Dyson air purifier outperformed by cheap DIY box fan filter in Marketplace test
cbc.ca
cbc.ca
https://www.jameco.com/Jameco/workshop/Howitworks/dysonairmu...
"Despite no concrete evidence to support the concept, belief in fan death persists to this day in Korea,[further explanation needed] and also to a lesser extent in Japan.[1][2][3]"
Don't Use a portable electric fan in a closed room without windows or doors open to the outside. ... Don't Use a portable electric fan to blow extremely hot air on yourself. This can accelerate the risk of heat exhaustion. ... Don't direct the flow of portable electric fans toward yourself when room temperature is hotter than 90 °F."
Looking at climate data for the country, I was struck by how similar it is to upper Missouri. Saint Louis is about as humid, but a bit hotter on average. Which would make me suspect that if "fan death" was a thing, we'd be seeing it in a band of US States that're similarly hot and humid.
Speculative difference would be if air conditioning is really uncommon in South Korea, but presumably we could even that out by comparing to poorer people in the US.
I grew up believing in it (because my parents), and it took me a while to shake. At some point it became more of a superstition, but was still nervous to leave it on overnight...
There is, of course, the possibility that wincy's comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, though. I personally can't quite tell which way it was meant.
Saying "But what about x?" when you yourself provide a link that says that X is a non-issue doesn't make for an engaging discussion. "But what about x? This link suggests it's not a problem but I think it is because of y" does make for an engaging discussion, even if y is seemingly nonsense.
Maybe this person could even use the downvotes as a signal that there is something seriously wrong with their belief and learn something new.
Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
I will note that people make arguments via questions pretty often in normal conversation, so that's not necessarily an accusation of significant bad faith. It could be more of a complaint about rhetorical technique.
But let's treat it as an accusation of bad faith. In that case, we have a deeper issue. Assuming that it's a real question asked in good faith is actually the weakest plausible interpretation, because the link makes it a self-disproving theory. Honestly the tongue-in-cheek interpretation is probably the strongest one.
There's no way to treat it as a strong argument and as a real question asked in good faith.
Also it can be okay to downvote misinformation even when the commenter didn't do anything wrong.
I’m not Korean, but used to work at a company with quite a few second generation Korean Americans and we’d have Korean students studying in the US we hired as interns. They were very bright and very polite, but if we brought up fan death they’d say “oh haha yeah it’s funny... but it might be true”.
When I bought a purifier, one of the things I was looking for was air movement. I position my Dyson so that there's a draft throughout the apartment.
I thought this would improve the air filtration because the air would move through my home and eventually reach my purifier.
My previous experience with a purifier was a Honeywell tower that didn't move air. I noticed an improvement when I switched to a unit that moves air better.
Am I wrong? Should I give up Dyson anyway and choose another product?
My local costco has these units in store for $800 USD. Further down the isle they have oscillating tower fans for $30, and smart air filters for $100. I bought two pairs of each before winter. The fans are quiet, have plenty of control options, and non-volatle memory so you can use them with smart plugs. The air purifiers are 4 stage, with active charcoal and a long life (6 mo, 20$) hepa filter. They are wifi enabled, monitor and log air quality, and controllable from a phone. The purifiers should filter my bedroom's air once every 10 minutes, and ~15 min for my living room. This was all under 300$.
Edit: to answer your question, the regular dyson fans are great. They quietly and efficiently move air. Pointing one at a real air filter should really help the filter do its job. My issue is that dyson built a small filter into their fans and doubled the price.
My partner smokes indoor when I am not present and there's no smoke odor when I get home.
According to the chart on their app, the peak low air quality from several cigarettes goes away within an hour or so. https://imgur.com/a/0qgwT1F
There are definitely better units out there, but not for $100. That was the sale price at Costco when I got mine.
But once the sensors indicate that the PM2.5 is gone, everything is fine, right?
From what I can tell, PM2.5 isn't the end-all be-all metric and sensors can give false readings. That's why I'm building multiple devices with different types of sensors and monitoring multiple metrics. PM10 and PM1.0 are also concerns, as is CO and CO2. I am researching which VOC sensors to get because unfortunately not much info is readily available. But from the research I've read PM2.5 is the most prevalent and damaging in typical households (CO being a big exception, but that's also monitored by regular household CO alarms). I can tell when someone has been frying something in the kitchen from my bedroom sensor for example, and it lingers for a while. I can also tell when outdoor air quality is poor, and then my indoor air filter and closed windows do help. I am still learning about all this, but in general this data has been helpful to figure out when to open windows to avoid headaches.
I plan on publishing my findings at some point, but currently I am still waiting on parts and PCBs and working out the software to make it more usable without having to run to grab a USB cable to flash new firmware on the sensors. I was inspired by https://www.airgradient.com/diy/ but those plans are outdated and the dashboard is proprietary so less than ideal. I am working with simply integrating my sensor network with Home Assistant so I have to do very little with frontend stuff. It was very quick to set up notifications to my phone so I don't have to look at sensor screens all the time.
https://www.jaredwolff.com/finding-the-best-tvoc-sensor-ccs8...
I might play around with the BME680 but it’s VOC detection is very rudimentary and it does eCO2 which is basically a guess. There is also the MICS-6814 breakout for relatively cheap on AliExpress but reviews on it are mixed, saying it uses the wrong values for its resistors and capacitors and it’s not as accurate as the Grove one. The Grove board is the only one that measures separate gasses separately instead of measuring total gasses and then using a formula to try to divide the number down to expected parts.
In practice, who knows. I need to lay my hands on all of them. If I could get all this into a controlled environment to test it all that would really be ideal.
Thanks for that link, it was a great read and the comments were helpful as well.
The biggest thing I found was that the PMS sensor has seen two generations of revisions. I built an original AirGradient and it’s sitting on my night stand currently but for new builds I am using a PMSA003 instead of PMS5003. Also I am substituting a DS-CO2-20 from Plantower for the CO2 sensor. That CO2 sensor seems to be well regarded and is slightly cheaper. And lastly I rewrote the drivers to be a bit different and a little more organized/readable/efficient. It doesn’t add much in terms of functionality, was just an excuse to write some C but I think it came out nice.
I redesigned the PCB to tie the PMS sensor’s SET and RESET pins to 3.3V per the data sheet. It seems to work fine without that with the PMS5003 but I haven’t yet received the new PCBs so I don’t know how it’ll work out. The PMSA003 has a different, slightly more convenient 1.27mm 2x5 connector so it’s easy to mount and get all the connections onto a PCB but isn’t breadboard friendly.
One other difference is that I’m not using a the Wemos OLED shield in favor of a stand-alone 0.96” OLED screen for double the resolution horizontally (your instructions show that one but not in the PCB build). And I wrote a different UI for it, plus added a button the PCB to do things like reset the sensor settings.
There are probably other things I’m forgetting but my email is in my profile if you want to move this conversation to that medium and once I polish up the code a bit more I am happy to share it. I will likely continue using these sensors with HA but I see no reason that you can’t use some of this in your work if you find it useful. I was planning on publishing the code and plans under a BSD license.
Overall, I wanted to thank you for the amazing work you did on AirGradient. I wouldn’t have been able to start on this project nearly as easily without your plans and code. It’s really impressive work very polished.
Have you looked at open source smart vivarium projects? Several seem to have good front-end.
This may seem weird, but the reason I first started to explore air quality and sensors was to build a smart vivarium for a reptile.
I didn't go through with that project but it was a waking call for me. Animals need so much environment control to thrive and humans are animals.
So instead I focused on adding sensors and filters to my own home. Nothing fancy so far, just a mix of product that work with google home and smart sockets.
Examples
(I don't have the Honeywell anymore as it was my ex's)
This conversation makes me want to buy a second purifier and simply stop purchasing filters for my Dyson. That way, it would continue to work as a space heater and fan but the air purifying would be done by a dedicated device.
