
Soma Water Filters Are Worthless - dmitrygr
http://tylermw.com/soma-water-filters-are-worthless-how-i-used-r-to-win-an-argument-with-my-wife/
======
bradknowles
Many years ago, I had an argument kind of like this with my mom about the
difference between decaf Diet Coke and plain Diet Coke. Since she was the
Mathemetician in the family, I let her design the double-blind taste test.

When I could conclusively tell the difference every time, she was
flabbergasted. But she did finally believe me that there actually was a taste
difference between them, at least there was for me. So, she stopped trying to
get me to drink decaf.

~~~
antisthenes
That people exist who drink _decaf_ _diet_ sodas boggles the mind.

Why not drink carbonated water at that point? Or just water, you know.

Or drink real soda in moderation.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
A general drink typically has— a) a certain taste b) a certain mouthfeel (due
to the CO2 in case of sodas) c) caffeine and / or other substances

People might want some or all of the above.

For eg. I sometimes drink decaf Starbucks blended drinks at night because I
don't want to mess with my sleep cycle but I like their taste.

~~~
tchaffee
Decaf still has caffeine. Maybe not enough to affect you personally, but pay
closer attention and maybe it does.

~~~
ClassyJacket
Yeah, switching to decaf coffee still set off my addiction, just not as
strongly as full strength. It still has something like 10% as much as normal
coffee. I can still detect the slight high.

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alyx
Maybe I didn't do a good job scanning the comments, but I'm surprised nobody
(not even the article) mentions the NSF certification body.

Taste is important but very subjective. I don't buy a water filter unless it
shows up as certified by NSF[1].

A few years ago I almost fell for a "water purification system" on Amazon,
with stellar reviews that was supposed to filter out everything. With a baby
on the way I figured it was worth the price tag. Good thing I did my research.
The water filtration system was not certified or verified by anybody.

edit:

Same thing applies to humidifiers, air cleaners, air conditioners, etc. Don't
buy unless it has been certified[2].

[1] [http://info.nsf.org/Certified/DWTU/](http://info.nsf.org/Certified/DWTU/)

[2] [http://ahamverifide.org/](http://ahamverifide.org/)

~~~
fujipadam
Thanks!!! Safety above taste seems obvious for a water filter.

~~~
an_account
Tap water has more stringent safety standards than bottled. So unless you live
in flint, then safety shouldn't really be an issue.

~~~
prostoalex
Not just Flint.

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/pittsburgh-tries-to-avoid-
becom...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/pittsburgh-tries-to-avoid-becoming-the-
next-flint-1493550002)

"A total of seven U.S. water systems, which each serve more than 100,000
people, had lead concentrations above the federal action level of 15 parts per
billion in recent months, according to Environmental Protection Agency data.
They include Portland, Ore., and Providence, R.I., which both exceeded the
limit at least one other time in the past five years."

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tomcam
Apparently the author is married to a water filter, but at least she's
stylish.

> This experiment was inspired by an argument with my wife, a stylish but
> atrocious water filter, and the explosion of start-ups attempting to turn
> everything you purchase into a subscription service.

~~~
oceanswave
Aren't we all just complicated water filters given a particular perspective?

~~~
tomcam
i'm rethinking my whole life now

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Someone
Very nice setup, but he didn't show he couldn’t tell the difference between
tap and the Soma water.

A biased subject who can pick out both untreated water and Soma-filtered water
from the other variants could lie about that, and claim that untreated water
and Soma water taste the same.

As a thought experiment, assume the variants are plain water, orange juice,
and beer. A biased subject could easily claim orange juice and water taste the
same and look the same, and are easily distinguished from beer.

Also, but minor: this is about taste. Such experiments typically are done in
the dark, to rule out an effect of how the water looks on taste judgments.

~~~
crazygringo
If you think he's lying he could have made up the entire blog post too... :P

But more seriously, how would you suggest designing an experiment that worked
even with liars determined to thwart it?

~~~
ghayes
You don't need biased subjects to have ambiguous results. Suppose for instance
all people from group A can taste chlorine at 20ppm, and below that threshold,
those individuals have no perceived chlorine taste. Individuals from group B
can taste chlorine only at 80ppm and above. If the tap water has chlorine
starting at 100ppm and the filter removed half (as stated in the article) then
we would have water at 100ppm and 50ppm. Some observers would perceive a
difference and some would not. If the Pur filter removed 90% of chlorine, then
individuals in both groups would perceive a difference in taste.

