ionic breeze...GET THIT SH*T NOW

[deacsoft]

I have one and love it. I bought it instead of the HEPA air filter in regards to this thread: Beating Cats I have found that it's works well for that issue. In addition to that, my girlfriend and I both smoke in the house and it does wonders for that.

[Blarg]

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My cousin has one, he was not impressed. I think it's kinda like a cult if you buy one. You spent so much farging $$$ on one that to make your self feel better about buying it you must make everyone you know buy one. It's like when someone has a child and says "They are the best things ever! When are you going to have one?!?!" with that dull glaze in their eyes.

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LOL, beautifully put.

[Blarg]

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I dunno, mine works just fine. I don't claim it provides miracle cures or reanimates the dead, but it does pull stuff out of the air and works if you clean it every week or two. Very slight odor when I first got it, nothing now.

BTW, here the trick with these things. Buy the refurbished ones. (Sharper Image has an outlet store online.) Plenty of people return them for whatever reason, you can save a bundle that way.

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If you look at the links a poster above provided, it says that humans lose the ability to smell such things after 20 minutes. That very slight odor didn't go away; you became habituated to it.

Ever been to the house of someone with plenty of cats? They can't smell it, but it can hit you like a wall when you walk in the place.

My folks used to own kennels and a pet shop and a quarantine, and I smelled crap up close constantly. It got to the point where, I kid you not, I could not smell dog poop unless it was within a foot of my face, and not very much even then.

If you can't even smell sh*t after a while, believe me, you can become habituated pretty easily to something like ozone pretty easily.

[astroglide]

yeah he loses his * for the dull glaze comment

[Blarg]

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If you'll read that Straight Dope link on the first page, it seems like a good starting point for learning just how much good HEPA filters do as well.

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Cecil seemed out of his depth and a little perverse in that column. For instance, exposure to sunlight to help cure SADS has been used for a long time now and is not medical quackery. Yet he casts aspersions on it in a sort of guilt by association way in contrast to the very scientific study he cites. It looks like the scientists were right on this one and he was wrong.

He didn't seem all that hot on the HEPA filters either. Finding HEPA not effective in a study and surmising that this is because particles get stored in your mattress and such isn't that good a conclusion. First of all, every time you sit down on your couch or whatever, more particles will come out. Second, anyone with asthma can have it outdoors away from their couches and mattresses just as they can indoors, and it happens all the time. So clearly while stuff being absorbed into your living environs and popped back out at you when you get next to concentrations of it can be a problem, it's logically not the only problem. It would seem likely to me that if HEPA units clean out the air, they can only be making an improvement. How notable, I don't know or claim to. But if you're allergic to spores and those spores are being trapped in HEPA filters, I can't see how it isn't "the less the merrier." Especially if 99.7% of particulates are being removed.

I don't own an ionic thingy and am not interested in owning one, but have read good things about HEPA units and understand they are used in some hospitals and research facilities. I'm not sure that we should write them off, particularly not based on what Cecil says.

[astroglide]

why wouldn't somebody just look it up at consumer reports? they just got a court case dismissed on the subject because their methods/proof couldn't be refuted. if it's not accessible for subscribers it's probably referenced all over the place in misc articles anyway (e.g. 'cr hated THIS and loved THIS'). an online subcription is certainly worth considering if decent-dollar purchases (outdoor grills, filters, appliances, etc) are going to be considered in the next year.

[RunDownHouse]

I agree with both of those points. To be fair, I said it was a good starting point, because it offers up sources for further research that won't be the HEPA shills that many Google searches will turn up.

If anyone is going to sink $400 into something like this, I'd hope they'd do enough reading to stumble upon the CR lawsuit, since that was big enough news that I remember hearing about it.

[Ulysses]

All,

Review web page

The Ionic Breeze is given a "poor" rating by Consumer Reports, who claims that the Ionic Breeze removed very few particles from the air in their tests.

At Air Purifiers America, editors also give the Ionic Breeze a rating of "poor," adding that the Breeze was "the worst performing unit we tested, in that it only removed 30% of the particles at the unit and 5% in the room." Editors add that the "electrostatic plates create harmful ozone." Electronic models like the Ionic Breeze produce ozone as a byproduct. In sufficient quantities, ozone can be toxic.

[MrMon]

Just remember, CR is not the be all, end all of opinions. On some things, I trust them immensely, on others, they have an agenda. I will consider their opinion, but on occasion, I dismiss it.

If I recall, they don't know beans about sound systems, although they hated Bose years ago and I actually agreed with that. Their opinion on televisions always has struck me as a bit odd as well. And on washing machines, I had someone that sells them reliable inform me that salesmen just laugh at their recommneded buys, as one of the recommended machines is notoriuosly bad (Kenmore Calypso, I believe.)

[astroglide]

i don't bother with stuff like televisions because sites like avsforum will have every model under the sun, and lots of expertise. i'm not aware of any hot "best washing machine" forums though.

when buying a vacuum i went for their recommended model. called somebody trying to find it and the guy was like "BECAUSE OF CONSUMER REPORTS I BET HUH? THAT THING IS CRAP I HATE IT." and proceeded to try to sell me on a commercial/restaurant vacuum (even though he actually carried the model i wanted). i bought it and it's worked great for years, for what one sample is worth.

it remains laudable that they have no vendor advertising and purchase all their items themselves as regular customers instead of getting cherry-picked models direct from vendors. they can't test every aspect of a unit, and i'm absolutely certain that they don't hit all major models/competitors when selecting products, but i still can't think of a better one-stop-shop resource for good information. and i don't think they're getting paid off.