Makes sense as by rule of thumb, no "jack of all trades" devices will ever be better than a dedicated device. Hindsight is 20/20.
This sent the fan spinning at a weird angle and it hit the ceiling. This broke the wooden blades and sent them flying in all directions.
So floor fan it is now.
What I am describing is that the Dyson ends up doing a better job alone than the Honeywell did. Especially when it comes to the second floor. However, as you said one could quite likely achieve the same result with any air purifier and a strong fan.
Air filtration shouldn't be this expensive.
Obviously that's not how those numbers work, but you get the idea: it's not necessary to filter all the air at once.
2. The article says "15x more", so the right math would be 100x16/17=94.12 .
Fan X moves "15x more" air than fan Y. For every 1 unit of air fan X moves, Y will move 1x15 = 15 units. In the time it takes fan Y to move 100 units of air, fan X will move 100*(1/15) units, or 6 2/3rds units. 6.666... rounds to 7.
"Dyson has developed its own testing methodology, the POLAR test method, which, unlike the CADR, Hill said, "measures the intelligence of the purifier, the ability for it to know when that room is clean or dirty and automatically react, and its ability to mix that pure air around the room."
The detection function seems of spurious value if the device is operating at max capacity regardless of whether a pollutant is detected or not.
Is that the case, or does the Dyson adjust volumetric flow to match the detected level of pollutants? That would make sense in the case of smoke, although humans could detect smoke and turn the device on or off accordingly.
COVID19 particles are a different case. If the Dyson can detect those and switch itself on, eliminating the virus from the room, $800 is a bargain. But it can't.
If an air purifier is generally accepted to be a higher-price item, then making a fan into one with some sort of filter helps justify the higher price.
(Just speculation, though. I have no info about their design or marketing decisions.)
Dyson's stance on Brexit makes ever more sense... .
Aside from the “empty the canister out and watch all fine dust float back into my house” issue, vacuum bags function as one massive filter. It’s not physically possible to build a filter into a bag less vacuum that approaches the size or capability of the vacuum bag itself.
These days I have a roomba and a Dyson cordless stick vacuum for occasional use.
I ordered some from china (probably fake) for $30 rather than the $100 dyson wanted.
Lots of units will have a washable pre-filter, but that's to pick up big stuff and extend the life of the disposable part.
Dyson fans produce a continuous stream of air. Regular fans produce choppy air. I don't think anyone actually notices this effect until you point it out though.
Yes, I found exactly that.
There is a company called QuietMark, I've bought fans from there and sent them back for being above average noisy, they're not interested in outside contact.
I recommend to buy and try for your own situation. Measurements of loudness are not the full story as the tone of the noise will interact in ways that can be unpredictably pleasant or harsh.
The Dyson fan issue is the audible motor whine at lower fan speeds (and with oscillation on, it creaks as it turns).
"If you need a quiet portable fan/filter find one that and has more than 7-8 speeds, preferably in double figures - and put it close to where you want the air, on low."
Ignore the price, cheaper may be better, but having many speeds suggests some sophistication and the option for lower speed means lower noise.
If you’re at a distance where you can talk into the airflow and sound normal, you’re probably not experiencing “choppy” air.
"Buffeting" of air is not a practical issue when using a fan - you want a fan that can create a lot of air flow.
The Dyson fan comes across form first then making up reasons to explain the form retroactively. It feels like an interesting look is the goal rather than something that's actually better.
Am I wrong about this? Do people that have the fan like it? Is it better? I've only played with one in a store, but haven't owned one myself. I have owned Vornado fans which I liked.
Another one that comes to mind is the Molekule air filter which is basically fraud.
Large HEPA filters work, people should use them.
My favorite: https://medifyair.com/
Coway Air Mega
Coway Mighty
Blue Air
Medify Air
They're basically all equivalent and they all work.
The reason I like the Medifyair is because it can move the largest volume of air relative to those so it can clear a space quickly (and quietly). I also think it looks nice (though it is huge).
Of the rest, the Blue Air uses weird custom filters which I think cost a little more (though I haven't had to replace them yet). The Coway Mighty is also pretty small and mostly for a tiny room.
Relatedly, if you're interested in sensors I think the TemTop sensors are the best (I've tried a bunch of different ones, and a lot of them suck).
Some details on this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AirQuality/comments/ikf1ed/are_ther...
For a modest house in the Bay Area during fire season, we needed a high MERV furnace filter and also two filters similar to their recommended models, so I moved up to the Medifyair. It arrived after the last fires, but it seems to work extremely well.
Hopefully, we won't need it this year...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25993512
I like consumer reports. You pay money for subscription and they provide you a non biased review.
I know the "you can never trust anyone who has affiliation links" argument, but if we follow that to its logical conclusion, Wirecutter should be strongly biased toward picks that give them the most money for referrals, and that's not really backed up by their choices. They pick cheaper choices pretty frequently, and it's possible to find picks where there's no apparent affiliate link at all, e.g., their pick for best "high-performance" subwoofer. One can posit, as was done in the thread you linked, that there might be deals directly with manufacturers that we don't know about, but "we can't be sure they're being underhanded without us knowing" doesn't actually get us anywhere useful -- the same could obviously be said about anyone, including CR.
In the review business it's better to be playing the long-term game if you're building a real audience. In Wirecutter's case their long term advantage is to make good reviews without regard to the affiliate payment.
There are already thousands of other websites that are just disguised ads. Wirecutter's differentiating features is that they don't do that.
They still have some reviews I think are pretty mediocre or products they chose that I think are bad, but generally I think they're worth looking at.
Is there a word in English which exclusively means hand-digits or fingers+thumbs or digits-toes?
Chemistry sets, m-80s, model rockets, playgrounds, coaster brakes, whatever kids did before "play dates" and anything intricate with small parts.
Would you be as good of a programmer today if that was true? I remember spending an entire week trying to figure out how strings worked in QBASIC, when I was in 5th grade. There was no internet and I only had the Apple IIGS Basic manual to work with. I tried and tried and tried and eventually figured out that it had something to do with those $ symbols. Eventually I got the hang of it. I guess the point is, that challenge and struggle with simple things helped me develop the attitude to overcome truly difficult things later. Maybe this is more just memories of childhood than anything..
* Windows 95 removed all thought of the user as a programmer, killing things like QBasic.
* Apple was doing likewise, even killing Hypercard.
* The web wasn't in its prime yet, limited to HTML 2.0 and 3.2, and really lousy JavaScript.
* Even electronics was tough, since DIP parts were being replaced with SMT, and the service manual was starting to become a relic, but things like Arduino and RPi didn't exist yet, and making PCBs was $$$$$.
* Shop classes were on the decline in schools, but makerspaces weren't in yet.
I feel bad for kids growing up then. Short of installing a Linux distribution, kids were left out in the cold for being anything other than consumers of technology.
There was really a golden age in the eighties and early nineties, and we seem to be in another golden age right now.
One uses the name of a toy in a derogatory manner, the other is a straight-up derogatory term for a group of people.
Lawn darts, BB guns, wrist rockets, bottle rockets (I know you said M-80s, I had those too, but bottle rockets could be shot at friends), can of WD-40 (with requisite red straw) plus a lighter, backyard archery set.
Love you Mom and Dad! 70s were great!
I mean I get the "born in the wrong generation" vibe, but at the same time it's easy to get blinkered and not realize what came instead. In a LOT of ways, they (and we) were born in the RIGHT generation.
With an app, you’re using a tool for its intended purpose. There’s little joy in discoverability because you’re following the rules the developer set.
That’s why the fan can be more fun; it’s not generational. The fun is in exploring a novel feature in something you though you thoroughly understood.
When the novelty is over with the app, you delete it (was the hour of fun worth getting your data mined?) and return to the boredom (find the next app). With the fan, you simply stop and it continues to be useful. Without you taking deliberate action, everything returns to the way it was. Except for your mind, which metaphorically expanded and wants to see what else can be used in creative ways.
