Very expensive plug in (air refreshener) :(
Written: Sep 01 '04 (Updated Jan 23 '08)
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Pros: masks odors with ozone (good if you like to smell bleach all day)
Cons: Very expensive giant air refreshener with a bug light
The Bottom Line: Stay AWAY!! Waist of money unless you want to pay $700 for an air refreshener that doesn't even smell good. Go with quality not popularity.
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| abuelreem's Full Review: Sharper Image Ionic Breeze GP SI730 Air Purifier |
My husband and I watched all of the infomercials about the Ionic Breeze and mostly just laughed and said that it could never work.
Then one day my husband said why don't we give it a chance and he ordered two Ionic Breezes, the fancy ones that have the germicidal protection lamp and we also recieved the 3 free small ones for use in places like a bathroom or kitchen.
We couldn't wait to get them because we just knew that we would breathe better, we had given in to the commercials and all the hype that was saying this was so popular.
We put one in our livingroom and one in our bedroom, then we put the small ones in the kitchen, bathroom and one by our 3 year old daughter's bed.
The first day was heaven because we had convinced ourselves that the house smelled so good so it had to be working.
We had our doubts from the beginning because even when you put your face next to it you couldn't really feel any air coming out, but you could smell this smell that was very strong,like a bleach smell after you clean a toilet or something like that, so we said oh that must be working.
After a few days, I had this tickle in my throat that wouldn't go away and I kept coughing, I had a headache, my husband had constant headaches and my daughter was slowly getting sick as if her alergies, which we have had lots of problems with, were getting worse instead of better.
We found it to be strange so we started reading reviews and we found out that the smell was actually a biproduct that the machine puts out with the suposedly clean air which is called ozone.
We wanted to find out what ozone is, and we found out that it is a harmful gas that can do serious damage to your lungs over a long period of time. The government has standards of how much ozone can be produced by these machines and sharper image is right at the limit.
If you have every watched the weather channel they mention that some days are high ozone days and they warn against doing certian activities so that you don't get hurt by it, but I never paid attention to that until now.
We read more reviews about the scientific tests and results done for this and other machines and in almost every test this machine failed miserably.
We decided to give it our own test so my husband who smokes outside, blew one small puff of smoke in front of the machine where the air goes in to see if it would take it away as quickly as it had in the commercials, but to our dissappointment the smoke filled the room and barely any of it went into the machine, it took almost 45 minutes before the one puff of smoke was gone.
On the commercial they show the machine in a glass box filled with smoke and it sucked it right out of the air, and it might just work if you put the machine in a box like that but in a real room the smoke went over, around, and even through the machine.
The only thing we got out of it was the smell which only made all of us feel sick. We kept these machines for almost two weeks and let them run 24/7.
The small ones are even worse, they humm all the time and have to be cleaned almost daily.
We returned our two big units for a refund and they did not hesitate to give us back our money, they seem to be very into replacing items and giving refunds rather than answering questions about quality and durability. You will find that if anything goes wrong all you have to do is switch it out with another, no questions.
Seems strange to me that they are so willing to just replace so many units not even try to fix them or see what's wrong, just here take a new one and don't ask. They are very cheaply made, they don't weigh anything and if you look inside there is not very much technology there.
My experience with this company was very dissappointing and I found that they are all about marketing, they do a very good job at telling you everyone else is using it so you should fork over $700 because they did, but they don't tell you that ozone can be harmful to your health, they don't have an option to turn the ozone off, and they failed every scientific test that I read. I trust science over advertising.
Don't be fooled by the genius advertising group called Sharper Image.
They even try to convince people that they have germicidal protection, which I have to admit is what made me buy it, but it turns out that most other air purifiers also kill germs, you don't need such a lamp to do that but they make it sound like it's this new technology and you just have to have it because everyone else does. I found the lamp to be a giant bug zapper, it even makes that noise when you first turn it on.
For those people who will swear by this machine and say oh but the collection grid is covered with dirt everytime I clean it, well just think of it this way....
If someone offers you $10,000.00 it sounds like a lot of money, but if you find out that they are keeping $1,000,000.00 as their share you may not see it the same way.
It's the same thing with the Ionic breeze, it's gets dirty and yes you could have been breathing what's on that collection grid, but the amount of stuff it is picking up is only like 1/1000 of the stuff that's still in the air and you are still breathing.
I don't think it takes a genius to figure it out. Really!! do yourself a favor and stay away from the Ionic Breeze.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 700.00
Battery Life: N/A
Noise Level: Almost noiseless
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Epinions.com ID:
abuelreem
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Reviews written: 17
Trusted by: 3 members
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