[HN Gopher] Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier (2022)
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Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier (2022)
Author : drdeca
Score : 153 points
Date : 2024-01-09 20:22 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (dynomight.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (dynomight.net)
| jononomo wrote:
| An excellent and informative article.
| free_bip wrote:
| What's funny is this article is a much better advertisement for
| IKEA air filters than IKEA themselves do...
| bacheaul wrote:
| Yep, we actually bought a bunch for our house after reading
| this article. Bang for buck for the device, filters, and power
| usage is difficult to beat.
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| Needs (2022).
| grobbyy wrote:
| My experience is Wirecutter recommended process products most of
| the time, and isn't very clueful in how it evaluates them. It's
| that's Sharper Image vibe.
|
| Best air filter would use standard home furnace filters. Those
| are cheap and good enough. Most of the money should be on the
| fan. High efficieny, high load, low noise fans are expensive.
| hyperbovine wrote:
| The Wirecutter model is to take what Consumer Reports reports
| used to do and eliminate all the hard parts like actually
| learning the science behind the product, performing serious
| long-term evaluations, and building funky stress testing
| machines. (And the big one, not accepting advertiser dollars.)
|
| What's left? Some underqualified millenials doing a bunch of
| Googling, buying some products off Amazon, chatting about them
| on a Slack thread, and then summarizing all the anecdata using
| no fewer than 10000 referral-generating words.
|
| Suffice it to say I find their recommendations basically
| useless. And in several cases aggressively wrong, like they
| recommend a product I know from personal experience to be among
| the worst in its category.
| TylerE wrote:
| You've got people like Project Farm over on YT. He does
| really good, rigourous stuff. He did a test on wiper blades
| where tested them new, then left them on the roof of his
| house in the sun for a full year, and then did all the tests
| again. He also rarely states firm conclusions, just presents
| objective data. The only real exception is when one, or a few
| products standout as either exceptionally good (especially
| when they're NOT the most expensive) or they do so poorly as
| to be totally unfit for purpose or even unsafe.
|
| The products he reviews tend to be sort of workshop oriented
| (tools - from basic open end wrenches up to fairly capable
| welders and chainsaws, lubricants, that kind of thing), but
| he's also done a fair bit of automotive stuff, jeans, gloves,
| and things like that.'
|
| For the jeans, he tested stuff like puncture force (with a
| nail), abrasion resistance, belt loop strength, and
| breathability. He also commented on but did not score fit and
| comfort.
| bombcar wrote:
| Project Farm is good, but it's still mostly entertainment.
| You have to know how to filter out the things that matter
| versus the things that are more just for amusement, and
| whether the stated test is a "good test".
|
| A more scientific (but more limited) would be Torque Test:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKXuFwB6lo0 and even
| they're mainly for entertainment.
| 83 wrote:
| I really appreciate Project Farm's reviews, and regularly
| watch them, but I often wish he had more of an engineering
| background. Some of the tests he comes up with fall in the
| worthless to downright misleading category. Not a lot of
| them, but enough that I wish there were someone more
| rigorous making these videos.
| ska wrote:
| > Suffice it to say I find their recommendations basically
| useless.
|
| This is a are in general that has become pretty useless over
| the last years - the shills have won out. I'd go so far as to
| say that on average the first few pages of any web search for
| product advice result in negative value overall.
| js2 wrote:
| Previous discussion (1474 points by Ariarule on June 20, 2022 |
| 708 comments):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31812259
| genman wrote:
| Go with the one that has lower actual operating noise levels.
| lathiat wrote:
| Indeed, slightly or even double better performance won't help
| if you turn it off :)
| karaterobot wrote:
| Some people (well, me at least) like the air purifier to make
| some white noise. Mine doesn't turn on automatically if, for
| example, the power cuts out and then comes on again, and I
| always notice it within a few minutes because the house feels
| weird without any background noise.