At first I also didn't know why is one of colleagues sounding "weird" - never would've thought they had their fan running, until one product manager asked "Hey X, do you have a fan running nearby?"
I'd rather raise daredevils than anxious wrecks. My best friend has a kid who's always climbing on stuff, falling down, getting hurt. That kid is going to grow up to be awesome.
No guts no glory.
Obviously you don't laugh with big falls and broken arms.
But from my own childhood I can remember that kids are not subtle - if they are mocking you, you will know (names, finger-pointing, jokes, etc.). Whereas if a friend laughs with you about a silly fall, you get a completely different kind of scenario played out.
Coming back to your initial point, and being blunt: showing your children that clumsy falls can be funny, and not to panic about them, does not increase their cruelty towards other kids.
Everyone parents differently. I would be interested to see which culture the "laughing" reaction parents come from.
I scream when I saw my kid trying to stick a key into an electrical outlet, and I screamed when I saw my kid trying to put a finger into a vornado fan.
Modern fans aren't the same as the box fans we grew up with. And adult would likely walk away with an emergency room bill and a bunch of stiches. A small child would likely lose a finger.
Where is the fun in that? I say sharpen the blades and make it a real teaching moment.
I have, know what happened? Nothing.
I have a couple 80-100 year old GE fans. Putting your finger in the front doesn't do anything but push it out. Which makes sense if you look at the shape of the blades. The side and back are a little scarier, but i'm guessing unless you really jab it in fast, or get unlucky in some way the worse that will happen is some scraped up skin. They are definitely not _designed_ to sever fingers, for that you need a tablesaw. And none of them have enough rotating mass or HP that you can't stick your finger in the back and actually stop them by keeping your finger against the blades as they try and push your finger.
So, I'm not saying it cant happen, but your kid probably has a greater chance of losing a finger in your car door, or various other places like that before you have to worry about the fans. If you want to experiment with this find something approximating a finger and give it a try, maybe the woody bits of a leftover piece of asparagus.
Glad I still have that finger. It didn't feel particularly close to being severed, it just cut to the bone and then pushed my finger out of the way. Kinda NBD, but ER visits to teaching hospitals are always annoyingly slow...
I told him that I thought I could do it without the glove. He told me to give it a try and I did. What I did was promptly fall on my ass and that's how I learned the power of electricity.
At least, not so far. I don't plan on finding out if it really is "third time lucky" lol
When I was 16 I was working on my ham radio's linear amplifier. I was certain that I had shorted all the capacitors but one still held a charge and once again with much more force knocked me on my ass.
For days I could see the line up my arm where the electricity travelled. After that I always grounded the capacitors three times just to be sure!
I never told my parents about it because I would have gotten yelled at.
At camp we put crickets on the electric fence, but nothing happened to them, so I grabbed the electric fence, and that was a powerful jolt. I never did that again, either.
But these are not the lethal electric fences that you see in trashy science fiction movies.
These are specially designed to put out a high voltage pulse which gives a nasty bite, but is basically harmless.
One xmas when I was less than 5yo I jammed a knife into our 240v socket and blew the fuse on the Electricity Board side of the fusebox. They had to send an engineer out to turn the power on so we could continue cooking the turkey.
The other is from a sibling comment. With primary school, 10 years old, we went to the Lake District and were introduced to electeic fences by everyone holding hands with the person next to them, and the teacher explaining that he would touch the wire with the back of his hand to avoid muscle contraction. Because I was "that kid" I was placed at the far end of the chain, where I assume it tingled more. That was fun.
We used to put PP9 batteries on our tongues for tingles. Just for fun.
I do recall dangerously letting .22 blanks off with a brick and a piece of brick making an entry and exit wound through the outside fleshy part of my hand. Couldn't let mum know that I was even bleeding in case she asked why!
Touching the wires hanging out of the wall where the clock hung was fab, until I flew across the room and sat on the sofa unexpectedly. You really do learn respect for insulation at this point.
What? Why?
I guess luckily I hit earth/ground with one of them - since we had differential (RCD) circuit breaker(s) installed it just shut off electricity in the apartment.
If I managed to hit both into real live and neutral - the differential breaker wouldn't have done a thing, and I wouldn't be typing this.
In my case, I taught them this by laughing at myself when I fall off my bike, so I am modelling the outcome I want--them learning to try things, fail, and laugh--rather than some kind of "do as i say" style of parenting.
But even falling off bikes can have an unacceptable worst case. So we insist on helmets. It is bad parenting to allow undeveloped brains to suffer avoidable and entirely foreseeable concussions when reasonable precautions like proper protective gear exists.
I think that sums up our parenting approach: Model the risk tolerance we want to encourage, including both taking risks and managing the consequences intelligently.
After that, it's up to them.
We need a fan, and optional air filter. Not sure what other options there are...
At various ages we wondered if the kids could put their fingers in and touch the blades, and so prompted them to (while the fans were off, of course).
At no point could the kids' fingers get to the blades. Either their fingers were too short, or, eventually, too fat.
It's noisier than expected, but on low it's quiet enough and fine for our entire house during "normal" bad pollution days (PM 2.5 between 100 and 300). During severe smoke from wildfires (PM 2.5 > 300), I'm OK with it being noisy.
They make nonsense claims about their technology - none of which empirically hold up. They lie about it and are just generally full of shit, quoted below:
"In the summer of 2019, we purchased a Molekule Air (the flagship model) and tested it. We bought an Air Mini that fall and tested it in February 2020. At the time we tested the Molekule Air, the company claimed that its “scientifically-proven nanotechnology outperforms HEPA filters in every category of pollutant.”
Our tests proved otherwise. And by mid-2020, that language had been withdrawn, after many of the company’s claims were ruled against in a case before the National Advertising Division and upheld in a later appeal before the National Advertising Review Board. The Molekule Air turned in the worst performance on particulates of any purifier, of any size, of any price, that we have tested in the seven years that we have been producing this guide. The Air Mini outperformed it, but that’s not saying much: It still gave the second-worst performance we’ve ever seen.
Guide author Tim Heffernan asked Molekule CEO Dilip Goswami why the language was removed. He answered, “The point about ‘in all categories’ is that we see a device that outperforms across all of the categories. Right? So we’re not trying to say that individually, on any particular metric, we would be number one. Right? What we’re saying is, when you look across all the categories, we outperform HEPA. Right? And that’s what we’re attempting to convey with that. And so—it’s fair to say that we needed to re-examine some of the language to make sure that it’s saying what we’re intending to say.”
The NAD and NARB cases made clear that this was an understatement: All of Molekule’s quantified claims about the Air’s performance; all of its claims about superiority to HEPA; all of its customer and doctor testimonials about the ability of the Air’s filter to reduce asthma and allergy symptoms; and many of its claims to have been independently tested, were ruled unsupported. Other claims were ruled too broad."
The dyson looked cool, but the heat function was kinda useless unless you sat right next to it. i might get another one without the heat.
The medify seemed to work well, but it felt like it was poorly made. I kept thinking I could probably diy something just as good. Though the main reason I returned it was because the advertising claimed it came with two sets of filters, when it only came with one.
I bought both of these last year after almost a decade of wanting to get an air filter, and not doing it. The whole industry feels like a scam. This is why I stopped shaving 20 years ago.
But I got my refurbed on Woot for like, $100, not the $450 brand new they wanted, which is lunacy.
So long as it cycles the air frequently enough, eventually it will capture particles proportional to its basic filtration capability.
The Dyson filter is an open-air filter, that draws a small sample of the air through a filter, and passes the rest through unfiltered.
Each pass reduces the average (diffused) load of contaminants.
Two identically effective filters with different flow rates will eventually achieve a specified target diffused contaminant load in the air in the space; the only difference will be the time taken to achieve this (given a fixed initial contaminant load).
This should be clear...
Cheap vacuums are way better than they were. I bought a $60 upright at target for my office 5 years ago, it sucks (in the good sense) and is reliable. It does not have a ton of attachments, but it was $60.
