Water flossers and an example of form over substance 0 ▲ artiss.blog 1 hour ago · Life · hide · 1 comments Water flossers are great dental hygiene product but, for what they are, they can be pretty expensive. Spending over £100 for something that sprays water through a nozzle is steep – whichever one you buy, it’s just a pump and a water container. Normally, though, you get what you pay for in terms of better design but, recently, I’ve had an experience of, well, this not being the case. My first water flosser, from a few years ago, was a Waterpik brand. It was mid-priced but, after my wife knocked it off a high shelf, it broke. I’d found it to be okay but, in purchasing a replacement, got sucked into the marketing to buy one from Panasonic. Specifically, their Series 800 model, with an RRP of £160 (no, don’t worry, I didn’t buy it for that – it cost me just over £83). Just like the Waterpik before it, it did what it was supposed to. I guess I was disappointed with both because, I guess, I expected more for the money. It squirts water, and I know that’s its M.O., but the money I guess I… Log in to reply on the Fediverse. Comments will appear here. David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) @david_chisnall@infosec.exchange 2 minutes ago [-] I bought a WaterPik model a couple of years ago and they're one of the few brands that has impressed me with their customer support. The handle had a button that you pressed to turn off the flow, with a spring that made it pop back. In a hard water area, this would build up with limescale and eventually it the button would stop popping up, leaving it in the unusable position.I claimed a replacement under warranty and they sent out a new handle with no quibbles.This suffered from the same problem. So, a few months later I did the same. Again, new handle.This time, during the replacement I must have clonked something and the machine stopped working. Again, reported it. They had discontinued the model I had and so replaced it with a newer model.The new model fixes the design flaw! The button is replaced with a switch. I've now been using it for almost two years without issues.I completely agree on Panasonic though. Their products seem to be the epitome of 'design for review'. I bought an Arc5 shaver from them almost while ago. It got great reviews and, for the first month, it was good. Not quite as close as a wet shave, but close enough and much less effort. The cleaning station made it easy to clean. But after about a month, it was pulling a bit. I put up with it for a bit and then eventually after a couple of years replaced the foils. I was instantly reminded of why I liked it when it was new! And within a month, the foils were back to close to how they'd been after a couple of years. If you review it for 1-2 weeks, it's going to be great.Around that time, one of the vents in the cleaning base station became blocked with compacted shaving dust from the cleaning process, blocked the airflow, and burned out the motor.I replaced it with a Braun model and it's been far better. The cleaning dock is still working fine six years later. I've replaced the foils twice. They do wear out, but in about the time the manual says, not within a month. And it does a better job now after two or three days of not shaving than the Panasonic model did even brand new.
