally. When getting a air purifiers over a year ago, I read Wirecutter, Amazon, Reddit, and a few other blog-like websites and used that data to compare. For instance, Wirecutter recommends the Coway units. Yet Amazon had many recent reviews of their units breaking. And filters are expensive year after year. Wirecutter also recommends Winix as a runner up, and even says it performs better than the Coways, but they liked the Coways because it looks nicer. That tells me Coway pays them to be #1. Because other sites tell me about the breakage and expensive filter cost. Wirecutter omits that Winix has cheaper filters and doesn't have manufacturing issues. But according to them it's uglier even if it slightly out performs the Coway. That being said, I got several Winix units and they've been great. Wirecutter served it's purpose for me.
• sizzle 4y ago
  Since we are among experts here, please recommend the best air filters available to retail customers and I will gladly whatever price for the peace of mind, since I am not an expert and trust sites like Wirecutter over Amazon type of reviews.
  • elhudy 4y ago
    Seriously. I’m just left sitting here wondering which damn air purifier to buy for my kitchen.
    • justsomeguy123 4y ago
      Likewise. All the debunking and debunking debunking means I have no actual choice. If anything things are more muddy. Welcome to adulthood I guess.
• Linda703 4y ago
  [dead]
• leguminous 4y ago
  Wirecutter seems to make a big deal of the fact that the IKEA purifier doesn't use a "true HEPA" filter. As far as I can tell, neither does the Blueair purifier that is one of their top picks. Blueair claims to use "HEPASilent Ultra," while carefully avoiding claiming that their filter meets HEPA standards. > HealthProtect™ is equipped with HEPASilent Ultra™, our most advanced filtration technology ever. Every component is uniquely designed in Sweden to provide the maximum performance and energy efficiency. This patent-pending technology combines electrostatic and mechanical filtration to remove 99%⁴ of bacteria and remove dust, pollen, dander, mold, VOCs, and odors. HEPASilent Ultra™ delivers 50% more clean air⁵, uses 55% less energy and has a 10% lower noise than traditional true HEPA filtration⁶. https://www.blueair.com/sg/healthprotect-family-page.html https://www.blueair.com/sg/healthprotect-family-page.html As an aside, for air purifiers and some other items I've found the energy star site useful: https://www.energystar.gov/productfinder/product/certified-room-air-cleaners/results https://www.energystar.gov/productfinder/product/certified-r... There are actual measurements and you can sort by several categories. The manufacturers submit the measurements themselves, but the tests are at least supposed to be standardized. And they actually display the wattage used by each purifier. The electricity running costs can make up a large portion of the total cost of ownership of an air purifier if you have it running consistently.
• Miraste 4y ago
  My biggest takeaway from this article is that it costs thousands of dollars just to see what EU standards actually say. Why?
• 6510 4y ago
  A more dense filter will just restrict air flow. What you want is a crappy filter with a large surface area.
• corxi 4y ago
  HEPA filters ahahahahah!!! Just look up TPA filters, and…. Airdog. That’s a filter..
• logifail 4y ago
  I'm pretty skeptical (and that's putting it mildly) of any website that uses affiliate marketing links. I can't see how objectivity can survive in that environment. A concrete example is frequent flyer/travel blogs. I vaguely know the guy who runs the UK's largest one, I've met him in person several times, fairly nice bloke. He's worked very hard to build his site, publishes high-quality content, and is often the first to write about new places and routes of interest. His site has a thriving forum and allows comments on his posts. He also pushes credit card offers and his site is littered with affiliate links. Hmm, you say, that's OK, it doesn't necessarily mean he's lost his objectivity. Except, his articles will say that the best way to book flight or hotel X is via offer Y (coincidentally in affiliate scheme Z, which is where the "book now" link sends you to). Then someone in the comments will pipe up to mention an alternative cashback route that is objectively better. He will delete that comment and any replies to it. So those who aren't aware of what's going on believe his article is the objective truth, and keep feeding the beast by clicking on his affiliate links. They miss out on all the better deals because they involve booking in ways that no-one's allowed to mention on his site. This has happened over and over again. To me, affiliate marketing is basically a cancer.
  • harrisonjackson 4y ago
    There are categories where the incentives are equal enough across all the products so you can maybe possibly trust the reviews more. If all the products are similarly priced and from the same retailer (ie amazon) then there isn't any incentive to recommend anything other than the best.
• ohmyblock 4y ago
  For running/hiking shoes, check out www.runrepeat.com
• ricardobayes 4y ago
  Can someone recommend a good purifier available in Europe? I feel like Dyson is hyped up and there are better alternatives.
• knorker 4y ago
  Feedback for the author: If you've never heard of "The wirecutter" then it's really hard to understand what you're saying. Are you "The wirecutter"? It's not part of your domain name, if so. "Contra", is that the series of games? Did you, Wirecutter, manage to port an old SNES game to the IKEA air purifier (like someone recently ported Doom to an IKEA lightbulb)? I couldn't understand the title or the first few paragraphs. I had to skim up and down the post to try to get context, in order to even understand the first paragraph. I now believe that this is a critique of a review. A review that is not even linked to. If you don't want to link to them in any way (understandable, though I disagree) then at least define your terms. I didn't get enough sleep last night, so I'm unusually stupid today. But I don't think I'm wrong.
• fehrm 4y ago
  I have both Förnuftig (meaning sensible, great name) and a Coway Storm AP-1516D. I prefer the Coway, but it is much more powerful. The only issue I have with the Förnuftig is the noise level, even on medium it is too loud for me. Apart from that, it is fine. It isn't as powerful and advanced as the Coway but everyone loves the look of it and asks what it is, and shows their spouses it. Coway is big, powerful, quite silent but also clunky and in the way.
• tssva 4y ago
  Regarding the section about whether it is or isn't a true HEPA filter, the Wirecutter is a US based website targeting mostly US based consumers so maybe we should look at the major US standard regarding HEPA filters which is DOE-STD-3020-2015. This standard was originally developed to cover HEPA filters supplied by DOE contractors in nuclear facilities. How does it define a HEPA filter? "High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) Filter: A throwaway, extended-medium, dry type filter with a rigid casing enclosing the full depth of the pleats. The filter shall exhibit a minimum efficiency of 99.97% when tested with an aerosol of 0.3 micrometer diameter." So according to the standard in the target market for the review the IKEA air purifier does not use a true HEPA filter and the recommended unit does. Edit: I looked closer at the European specification used in the article. By that specification the filter in the IKEA unit also is not a true HEPA filter but an EPA filter. The Exx designations mean it is a EPA filter and the Hxx designations mean a HEPA filter.
• atlgator 4y ago
  Wirecutter was great when it was independently owned. Since it was bought by NYT it doesn’t seem as neutral. They conveniently seem to favor products sold by Amazon or Walmart where they can get referral fees.
• detritus 4y ago
  From the very last line - "The only motive here is indignation." Brilliant.
• OJFord 4y ago
  > (Yeah, power usage goes down when you add the extra carbon filter to the IKEA purifier. I’ve confirmed this myself with a power meter. Physics is weird.) Well it's not that weird is it? It went down because CADR went down, the airflow is lower so the motor's not 'pushing so hard'.