For people with allergies this is a big selling point.
To be fair, the Dyson outperforms it very minimally in suction (I'd say like 5% better) but that doesn't justify the near double price. Also the Roborock has a 'lock' button and a much better wall mount in my opinion. It's battery is Lithium-Polymer and cleaning the vacuum is easier.
Marketing is the only reason why anyone would buy a Dyson v11 over a Roborock H6.
Panasonic used to also make great vacuums. Basically any canister vacuum will be well-equipped. Dyson is vacuums what Beats are to headphones.
A more general problem is that there is a conceptual contradiction between low noise and high filtering. It will be difficult for a silent filter to be quick at filtering your room.
The good news is that even a relatively crappy, low CADR setup can still filter a bedroom over time so long as it remains closed. You will however be paying for replacements more often and it might not be worth it if you have to ventilate daily and the filter takes many hours to give you a clean environment.
I like the work that Smart Air China is doing. I am not affiliated with them, but they have essentially done and made available the same sort of research as the one highlighted in the article and have long promoted the no bullshit use of a simple box fan with filter combo for lower income and highly polluted regions.
Very refreshing. Good luck with your startup.
Also great startup idea. This will have long term demand. IDK if targeting (public) schools and their gov acquisition processes is wise but definitely a need there and probably plenty of new budgets for this stuff.
Btw your mobile marketing site could use some work. The spacing is off in a WebKit browser.
Besides the PM2.5 aspect (which, as far as I can tell, can be solved by pushing a large volume of air through a HEPA filter), there's also the quality and type of the carbon filter, which is what traps a number of other things such as VOCs and most scents. You also need to know the type of thing you're filtering - smoke, for example, you really need a carbon filter for, and if you really want to filter a decent quantity of smoke, you'll need to drastically oversize the filter (e.x. Get a large industrial filter for a small area.) In case anyone's curious what I got, I didn't need to filter smoke, so I got one of the larger Levoit filters and used it in a small room, and I'm happy so far.
That said yes it was expensive, but it replaced needing a fan for cooling and an air purifier, and if I needed a heater it could have done triple duty.
> "I think what we're trying to do is pull back a little bit from the CADR metric," he said. "Not everyone needs an enormous CADR, has huge rooms or incredibly dirty air."
> Several experts told Marketplace the CADR is the most important metric and an internationally recognized benchmark.
> "CADR is what you want to know, period," said Francis (Bud) Offermann, an indoor air quality researcher who has helped develop test methods for the performance of portable air cleaners with the American Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM).
CADR may well be "what you want to know, period" when it come to air filtration. However it might NOT be all you want to know when buying a consumer product. If the filter is quiet and effective and good looking and only ramps up when needed, is this not in some ways a better PRODUCT than a box fan running at full speed all the time with a filter taped to it?
These people come from civil engineering backgrounds where air filtration requirements might often be thought of from an industrial or at least much larger than a domestic/micro loft scale.
Having any air filtration at all at a smaller scale is generally just great if you replace filters often enough, don't aren't near industry or aren't in a city, don't cook at home often... Even then, a smaller air purifier's going to do an awesome job if you let it run regularly.
I think it would be interesting to run a purifier in a normal house for 48 hours and see what the steady state particulate levels settle at around the house. I would guess that over a certain threshold CADR, there might not be that much difference. Room air circulation combined with a good enough CADR might even be more important, which is what Dyson claims.
For all the people in the bay area worried about the next fire season, CADR is probably the most important since there's an extreme source of particulates. I'm just not sure that's the final say on air purifier effectiveness in less extreme conditions.
Viruses are generally too small for even the best filters, but the droplets that carry them are well within what a HEPA filter can manage.
The average diameter of coronavirus particles is around 0.12 μm. The diameter of the envelope is 0.08 μm and the spikes are 0.02 μm long.
A P100 HEPA filter will remove as much as 99.97% (for P95 it is 95%) of all airborne particulates with an aerodynamic diameter of 0.3 μm, and particles both larger and smaller are removed with an efficiency greater than 99.97%.
Even if viruses are smaller than 0.3 μm, they are an easy target for HEPA filters.
The masks we all wear are primarily droplet guards, not air filters, they catch splatter that might float. All of the air that blasts out the back and escapes is barely going to be diverted by another mask after it’s already escaped the other mask and has had time to exist, right?
I guess for my threat analysis, if you’ve already invited them inside your house and they’ve stayed long enough that you think their breath particulates are floating in the air, you’ve already lost the war, so to speak.
Probably just a few minutes will be all that matters, I suspect. If you like, go take a walk and wait for the droplets to land?
That's why ventilation is important if you are sharing a room with other "external" people.
Same as "processor speed is all that matters"... well, not. I honestly would gladly pay more for a QUIET computer (they are become more available).
Looks do matter, and at least for our decor, there isn't really much choice. We pick our furniture based on how it mathes our interior decor, why would an air purifier be any different if it's out and on all the time?
It's not surprising a 3-in-1 product isn't very good at (at least) 1 of those functions.
> It has a remote
Check
> It looks attractive
Check. It's invisible.
> sound profile
Check. Furnace fans are in the garage.
> analyze the temperature, humidity, and air quality
Nope. But purpleair will sell it to your for $175.
> oscillates
Check. Covers entire flat.
I suspect that you're fairly lucky.
Having said that, oscillating fans annoy me because the degree of rotation is almost never controllable. I have very rarely seen fans with a clip underneath that causes the rotation to reverse direction.
It does seem that they're comparing apples to oranges. Of course if you optimise for one metric ignoring the trade-offs and extra features: fixed air flow for a single given particulate removal measure, the cheapest solution that arrives at and maximises that metric is going to come out on top.
But if you consider:
- Hepa vs Merv - Additional carbon filter - Remote control - Multiple pivot options - Multiple power options - In built sensors and real-time reporting for small particles, large particles, no2, volatile organics, temperature and humidity - smaller horizontal footprint - Smartphone integration + remote operation - noise footprint
then "shock", you have to pay more to have those features! (and they do provide value).
Dyson certainly offers "I like to burn my money" options like many other companies, and they're not priced cheaply, but it's dishonest to review a sports car and a utility van on the metric of boot space and proclaim a "one little trick they don't want you to know about" type headline.
Also, I haven't seen anyone else tackle it: what the hell is up with this "corona-virus protection" hints and claims in this article? Is that not enough to set off most people's internal alarms that the article is quackery?
https://dynomight.net/2020/12/15/some-real-data-on-a-DIY-box...
It's crazy that commercial manufacturers usually don't even attempt to provide data like this to show that their products actually, you know, work.
All we want to know is asthma per hour in the room, and cancers per years in that city ;)
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-air-purifier...
[1] https://cowaymega.com/products/coway-mighty-ap-1512hh
[2] https://i.cbc.ca/1.5902727.1612545406!/fileImage/httpImage/i...
I rememeber seeing a video on YouTube indicating this device takes 2.2W on low, 4.4 on medium, and about 40 on high. [1] The disparity is reasonable, as the fan laws state that power increases with the cube of shaft speed, and airflow is proportional. Given that the product runs with such low power, it uses a brushless dc motor.
The only issue with this device is that it appears to lack serious amounts of carbon filtration - no hundreds of grams of carbon pellets for odor and chemical adsorption. Not sure if this could be added as a DIY addon.
[0] https://www.energystar.gov/productfinder/product/certified-r...
[1] 5:25 of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBv2aPMWdmI
I suspect by "odd" here you just mean "american". US consumers really don't like having to convert units.
They are also popular enough, and have been around long enough, that there is an "ecosystem" of third party replacement filters that are affordable and capable.
The sound of the Coway is also quite nice for sleeping in our opinion. It's a quiet "whoooosh", not grating at all.
Given the observed longevity of the Coways, I suspect they are actually cheaper than "DIY box fan" solution after a couple of years if you're running them 24/7. Sure, you can get a cheap box fan, but you'll be lucky if it lasts 6-12 months running 24/7 while trying to suck air through a filter.