To point, this experiment depends on your taste preferences, as the author has
stated that there is a physical difference in the makeup of the water samples
after filtration.

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zaroth
Why was Soma so hard to distinguish from Bottled? Article seems to gloss over
this point?

~~~
celticninja
It wasn't and I think that's the point. Essentially soma was hard to
distinguish from tap water, which OP had said tasted chlorinated, given that
soma was supposed to filter and improve tap water it was failing to meet its
stated objective.

~~~
casion
He says he can differentiate tap v bottled.

He also says he can _not_ differentiate tap v soma.

So the difference between soma and bottled should be obvious (or there is some
other factor in play), but it's clearly not.

Obviously taste is not commutative, but there's something fishy here
regardless.

~~~
mattkrause
For further reading: The Difference Between “Significant” and “Not
Significant” is not Itself Statistically Significant (Gelman and Sterns,
2006):
[http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/sign...](http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/signif4.pdf)

------
gwern
I recently did a similar blind taste-test for mineral waters vs my tap water:
[https://www.gwern.net/Tea#water-experiment](https://www.gwern.net/Tea#water-
experiment)

I used a lazy susan to implement randomization/blinding, and an interesting
Bayesian variant on best-arm finding to try to optimize sample selection. I
found my tap water is weakly in the middle and perhaps 1 or 2 mineral waters
were better, but not strongly so.

The results are not quite comparable to OP because I designed it in terms of
deciding which in a pair tasted better, not whether I could guess which was
which correctly.

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yongjik
Eh, I get the author is being sarcastic, but for someone who buys water
filters for their looks, his Soma jug looks just like a slightly plump version
of Brita. (What's wrong with Brita, anyway?)

~~~
gcb0
in stereotypical gender role parlance, it does not pass the "wife test".

also filters are overly expensive and useless. issues that the fancy filter
only aggravates, so...

~~~
conradfr
The WAF
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_acceptance_factor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_acceptance_factor)

------
bjterry
It may be worth noting that if your water is only chlorinated with chlorine
(and not chloramine, which is quite common now as well), leaving it in the
fridge overnight can allow some of the chlorine to evaporate, making your
water taste better even without a filter.

In this case he allowed both his tap water and filtered water to cool
overnight, which would tend to understate the taste difference between freshly
pulled tap water and freshly filtered water (if that filter effectively
removes chlorine).

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mikeash
Fun little article, but I find the overall premise a bit weird. I always
thought of water filters as something that you use to remove harmful things in
the water, not improve the taste. Filtered water may taste different, possibly
even better, but that's not the goal when I use one.

~~~
phalangion
I have lived in cities where the tap water, to me, was undrinkably gross
tasting. It was probably just fine to drink, but I found myself drinking less
water than I should because of the taste. A Brita filter helped a lot.

Edit: and not all cities I've lived in are that way. In my current city the
tap water is just fine.

~~~
dikdik
The two times I've made major moves in my life I thought the new water tasted
awful. In both cases I acclimated and the water was tasteless within a month
or two.

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Legion
The part I find interesting is the 100% success rate between bottled and tap,
which is something bottled water drinkers insist is true (being able to taste
the difference, that is), but are often told is just in their heads.

~~~
zeta0134
I live in south Texas, where the water is quite hard, and therefore somewhat
bitter. There's no mistaking the difference. I've always described bottled
water as being more pure; to me it has no taste (as it should), and filters
seem to do a decent job of masking that taste out.

~~~
ajmurmann
Why do you think water should have no taste? Good water should has minerals
and those have lots of flavors.

~~~
zeta0134
I think it's because the "bad" taste of water (bitter, sour, or kind of
metallic) in the areas where I live is so very strong, that "good" water is
tasteless to me by comparison. I'm sure there's something there, but it's
really subtle.

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kylehotchkiss
I have a Soma water filter... their filters used to work well and quickly,
then they "improved" them and it takes 10 minutes to fill the pitcher. Yeah..
i'm probably gonna toss the top soon and just enjoy the glass pitcher

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dsfyu404ed
"Initially I thought just to buy a Brita, but Brita filters always seemed like
something you’d shove in your dorm room mini-fridge and not display on your
kitchen counter."

This is a pretty abrupt context switch after coming from the article on
stereotypes, trailer homes and rural folk that's on the front page right now.

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wnevets
> this point I just decided to throw the pitcher into the fridge (cold water
> masks poor taste) and use it for a few weeks to see if there were any
> changes.

if chlorine was the actual cause of the bad taste, wouldn't the water "aired
out" the chlorine after a hour or so?