| staplers wrote:
| White noise is proven to degrade sleep and focus _unless
| masking more distracting noise_
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| I always love it with someone proclaims that my benefit /
| enjoyment of something is invalid because Science declared
| it so. This isn't even how academics talk about things like
| this.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| The IKEA one has three power levels, the first one is virtually
| inaudible, the second one hard to ignore even just being in the
| room during the day, the third one is really loud. Very good
| purifier though, looks nice, filters well. They even have a
| more expensive model that has Zigbee and integrates with Home
| Assistant.
| firecall wrote:
| Yes, I have the IKEA STARKVIND Table and 100% agree with
| that.
|
| I hate fan noise!
|
| Even in my computers. As I get older the more I'm irritated
| by fan noise.
|
| I cant run the IKEA on anything by the first setting without
| wearing noise cancelling headphones.
|
| The loudness level and tone of the fan is horrible!
|
| I'd pay more for an air filter with fans that were less
| obnoxious! :-)
| CharlesW wrote:
| IKEA FORNUFTIG is 28 dB at lowest fan speed. Wirecutter's pick
| (Coway Airmega AP-1512HH Mighty) is 24 dB.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| Seems like the author knows their stuff, but I'd trust it even
| more without the snarky tone.
| jofla_net wrote:
| what i like about the ikea model featured here is the size, can
| fit almost anywhere. I also bought several to replace a couple 20
| year old foot-stool size units.
|
| Yes its not a rolls royce, but it gets %85 the way there.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| If it were like a Rolls Royce, the spec sheet would simply say
| "Performance: Adequate"
| chx wrote:
| Could someone make a neat blog post like this comparing the
| CleanSpace Halo to the Dyson Zone Visor? Thanks!
|
| I would be rather delighted if I could go among people without
| looking like someone straight out of a catastrophe movie. The
| Halo looks _weird_ even for someone who wears "I am not weird, I
| am limited edition" t-shirts regularly. The Dyson looks much
| better but when I did an amateur comparison the performance
| appeared to be much weaker than the Halo.
| throwup238 wrote:
| You can't get decent performance from a respirator type device
| without a proper seal. The negative pressure created by
| inhaling is too large a volume and a tiny little fan won't be
| enough to push that much air fast enough, especially through
| any kind of filter. If you look at forced air respirators their
| external units have to be pretty bulky and that's with a full
| face mask.
|
| If you want clean air I'm afraid you'll forever have to walk
| around like an extra on Contagion.
| chx wrote:
| Thanks.
|
| I will stay with the Halo then.
| croes wrote:
| >So it seems Wirecutter is using "true-HEPA" to mean "H13".
|
| >Except--what's the logic here? This difference is core to
| Wirecutter's dismissal of the IKEA purifier.
|
| According to this
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA#Specifications
|
| H13 is HEPA, everything below is EPA. Or simpler, if it starts
| with an H it's HEPA, if it starts with an E it's EPA.
| quasse wrote:
| I came here to say this. For a blog post accusing the
| Wirecutter of being "rife with factual errors, [and] misleading
| statements" the author could have, ya know, not gotten basic
| facts wrong about filtering standards?
|
| Just a few sentences later the author states "This passage
| implies that a ("true"?) HEPA filter is designed to capture
| particles that are 0.3 microns or larger. But an H13 filter
| must, by definition, capture 99.95% of particles of all sizes."
|
| This is explicitly wrong! According to the author's own source
| that they linked above! "HEPA filters, as defined by the United
| States Department of Energy (DOE) standard adopted by most
| American industries, remove at least 99.97% of aerosols 0.3
| micrometers (mm) in diameter."
| schiffern wrote:
| 99.95% is the ISO (international) standard, 99.97% is the
| ASME (US) standard.
|
| https://www.ossila.com/pages/hepa-filter-size-chart
| ska wrote:
| Both they and the wirecutter appear to be using the
| international, not US, HEPA standards.
| schiffern wrote:
| That's the definition for "HEPA," but what IKEA/Wirecutter said
| is "true-HEPA" which is undefined. Usually "true-HEPA" is just
| a marketing term used when selling non-HEPA filters.