I have asthma, allergies, and pets so.... yeah. Medium it is for me.
If you take a look at the photos for the Blue Air 211 on Amazon, you can see how much it picks up. Mine was exactly like the photos. The pre-filter was completely covered in dust, and the inner filter was completely dark after 6 months of use.
It's not a necessity if you have the window open to move around the air,
Of course, I don't think an air filter like this would be very effective with the windows open.
I have asthma and mild allergies triggered by pet dander and sometimes seasonal pollen and such. It's a 3 bedroom house. 7 rooms total. And we have pets, because we're dumb.
Ideally we'd have one filter for each room, but they're not the cheapest things, so we just keep them in the rooms where we spend the most time.
Do they work? They've had a positive impact on my asthma/allergies. Not a magic cure, but nothing is. Obviously, it is a part of a comprehensive strategy that includes vacuuming and so forth.
Side benefits of the filters are that they also cut down on dust accumulation on surfaces, and are somewhat effective at reducing odors in general thanks to the swappable charcoal filters.
(FWIW they used to go on sale for like $119 once in a while, in pre-COVID times. That's when we got ours...)
It's just never occurred to me to filter
the air in my home aside from burning
something on the stove or similar
If you're currently doing fine, then this doesn't seem like something you need....
Especially in autumn when the wildfires start up - even if it's many miles away there is a very noticeable degradation in air quality.
One in living room, bedroom, one is boxed for an office I’m setting up.
Couple notes on this: It is the iPod of air conditioners in its UX and look.
The lights on the top are too bright and can’t be dimmed, we cover them in the bedroom with a taped piece of heavyweight paper.
The filters do need to be either clean or replaced on a reasonable basis but catch all manner of stuff that you’d either inhale or clean off other things.
Better air is like less noise pollution. I believe you can improve the quality of ambient environment you should.
It isn’t always obvious it is helping. I can’t measure how much faster the fried food I cooked no longer smells because of it.
That said there’s a reason we use AirPods Pro’s to isolate from distractions. I think air filters can be a simple way to improve quality of life.
I would use a box fan if we had fires in Oregon again. (Our coways had the angry red light on and ran full speed for days, they were not enough.) But it’s not practical to have a box filter going every day of the year.
One more item, this Coway _occasionally_ goes on sale for $120 on Amazon. If you see it for that price grab it because it lasts only a couple of hours.
[0]: https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/can-you-turn-off-your-pu...
People care about aesthetics. There are entire industries built around this, even in technical areas (industrial design, UX, etc...)
So the Dyson wins simply because it will exist in the house and clean a portion of the air, while the Sanford and Son rig won't be in the house and will clean zero air.
For that price of a good cabinet maker, I could buy a whole fleet of Dysons.
Perhaps https://smartairfilters.com/en/product/sqair-air-purifier/ ? It's simply a fan + filter in an attractive box.
"Dyson has developed its own testing methodology, the POLAR test method, which, unlike the CADR, Hill said, "measures the intelligence of the purifier, the ability for it to know when that room is clean or dirty and automatically react, and its ability to mix that pure air around the room."
While Hill agrees that CADR is an important part of purification, he notes that it is important that products also sense and capture pollutants, and project air.
"I think what we're trying to do is pull back a little bit from the CADR metric," he said. "Not everyone needs an enormous CADR, has huge rooms or incredibly dirty air."
Several experts told Marketplace the CADR is the most important metric and an internationally recognized benchmark.
"CADR is what you want to know, period," said Francis (Bud) Offermann, an indoor air quality researcher who has helped develop test methods for the performance of portable air cleaners with the American Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM).
"An air cleaner with a very high-efficient filter and very little air-flow rate will have a low CADR and little air-cleaning ability; same for an air cleaner with a very high air-flow rate and a very low filter efficiency." "
"The POLAR test chamber is much bigger than a CADR chambler, and more representative of real-world environments than existing standards dictate with a 81m3 footprint and no external fan to support air circulation – the purifier itself must do this."[1]
ie: dyson has written POLAR to exclude external fans into their new "standard". Honestly they also don't clarify what they mean by external fans. Since they compare to a box fan/filter in the CADR example above... one is left to either guess or assume that they are either talking about traditional fanned purifiers or are assuming that no hvac exists in "real-world" environments.
[1]https://www.dyson.com/newsroom/overview/update/december-2020...
"We are, we think, delivering quite a good value proposition for the consumer," he said, stressing that Dyson purifiers can sense pollutants in the air as well as capture them, and also provide strong air projection."
I just want to point out the above: Along with the picture, it gives the appearance that a reporter waited outside of a Dyson office and started interviewing an engineer.
I've literally never seen a piece like this where the company's PR department ALLOWED an engineer to be interviewed.
I certainly hope Mr. Hill didn't get in big trouble for this. At my company, if I speak to a reporter without explicit permission from legal, I'm a goner immediately.
Highly recommend this solution if coolness is not a factor.
I do agree that the box fan solution is a great low cost option for small to medium rooms, but if you need 1 device to purify a large area, it's not gonna cut it.
The filter on the box fan also got black faster, which is our indication that it pulled more particles out of the air. Makes a lot of sense, because the actual filter material is the same (they both use HEPA filters inside) but the box fan blows a greater volume of air through a larger filter area.
This is not a good indication.
The larger black particles are not nearly as harmful to you, and generally just fall to the ground. BlueAir and other vertical filters attempt to make sure they don't waste your filter on these large objects, and pull the smaller particles out of the air. Box fans pull a lot off the floor, which isn't super helpful.
The CADR takes into account the differences you speak of, because it measures the amount of clean air. You may enjoy the fans more, but the filter material being the same doesn't mean a box fan cleans air any better.
I realize there are other concerns here (noise, power usage, aesthetics), but at the price points this article is talking about, you can buy 3 box filters for the price of one BlueAir device. Or spend a bit of extra money (but still comparatively less than $400) on a more powerful box fan.
I am doubtful that a BlueAir would outperform a setup with multiple independent fans.
I think it's a feasible estimate of CFM, as the diameter of the box fan's impeller would be larger than the one used in the BlueAir box.
There's an issue of whether the fan motor is designed for that sort of pressure, though. Not sure how durable that motor is going to be.
In college I had a _really_ cheap flat, and all my neighbors were chain smokers. I didn't realize quite how bad it was in my apartment (large gaps under the door, etc) till a classmate pulled me aside and asked how long I'd been smoking -- apparently the residue on my clothes was easy for anyone with a functioning nose to recognize when I walked nearby. Long story short, box fan filters completely fixed that problem, and as an added benefit you could set one up next to any cooking disasters and watch the smoke get pulled from the air.
It kicks the pants off of air purifiers twice the price and it moves a lot of air through. Best investment ever.
CBC was testing CADR, which is one metric among others, but an important one if you're looking to clean a room's air, fast.
https://www.amazon.com/Lasko-FF305-20-inch-Purifier-Purifyin...
I have an Awair and did that dance of turning on the box fan filter when levels were higher than normal, then turning it back off once in normal range.
Now I much prefer keeping a quieter (less performant unit) on continuously to keep the levels low.
https://www.biltema.dk/en-dk/construction/fans/floor-fans/fl...
Note: / and \ are each separate filters
Filter
box
___
| \ |
Inflow --> / --> Outflow
| \ |
| / |
‾‾‾
Of course a lot of the high cost of installing such a system is the whole-house ducting. They also make single room purifiers, but there are also not cheap [2].
1. https://www.iqair.com/us/whole-house-air-purifiers/perfect16
2. https://www.iqair.com/us/room-air-purifiers/healthpro-series
EDIT: Corrected orientation of diagram
They are definitely better than no air filtration at all.
The article measured a CADR on the Blue Pure of 325cfm, while some hits on Google show a CADR rating of 300 cfm for the IQAir one. I'm mainly interested in filtering pet hair, allergens, viruses and SLA 3D printing smells.