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DanBC
> First, I filled all the pitchers the previous night

Chlorine evaporates. If he's worried about chlorine taste this step - allowing
the jug to sit overnight - will fix it.

------
ArlenBales
I have a Soma pitcher and PUR pitcher at home (I drink enough water to need
both). They taste about the same to me.

~~~
weaksauce
Why not a reverse osmosis system? Not terribly difficult to maintain and they
are much better than a single carbon filter at removing impurities and
improving the taste.

~~~
spangry
I didn't even know these existed until reading your comment. Finally, a new
topic to obsessively research :) The last one was indoor air quality and air
filters. It sounds kinda lame but it's a really fascinating topic (with a very
scammy industry attached to it).

Do you use a reverse osmosis system? Any recommendations?

~~~
dec0dedab0de
Did you settle on an air filter? The obviously scammy industry always turned
me off every time I looked in to them.

~~~
spangry
I did. Ended up going with a 'Rabbit Air Minus A2', which I think mostly uses
components from a popular Korean brand (can't remember the name). Good
customer service too; they've been pretty accommodating given I'm in
Australia.

With air filters, although there's a lot of 'magic beans' out there, it really
just comes down to having good quality _physical_ filters (usually multiple
ones in sequence, like particle, hepa and carbon) and a decent 'clean air
delivery rate' (CADR) given the size of the room.

Heck, you can make a reasonable homemade air filter (that has measurable
effects on air quality) by strapping a large HEPA filter to a box fan
(although be aware that this could have safety issues re: fire hazard). Steer
clear of anything that puts O2 into the air that's anywhere near EPA approved
'safe' levels (which are probably still too high).

Some folks use O2 generators for mould remediation when the house is
unoccupied and subsequently ventilated (known as 'ozone shock treatment').
However, I think even this is a potentially dangerous practice as O2 will
react with other things in the room as well (e.g. furniture varnish),
potentially releasing volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) into the air.

When I get back from work I'll try and dig up a really good review site I
stumbled across. It's one of those gems where the author is clearly just
really really into air quality, and who has a very good nose for BS 'science'.

EDIT: Oh, also, another good option to deal with some VOCs (like benzene) are
certain kinds of houseplants. NASA studied this so there's a fairly credible
list of plants to choose from:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study)

EDIT2: Also, assuming you don't live near a major highway or something, one of
the best things you can do to improve your indoor air quality is open a few
windows and blinds. EPA studies suggest indoor air quality is usually far
worse than outdoor air quality. And opening blinds lets more sunlight in,
which will retard mould growth. And it's all free. Free!

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mbfg
When does Soma sue this guy? This seems like a risky article to me. Whether or
not they have a case, doesn't matter. They can make life miserable.

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justinzollars
You aren't going to be married long.

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gweinberg
This was an All in the Family episode. For whatever reason, Gloria can;t tell
the difference in taste between Coke, Pepsi, and RC but Meathead can.

------
mmagin
"HOW I USED R TO WIN AN ARGUMENT WITH MY WIFE"

------
lj3
I prefer a Berkey myself.

~~~
revelation
But do you have the evidence

~~~
lj3
Yes. I tasted the water and I liked it.

~~~
celticninja
Sample size of 1 works for me. In all seriousness though in issues of personal
taste as long as you are happy with your decision then it's the correct one.

------
russellbeattie
"...a practice pioneered in the 90s by “8 CDs For A Penny!” Columbia House"

LOL. Try 1950s. I love how Millennials think everything was "pioneered" in the
90s and 2000s.

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antisthenes
I wonder how much efficiency and productivity hours are lost to stupid
preconceptions like "Brita isnt something you put on a kitchen counter".

~~~
canes123456
Aesthetics matter and make us happier. It also signals things about yourself
regardless of if you mean to signal it or not.

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paulcole
Soma sent out a really self-congratulatory marketing email on Black Friday a
few years back, telling people, "Don't buy a Soma today." gushing about living
in the moment and enjoying time with friends and family instead of shopping.

I wrote back and asked if they were so serious about that message, why didn't
they take the Buy button off their website?

Shockingly, no response.

~~~
mikestew
_I wrote back and asked if they were so serious about that message, why didn
't they take the Buy button off their website?_

If you can't readily answer that for yourself, I wouldn't have replied to you,
either.

~~~
paulcole
Send a stupid email get a stupid reply.