|
| I also feel these semantics are evading the real point of the
| "what's the logic" comment, which was
|
| > we are never given a reason why H13 is good enough, but E12
| isn't. Surely it's not just that higher numbers are better?
| makomk wrote:
| Which is a distinction which basically doesn't matter for air
| purifiers like this one - it's only really relevant to stuff
| like whole-room positive or negative pressure systems which
| ensure all of the air goes through the filter. With a
| standalone air purifier, the main limiting factor is how
| quickly the room air gets exchanged through the filter. It's
| pretty much irrelevant whether the filter removes 99.95% of
| particles or merely 99.5% since that's outweighed by all the
| pollution in air that hasn't been through the filter at all
| yet. The claims about why true HEPA filters are better are
| nonsense.
| brunoqc wrote:
| How good is to tape a hepa filter to a box fan? I think I recall
| a marketplace episode where a scientific or whatever said that it
| was better than some shitty products and good enough for the
| small price.
| londons_explore wrote:
| For PM10/PM2.5, it's very good. Most filters and box fans are
| oversize for even a large house - you can typically get away
| with a CPU fan and much smaller filter and still have it clear
| the air to pretty much zzero PM2.5 in a few hours.
|
| Probably minimal impact on other pollutants (VOC's, NOX, CO,
| etc)... Many professional air purifiers don't make any claims
| about those either tho.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| https://smartairfilters.com/en/product/diy-1-1-air-purifier/
| ska wrote:
| For home use it should work fine, after all it's functionally
| basically what most of the systems, especially the cheaper
| ones, are. Especially if you add a pre-filter of some sort.
|
| The main downsides are comparatively ugly and noisy.
| poidos wrote:
| After reading this article when it was posted in 2022 and the
| author's other post on particulates[0] I bought the sqair[1],
| which we are very happy with. Allergies and morning congestion
| are nearly 0 after using it. We live on a very busy road so I run
| it all the time and with the carbon filter as well. I would like
| to get a second one eventually -- it only cleans 430 sqft of air
| and our condo is 730.
|
| [0]: https://dynomight.net/air/#things-that-create-particles-
| indo...
|
| [1]: https://smartairfilters.com/en/product/sqair-air-purifier/
| Mister_Snuggles wrote:
| I really like this purifier's big brother, the IKEA STARKVIND,
| which is available in both regular[0] and table[1] versions.
|
| The table version is nice because, assuming you place it
| somewhere you want a table, it takes up no room. The regular
| version is awkwardly large, so placement is a bit more of a
| challenge.
|
| The killer feature for me is that its air quality measurements
| and controls are all exposed via Zigbee, and it works very well
| with Zigbee2MQTT and Home Assistant.
|
| Related to this, IKEA has recently brought out the VINDSTRYKA[2]
| air quality sensor. Unfortunately the PM2.5 measurement (as
| reported by Zigbee2MQTT/Home Assistant) doesn't seem to match up
| with the same measurement reported by the STARKVIND. To be fair
| this is just a feeling, I have NOT conducted head-to-head
| testing.
|
| [0] https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/starkvind-air-purifier-white-
| sm...
|
| [1] https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/starkvind-table-with-air-
| purifi...
|
| [2] https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/vindstyrka-air-quality-
| sensor-s...
| timenova wrote:
| Where do you keep the air quality sensor?
|
| I suspect that if you keep it away from the purifier, and
| closer to where you sit in the room, it's a more real
| representation of the air quality. Usually the air around the
| purifier would be purer than other parts of the room until an
| equilibrium has reached.
|
| I haven't done extensive testing to validate this theory
| either, just a hunch. Let me know if my hunch is incorrect.
| Mister_Snuggles wrote:
| Right now the air quality sensor is in the basement, and the
| purifiers I'm comparing it to are upstairs. It's not a fair
| comparison, it just "seems" to be reporting using a different
| scale.
|
| My plan is to put the sensor near one of my STARKVINDs and
| see how the numbers compare. This will tell me if they're
| measuring the same thing and reporting it at the same scale.