I have one of the BlueAirs (forget the exact model number, it's fairly large but not the largest). On any setting other than low (but espeically on high), it's quite noisy.
Like, not just "I can hear this", but "I wouldn't want to carry on a conversation within 10ft of it".
I can't say that about any of the prior purifiers we've tried.
At a CADR of 300m3/h I think the price/value ratio is decent, as opposed to whatever Dyson is trying to con people into buying.
I bought the Dyson. I like it. I'm not looking to clean my air that much because I don't have problems with air quality.
It's a misleading news program. CADR is not the biggest factor that matters to many people who can afford a Dyson.
There are other solutions which might do what the Dyson does in terms of noise/ air circulation, but the box fan rig isn’t it.
With respect to Dyson, I think that their cordless stick vacuums are pretty good, and you can sometimes find good deals on them that can make them not too expensive. They have decent suction that probably compares okay to many low-end corded vacuums, and the battery life is reasonable. If you have only a small area to vacuum, and it is mostly hard floors, the Dyson cordless vacs are a reasonable purchase. Just don't expect them to compare to a decent corded vac in the same price range in terms of power.
Pretty much every Dyson product I've used, from the public bathroom air "blades" to the vacuums, seem like a gimmicky, inferior products with a premium price tag. None of them do their intended job better than older, cheaper products in their category. I know James Dyson is regarded as a genius engineer, but the consumer product company bearing his name seems to be 99% marketing.
It's light, but has been really powerful, durable.
But as others have said, Miele is incredible. Sebo is another good one. They'll have specific models for your use case.
You can browse /r/vacuumcleaners [0] for ideas.
I found the v11 I bought to be vastly better than previous vacuums I've owned, with excellent power despite being cordless, really light and much much quieter.
I haven't used any other Dyson products; I opted to buy Rabbit air purifiers over a Dyson Air.
The dyson's are bagless but they have to be emptied all the time, and the maintenance is a lot more of a chore.
I think the ideal mix would be to have a cordless dyson but with sort of a base that empties into a bagged vacuum, similar to the robot vacs nowadays that empties themselves and have a bag that can be thrown away once a month.
Having to empty the dyson every 3 days sort of defeats the point of having a HEPA filter for allergy viewers.
And while it's bagless, with my cats I had to empty the canister a couple of times every time I cleaned the house.
Now the power supply to the rotating brush seems to have died, I'll probably try to fix it eventually but I took the opportunity to buy a good old Henry as a replacement. It's got a huge bag, a huge filter, it's much more powerful and does a great job. Yeah, I have to buy bags, but they're cheap and that's basically the only maintenance I have to worry about.
Ended up getting a gtech which was fine for 2 adults in a small 2 bed house with wooden floors, but now we have kids and a bigger place we got a Shark corded and it is amazing. Literally the best vacuum we've ever owned.
Their tech can probably be imitated at a lower cost, but I won't take chances with the cheaper knockoffs, the tradeoff is not worth it.
I should add that I called Dyson once for my 7 year old wireless vacuum which was having battery problems. They mailed me a replacement completely free of charge. The upselling might be there, but the up-service also seems to be there.
2. My Kirby G3 is 25 years old and can suck a blonde through the chrome of a trailer hitch. How old is your Dyson? How long will your Dyson last? Can you get parts for it? Is it repairable?
The G3 does have bags but they're HEPA H11 and EN1822 that catch ultrafines, so there's negligible emissions and it's all contained in a bag rather than breathing that crap while dumping a baglass.
Wait what, is ten years supposed to be a good lifetime for vacuum cleaners?
They said it's still working, so seems like its lifetime is greater than 10 years.
It did require one dyson service which they kindly provide even for old devices and one this pipe thingy swap since it ripped.
But as other commenter pointed out - it still works we just wanted to move on to something smaller and cordless and we expect the first thing that will fail in V11 is going to be batteries because other than that they're really sturdly built.
At least cordless tools usually use replaceable (but absurdly expensive) battery packs. Home goods however seem far slower to adopt battery pack technology.
One thing I hate is that every single manufacturer has their own special battery tech that is expressly incompatible with every other manufacturer. This is an area that is absolutely crying out for standardization but probably won't get it because they're making too much money selling literally $7 of materials and labor for $80. I meant that too. 8 18650s for $0.50 each, plus a cheap off-the-shelf $1 charge controller and plastic case.
A Dyson would probably clean better, but she's not going to upgrade until her old one breaks, which may be never.
That said, it hasn't been completely care free. My parents have had to replace the belts several times, but those parts that are easily available and very cheap. The light bulb is more of a special order part, but you can find them on the internet.
In comparison I bought a Dyson vacuum back in the early 2000s and it died due to the plastic at the joint between the handle and the body breaking after about 15 years. There was no repair that didn't cost more than a new vacuum cleaner. Also, the hose that connected to the corner brush never connected properly because of a factory error, so it always had tape holding the hose on.
But we replaced it with a Dyson ball vac because my wife was convinced they did a better job getting the dirt up. The ball vac is still going strong, although I think we may have shortened it's life at one point. It had gotten plugged up at one point and after my wife had tried to vacuum two rooms it suddenly shut off. I took it apart and removed the blockage but it still wouldn't turn on. So I used a shop vac on the blow side to force air through the motor to get it spinning again and discovered that it had probably thermally shut down because the air that came out the other side was so hot you couldn't put your hand over it. A few seconds of that and the vacuum turned back on and sent out a blazing hot stream of air for several minutes. I'm pretty sure if I took it apart I'd find cooked and now brittle plastic around the motor housing.
I've always had the narrative in my head that appliances have become flimsy and have shorter lives because people tend to buy whatever is the lowest price. A race to the bottom on prices means a drop in quality.
If you have not done it in awhile it can be surprising just how much better at picking up dirt it will become after a good cleaning. Because the filters are trying to get down to 2.5ppm they clog easily.
As I recall, one of the selling features of the Dyson Airblade is that it has a HEPA filter built-in.
The old design would just push your hands into one side or the other, where the bacteria-laced water from the last person still remained.
Paper is actually really effective, but only if you use it properly (don't crumple, always fold in 2, and wipe). 1 small piece is actually enough for both hands unless they are still dripping water.
I went through several other brands (both well known and no-name things from china) and then returning them to amazon because they were either just crap at cleaning, and/or the wall holster was a glorified hook that required you to put it in the holster and then still plug it in too as a separate step.
I finally gave in and paid a little bit more for a dyson cordless stick vacuum and it has been really quite excellent and I cannot fault it. It always gets a lot more "out" of the carpets than our previous vacuum, and the usability of the wall holster means it is super-fast and easy to just grab and go without faffing with cables (vital for me with a small kid - we're vacuuming multiple times a day)
Dyson the company has been riding that one idea since, and I agree the rest of their products are over-priced luxury items. In fact their vacuums are over-priced as well now.
Dyson rubs me the wrong way as well personally by purporting to be a "patriotic Brit" moaning about the current state of the country. Then upping sticks to Malaysia with the company HQ in tow.
Dyson really does have good marketing though.
I can't speak to the other products as I never used them, but air blades really are a big improvement IMO.
I have no comment about the rest of it, compared to other ones, because I haven't had to replace it since we got it a couple of decades ago.
the first time i went to clean the filter in ours, i kept seeing that i could easily take off/remove one more thing, so i did. next thing i knew i had completely dismantled and washed it.
then it went back together just as easily. hardest part was waiting for things to dry out.
It’s a good watch, including FLIR performance analysis, Fourier analysis of bearing noise, and more.
In summary it’s definitely more engineering porn / extreme overkill than marketing bs.
So you have products that are marginally better (because those people 100 years ago were smart too and they have not been completely sitting on their laurels) because it uses modern technology and design informed by modern aerodynamics and the like, but is expensive because it doesn't have 100 years of cost optimization behind it.
