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Comment by manzanarama | Hacker News Reader

I mean you can put regulations on anything to make it sure it is doing what it is supposed to be, right?

The spirit of the regulation is to make sure it is not emitting ozone like this ozone filter-less purifier: GreenTech GT-50.

It may be "painless" but if it costs $X per unit to certify and they make $x-.01 per unit, the company isn't going to sell that in CA.

The harm caused by the lack of a super cheap and effective air filter, especially in CA where we can get smoked out for weeks due to fires could be greater than the harm reduced by the regulation. Especially when it is obvious that this in now way could emit ozone since it is just a fan and a filter.

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> I mean you can put regulations on anything to make it sure it is doing what it is supposed to be, right?

Yes, and when it comes to selling health-related products, the standards are higher than, say, entertainment devices. For very good reason.

> The harm caused by the lack of a super cheap and effective air filter, especially in CA where we can get smoked out for weeks due to fires could be greater than the harm reduced by the regulation.

That's not clear to me. I know lots of people with air filters, and they all chose them based on aesthetic judgements. I doubt any of them would've acted differently if it was $5 cheaper (from certification)

Also, you can still just buy a box fan ($30) and tape a filter ($10) to it and hope for the best in terms of air purification. You just can't pay someone else $70 to sell you that, unless they run a test to prove it works. Doesn't seem like a big deal.

I genuinely don’t see the problem.

I live in CA. I can go to the store and buy a box fan, and I can buy them online and cheaply. I can buy little clips for holding filters on box fans. I can buy MERV 13 filters at any hardware store or online, and the ones in store are sold at competitive prices and are from real brands that aren’t making up the specs. I can buy actual air purifiers from many vendors, including IKEA, which sells genuinely excellent purifiers.

So what if I can’t buy that hilariously overpriced LASKO kit? I dislike nonsensical CA regulations about as much as anyone else, but this example is silly. I can spend less money to buy a LASKO box fan, a nice set of clips to hold a filter on, and a better filter. Although Amazon is really not a fantastic place to buy just one or two filters — Home Depot or ACE is better.

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