| Once I understand what the sensor is telling me a bit better,
| I'll put it in a more useful place. Your suggestion of
| putting it closer to where you sit is a very good one.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Humidity has a huge effect on the non-lab-grade sensors and
| that, combined with the fact that upstairs will have all
| the dander, fabric fibers, etc...of course they're
| different values.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| I don't have the link handy, but many/most of the inexpensive
| particle sensors are junk in one way or another. They're only
| good for relative measurements at best.
| thadk wrote:
| I owned that IKEA purifier and it didn't clear the dust
| sufficiently for my dust mite allergy compared to similarly sized
| Coway filters. Also it wasn't as straightforward to clean off
| large pre-filtered dust particles. Avoid.
|
| Maybe try the STARKVIND one instead.
| timenova wrote:
| I bought this air purifier after reading this article and
| researching more. The biggest advantage of this air purifier
| compared to others on the market is its cost of replacing the air
| filter. It's significantly cheaper than others.
|
| I stay in a city with considerably high air pollution 2/3rds of
| the year, and this has done a wonderful job of cleaning the air.
|
| Plus, Ikea sells a tiny air quality sensor separately, so you can
| measure the quality of the air near where you're sitting, not
| where the purifier is.
| chpatrick wrote:
| The only people I trust for recommendations nowadays are
| obsessive specialist subreddits and Stiftung Warentest.
|
| I haven't trusted Wirecutter since they were offering
| recommendations for kickbacks.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| 90% of the stuff written is just utter trash.
|
| I'm not joking when I say the hairdryer article amounted to
| "trust this person because she's used hair dryers for a long
| time."
|
| She was measuring airflow speed out of the hair dryers but not
| volume. Absolute moron.
| LeanderK wrote:
| > Stiftung Warentest
|
| does something like this exist outside of germany? Having a
| Stiftung Warentest subscription always strikes me particularly
| german.
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| As informative as I'm sure this blog post is, I had to stop
| reading it a paragraph or two in because its overly aggressive
| and snarky tone makes it completely unemployable. I am not
| Wirecutter. I am a nobody reading a blog post. I am not the
| subject of this ridicule yet I am somehow the recipient of it. If
| you've got a good point to make the proof will be in the pudding
| without having to be overly vitriolic on the Internet. If there
| was an iota of intent to have someone at Wirecutter see this,
| being this aggressive only serves to have them dig their heels
| in. It's needlessly emotional and self-indulgent when the subject
| is...air purifiers? Christ.
| wilg wrote:
| It does include a "[Content warning: Polemic]" right up top!
| Also honestly it's not that spicy.
|
| > If there was an iota of intent to have someone at Wirecutter
| see this, being this aggressive only serves to have them dig
| their heels in.
|
| That's their problem, though!
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| Well...I found it to be? One can put as many disclaimers as
| one wants on something, but Michael Bluth will always be
| right in being a tad confused as to why there was a dead dove
| in his fridge.
| wilg wrote:
| Yeah, well, only so much you can do. Tone is subjective.
| atombender wrote:
| I don't see your criticism at all, and I don't think there's
| anything aggressive or vitriolic here.
|
| The article is specifically a rebuttal to a Wirecutter review,
| so the target audience is really anyone who cares what
| Wirecutter thinks about purifiers (a lot of people rely on it
| to guide their buying decisions, after all), and perhaps the
| staff at Wirecutter.
|
| I can't speak to the article's technical accuracy, but it
| appears to do a good job of systematically breaking down their
| analysis using technical arguments, visualizations, and math.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| The blog provides good evidence-based snarkiness.
| whazor wrote:
| The cheap IKEA air purifier has another huge benefit: you can
| control it with a smart socket. So hook it up to a tasmota smart
| plug and you will have a smart purifier.
| ska wrote:
| From this thread, the bigger IKEA one seems to have smarts
| built in.
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| Product reviews today are the definition of conflict of interest.
| Shit sucks
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