Worse, you have products that have 6 months of heavy cost optimization resulting in high precision high power motors mounted in flimsy plastic cases that break the first time you drop them.
Dyson's very into moving air in creative ways and blowing through holes. They definitely seem to be the best at it and are very good at it, but they're just playing with an artificial constraint. No one says you have to be able to see through your hair dryer or air purifier. You could make much more effective or cheaper products without those constraints. Just people think they look cool, so they're willing to pay a premium for the weird, "futuristic" Dyson product over the boring normal product. That does make it seem like largely marketing though.
Or, as some journalists found, just squeeze the bag in your hands and get more juice out of it than the Juicero did. You know you've over-engineered your product when it's that hard to get something that simple right.
People spend way more money for decorative things that have no functional purpose at all.
Thanks, homie.
In the actual consumer marketplace, luxury is more about exclusive high priced varieties that look different than it is about superior functionality.
People seem to be eternally shocked by this like we're living in some real life version of groundhog day. Almost as if believing consumers actually aren't infinitely rational utility maximizing automatons is some kind of impossible leap of faith.
Sorry, everything is absurd and there's nothing you can do about it.
He has some interesting discoveries like how they make plastic feel like metal but overall the vibe I got from it is the product does not match the price.
The old school super blowers that just do hot air down, or whichever direction you turn, probably consume more power, but certainly dry my hands faster and I don't have to worry about touching anything that isn't clean in the process.
Either way Excel were the innovators. Dyson just made it look cool. The apple-style marketers who charged 2x as much so could afford some stupid overengineering.
Also, my kids won't use them because they're too loud.
Also, the dyson's do the same thing.
So far, the new washer hasn't given me any issues with getting things clean. The only adjustment I had to make was learning to use much less detergent than I was used to.
There are also just two people in the house and no kids, so perhaps it's more of an issue with larger loads or more grass stains, etc.
Wiping your hands on your pants when there's towels or something is kind of silly, but how on earth does the article of clothing define if you can wipe your hands on it?
Are you wearing vinyl pants or something?
The too nice viewpoint is less relatable, but could be from fastidiousness or OCD applied to the clothes themselves, rather than being concerned about your hands.
If I'm wearing $50 jeans, I might wipe my hands on them.
If I'm wearing a $2,000 suit, I won't wipe my hands on it.
a) it's just water, and very little of it at that since you do the directed shake into the sink first
b) the thought of what I'm wearing never enters my mind when I wipe my hands on my pants
I don't think anyone really does it purposely, you just blank for a second and the action is done and now you have a wet spot on your pants
Anything that blows air around will also blow viruses and the like into the air. People do not wash hands in a "standardized manner" and some people do not even use soap. After their hands are wet, they just stick their hands to the airblade, sometimes touching the sides and shaking the rest of the water all over because they are in a hurry and can't wait that 10 seconds or whatever it takes.
I hate airblades and I don't like hot air dryers.
Paper towels are the best.
I always found the traditional hot air ones to be useless and I would walk away with wet hands after using one.
That's interesting to me because I've had the opposite experience.
I move a lot. For almost decade I moved twice a year. I don't like taking the dirt from one place to the next, so I buy a new vacuum cleaner every time. So I've been though a lot of vacuum cleaners.
I've tried every brand and almost every level of vacuum cleaner on the market, because sometimes I have more money to spend on a vacuum cleaner, and sometimes things are a little tight, and I have to get a cheaper one. The two Dysons have been the best of them all. My only complaint is that with the wireless models, the battery doesn't last as long as I'd like, but if I stick it back on the charger while I'm moving furniture out of the way in the next room, it keeps up well enough.
IIRC he recommends Miele vacuums.
FWIW, I have a Dyson wireless handheld vacuum. It's pretty good, but I can't way if it's worth the price.
I remember seeing the Dyson Ball vacuum the first time in the store and being incredibly underwhelmed after all the marketing on TV. It was heavy, and felt like a bunch of cheap plastic that was going to break apart. Then I tried a few of those handheld Dyson vacuums in different Airbnbs I lived for a while. They were a pain to clean, hair would get caught in the spinning brushes, and the battery life on all of them was terrible (one would only last about 2 minutes, likely because the battery was aging). It always feels like marketing and "cool" gimmicks come first with Dyson products and the actual quality is second.
He says elsewhere in the thread that "you're going to budget more than [$400] if you want a quality vacuum". He calls anything under $200 "pure shit". He recommends cleaning the brush roller monthly, and changing the belt in the vacuum yearly. He recommends a brand that sells a pack of bags and a filter for $100 that's "a 2 year supply".
Sometimes I wonder if people in threads like this Reddit thread live in the same universe as me. So many times it's cult-think to justify spending absurd amounts of money. (E.g. "obviously that $200 fountain pen is going to write so much better than a $30 Lamy.") The trap is when you start thinking "people who really care about X buy Y brand", and then you start thinking that way about everything.
For reference, I own an upright bagless Black and Decker that I bought from my local big box store for ~$70 over five years ago. I have never replaced any parts. I've cleaned out the brush maybe once in that time. It still sucks just as much as it does when I bought it (you can fill up half the damn canister on one vacuuming run). Even granting that I could get a bagged vacuum that would last the rest of my life for free, the $50+ a year for maintenance would cost me more.
(Granted, a more expensive vacuum would probably clean better by some metric, but this vacuum does not leave any noticeable dust or debris or my very low pile carpet.)
That seems extremely wasteful. Why not just emptying the vacuum cleaner before bringing it to the new place? One person buying 20 new vacuum cleaners in a decade is just one of the reasons this planet is running out of resources.
It is. I'm not afraid to admit that. Old vacuum cleaners give me the heebie jeebies. We all have our quirks.
Their stick vacuums and they are excellent as well.
That said, you should not judge their performance based on their cost, as there are other factors, such as ergonomics, WAF, etc.
I also bought a pair of beats running earphones that work better for me than the apple airpods because they do not fall out, they were both about the same price.
It has far better suction and cleaning effectiveness than anything I've ever used - which is partly why I bought the v11. Our mains powered central vacuum just wasn't cutting it, and was bothersome to use.
That’s interesting, I always found those vastly superior to all other solutions. They dry my hands the quickest, only the copycats come close.
But none of this is something you would notice from a sexy ipod-esque ad. All of this you pick up on after you start using the tool. Then it makes perfect sense why this is such a good vacuum and well worth the premium relative to other offerings on the market.
Dyson on the other hand ranges from poor like the Air Purifier to Decent with their Vacuum and Hair Dryer.
I absolutely would buy another Dyson if either of these failed or broke, no question. We're super happy with them.
But I am quite fond of my dyson upright and handheld vacuums. Their fans and other things seem more like novelties to me, but that doesn't make them bad, they just are what they are. Expensive and neat, but not optimal if you want to chase a metric or price optimum.
The fan and filter size matter the most. Most of these things are hugely overpriced for what they are.
So he only measured cleaning results after the pre wash cycle and not after the full cycle. Obviously you would expect a short wash with soap to be better than a short wash without. And the results there were a lot closer than I would have expected.
He completely ignored final results while opining that dishwasher tabs aren’t effective without actually testing them side by side.
I can see what you mean but I feel his outcome has some validity and I find his video/tv stuff far far more interesting
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/worst-air-purifier-w...
If I had to do it again I'd skip straight to my latest purchase though: Xiaomi Mi 3H
Everything about it just screams OK this was designed by people that actually live with real air pollution.
I bought it because interwebs said one can home assistant it, but thus far I haven't. Seems usable without wifi frankly
Also I'd estimate effective filter surface area on the Xiaomi to be maybe 8x of the Levoit. Physically they're just different beasts
What about fit though, with the homegrown solution? Is that a square foot of tape to fill the gaps? Changing filters looks to be a big taping job.
https://www.thisoldhouse.com/green-home/22231148/diy-air-fil...
It should have a much higher CADR than the single filter version at lower backpressure. That means less noise and more energy efficiency.
The idea, as I understand it, is that a furnace can be modified by an HVAC specialist to send a portion of the air through a low-flow bypass duct containing a HEPA filter (or some other high-MERV-rating filter). This highly filtered air is, of course, combined with the less-clean air that passes through the low-MERV (standard) furnace filter before being delivered to ducts/rooms. This enables filtering of air for the entire living space without the need for an air purifier (a large plastic box containing future e-waste) in each room where clean air is desired. One obvious shortcoming of such a system is that in-duct/in-room sources of particulates (including concentrated bursts of particles from things like cooking) might be harder to combat. I don't know whether such a system can reduce particulates to levels commonly reached with in-room purifiers.
Thoughts/adecdata on such setups?
We bought one for the baby's room and it's been great so far. It also doubles as a white noise generator.
I have 4 Xiaomi air purifiers at home in Shanghai, during a highly polluted day (pm2.5 > 150), the in door measurement can be maintained <10 just a few minutes after turning on the Xiaomi air purifier. It has a nice LCD touch display and you can control it remotely using your phone. The price is just $100 each with a preinstalled filter, a replaceable filter that can last for 6 months costs you $40 only.
link here - https://item.jd.com/5487565.html
And I've never even had to change the filter in 20 years! It is that good! Kidding - change it about every 6 months.
But it's definitely NOT worth the price tag, as with all things Dyson lately. (Loved my vacuum 10 years ago, but the stick vacuums are kind of overpriced idiocy - get an Oreck)
Ozone (O³) are used to deodorize, fungicide, and disinfect air (and water, or products bathed with ozonized water). O³ is secure if the concentration isn't too high. And it's really effective doing this. Far better and secure that chlorine. Plus the O³ becomes natural O² given enough time (like 10 to 30 minutes for a room with a high O³ concentraion to be enought low to be safe.)
I know very well that were it's used to disinfect air coiling tower, the risk of legionella bacterium infections, becomes 0. And I saw personally how effective it's to keeping at bay fungus on a problematic damp basement.
A couple of different sized Philips which I like for the big colour led circle; two have PM2.5 count displays. But the air filters I have that really work are two Inovaair beasts. Solid all-metal construction and big drum filters that move a huge amount of air.
Had an oven mishap recently which filled the house with burnt oil smoke. One of the older Philips (a 6000 series) was soon showing well over 250ppm but was struggling to bring the numbers down. The big Inovaair had the whole downstairs clear and the Philips happily reporting single digits in about 20min.
If I just wanted to clean the most air as fast as possible; I could set up 5 box fans.
But that wouldn’t be energy efficient. Especially if I just leave them running constantly.
If the box fan is bigger and 4x as noisy, it's not a valid comparison for many situations. Instead should compare fans which are similar sizes and operating at similar noise levels.
I have a Dyson fan and a box fan (not air purifiers), and the Dyson fan is significantly quieter, smaller (same height but about half as wide), while having a similar power (not exactly sure which one is stronger).
All the smoke uses up a lot of filter material, and this alternative has 10x cheaper filter replacement. It also moves a lot more air through a lot more filter, cleaning everything up more quickly. And the lack of aesthetics is fine for a few weeks. It's worth doing even if you rock a normal filter most of the year.
For an upgrade use a few silent computer case fans instead and you can have a super quiet setup to run all day.
Air debit is only one dimension. You can pick arbitrary dimensions to compare products depending on which one you want to (if you would) show preference to.
Did they check also the noise level? The dimensions? How long you can run the thing before changing the filters? Do they have some form of regulator or are they always on? Do they fall apart when you bump on them?
It's like comparing processors by their clock speed. Which one 'is outperformed' by the other?
It seems plausible that CADR is becoming just a bigger number without improving effectiveness, like megapixels.
It also seems plausible that Dyson is just struggling to avoid commoditization because it's a losing battle for them. And it's possible some of that has merit, because running a noisy fan when the air is already clean seems annoying.
It's quiet, has an actual thermostat (instead of the 0-10 knob). No burning smell and hot air temperature isn't a fire hazard (great for clumsy kids).
Best of all, it looks nice.
That said, I don't think I'd be willing to pay upwards of $600 for one. (I got a refurb HP02 for <$200, and would buy another one at that price in an instant.)
I can see the obvious exception being a heavily polluted eastern city - but don't you need some heavy duty medical grade HEPA filters and fans to really make a large impact?
They're also good if you cook with oil indoors.
Blue Pure 211 rated 540sqft, GermGuardian rated 167sqft, Honeywell HPA160 rated 170sqft, Dyson Hot + Cool Air Purifier rated 290sqft. Levoit LV-H132 rated 68sqft,
Also the Levoit is called out for being $150, as their cheapest, however they are on Amazon or at the local box store for $90.
For the NAS I trialed a range of Noctuas, but the stock fans (KM121225LL 2x120mm 2.3mmH2O) proved most reliable with the default Synology control settings. So anything in that 2mm Range should work.
Yup, corporate mambo-jumbo when they get caught with their pants down.
On the flip side, if you have young kids, the heaters are great because there's no hot element to burn themselves on like a normal space heater, and no fan to stick their fingers in.
The built in t-stat + timer are nice as well.
They put a Merc 11 filter on a box fan. The Merc 11 filter outperformed Dyson. Not some homemade filter.
And duh? Any air purifier where the air actually goes through a filter is going to perform better. Worth testing but not interesting.
But if you go with a Merv 14 filter (which is amazing by the way), you will spend some serious money. Merv 12 is affordable. Merv 11 is an insult to air filters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TH56kTJ-h4
(video in German)
It works worse than almost anything on the market and is ridiculously expensive.
They’re also useful when you can’t open windows for some reason. Indoor air pollution is generally much higher than outdoor air pollution. Houses concentrate dust, etc.
Ideally they could be beautiful, and clean properly. You can't win them all.
But now, everything they produce is a nice looking pile of barely functional junk, with a ridiculous price tag.
a) The positive pressure prevents dirty air from entering the room in the first place. As a results you become totally independent from the outside pollution and you can achieve zero PM2.5 inside even on the worst polluted days. I made a performance comparison between a standard air purifier and a positive pressure system and the positive pressure system won by a huge margin [2].
b) Low CO2. If you use normal air purifiers you are in a catch-22 situation. In order to get good results you need to keep your doors and windows closed. This leads to a very fast build up of CO2 in a room. High CO2 levels significantly impair cognitive performance and can lead to drowsiness and headaches. We measured the CO2 in classrooms [3] and very quickly you will see CO2 levels beyond 3000ppm (most Standards recommend levels below 1200-1500ppm).
Against Covid transmission prevention, the best setup would probably be a combination of positive pressure system (to ensure a constant ventilation rate) together with a recirculation unit (standard purifier) inside the room to trap aerosols with viruses.
We have open-source open-hardware build instructions for a DIY air quality sensor measuring PM2.5 and CO2 [4]. I am more than happy to send you some free PCBs (you just paypal me the cost of the postage) and you can build your own sensor and log the data. Contact me if you are interested.
[1] https://www.airgradient.com/schools/
[2] https://www.airgradient.com/blog/2020/03/30/air-purifier-vs-...
[3] https://www.airgradient.com/blog/2020/02/07/we-measured-the-...
I’ve seen ads for medical “oxygen concentrators” which involves a face mask. No idea how they work, or what they do.
The Dyson looked nicer though with the designer colors.
But then I'll never live in a $3M home or entertain guests wearing tuxes. No need for a whisper-quiet fan because in-house string quartets. Like Apple, Dyson's selling 'purdy'.
Yeah, that's not the sort of indoor air that people actually have.
I would wake up thinking I was in the men's room.
How else will Mr. Dyson be able to afford an 8~9 digit Singaporean penthouse?
Certainly didn't become a billionaire by building an affordable, efficient working product and not using misleading marketing to obfuscate the short comings.