Razer made to pay $1.2M over 'N95' face mask that wasn't
theregister.com
theregister.com
https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/148044516835651993...
Their laptops had a 50% failure rate at Linus Media Group, according to Luke during a WAN Show. Linus kept pushing them on his viewers though.
This was years ago, and I will never understand how the company was not shamed into bankruptcy. Well, I guess I do understand. You can buy favorable media coverage and it scares the crap out of me.
I always used to like Asus as a company when I built computers back in the 90s. Still great quality.
I am not sure why you are upset at this outcome, given the company name.
/s
And with streaming becoming popular, "functional" didn't really cut it anymore. Having a black MX Master/MX Keys combo doesn't really "pop" on screen. It's gotta have lights, match the aesthetic, etc. It working is almost immaterial.
Razer, on the other hand... I was once gifted a secondhand Razer Blade laptop whose mainboard went dead after a year or two of use. They quoted me $500 for parts alone on a 3+ year old model.
They didn't have replacement screws, period. We had to buy them from a third party on Amazon. Kind of a clown company between that experience and every time I've bought one of their mice or keyboards (I learned my lesson after the third time...)
They were like the Beats Audio of mice for MMO folks.
The sheer number of buttons helped. Logitech had the G60? Mmo mouse but it didn't have the 'edgy styling' of razer' products.
That said, I still have two of the logi's (never did MMO, but that thing was awesome for CAD) one is over a decade old, more than I can say about any of the razer trash my friends bought
That said, I'm not advocating Razer, especially nowadays.
Do you have link to that particular show? It's surprising it was mentioned and that Linus was still 'supporting' it at the time.
I cobbled together the correct yt-dlp command to get all the subtitles and a little Python glue to search them.
Thanks for taking the time. Now I need to learn more about yt-dlp.
Would you mind sharing the yt-dlp command which helped you get all the subtitles?
./yt-dlp --skip-download --write-sub --write-auto-sub --sub-lang en --sub-format json3 "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8mG-RkN2uTw7PhlnAr4pZZz2QubIbujH"
import os, json
hits, files = 0, 0
for cur in [x for x in os.listdir(".") if x.endswith(".json3")]:
files += 1
with open(cur) as f:
data = json.load(f)
words = []
for event in data["events"]:
at = event["tStartMs"]
for seg in event.get("segs", []):
words.append((len(words), at, seg["utf8"].strip().lower()))
span = 10 * 1000
for i, at, word in words:
if word in {"razor", "blade", "razors", "blades"}:
span_min = min(x[0] for x in words if abs(x[1] - at) <= span)
span_max = max(x[0] for x in words if abs(x[1] - at) <= span)
for other_i, other_at, other_word in words[span_min:span_max+1]:
if other_word in {"percent"}:
print("-" * 100)
loc = min(at, other_at) // 1000
loc = f"{loc//3600}:{(loc%3600)//60:02d}:{loc%60:02d}"
print(loc + ": " + cur)
phrase = " ".join(x[2] for x in words[min(i,other_i): max(i,other_i)+1])
print(phrase)
hits += 1
print(f"{hits} hits in {files} files.")
It was awkward as heck. I gained a lot of respect for Luke that day for keeping it real.
Both me and my wife had issues with right mouse button switches failing and registering two clicks instead of one. This was 5 mice across 2 models (2 we bought, 3 we got as warranty replacements) in just a year.
It's been over a decade and it's still a razer-free household.
Nowadays Razer and other high end mouse vendors use immortal Optical switches.
These ANC headphones didn't support Bluetooth at all, while other models with the same name did. In 2024, for $100, a wireless headset that only functions with the included dongle?! I made peace with it and got used to swapping the dongle to each device I use. Because of the poor dongle design it couldn't fit in my phone without removing the phone's case, so I listened to podcasts with my case off. Within the first two days the dongle just completely stopped working. Complete garbage. Not only that but the audio quality was horrible, the microphone sounded like a rotary phone, they were huge and bulky and hot to wear. When I contacted support asking for a new dongle they emailed me back the same template six times from three different representatives as if I hadn't answered all of their questions each time, and they wanted me to send the entire headset back to get a replacement.
I left the experience thinking "Wow, this garbage company must hate their customers." Even after all that, I didn't realize they hated their customers enough to install bitcoin miners on their mouse drivers or to sell them fake N95 masks. The punishment here doesn't even come close to justice, if anyone got sick the executives in charge of bringing those masks to market should be held criminally liable.
If the availability wasn't at "practically unobtainable" levels I probably would have gotten one.
> In July, August, and September of 2021, Intertek performed tests assessing the PFE of various assembled Zephyr prototypes. In each test, the assembled device failed to perform to the N95 standard of 95% or greater PFE. Figure 13, infra, depicts the best results ever reached for the device in testing: as documented in Intertek’s August 13, 2021 report, the device reached a maximum PFE of 83.2% with the fans off and 86.3% with the fans on, and frequently tested much lower. The mask did not come close to consistently reaching a PFE of 95%, the level of protection characteristic of an N95 mask.
> In July, August, and September of 2021, Intertek performed tests assessing the PFE of various assembled Zephyr prototypes. In each test, the assembled device failed to perform to the N95 standard of 95% or greater PFE. Figure 13, infra, depicts the best results ever reached for the device in testing: as documented in Intertek’s August 13, 2021 report, the device reached a maximum PFE of 83.2% with the fans off and 86.3% with the fans on, and frequently tested much lower. The mask did not come close to consistently reaching a PFE of 95%, the level of protection characteristic of an N95 mask.
> Thus, while Razer’s CEO was claiming that the Zephyr was a more comfortable, reusable N95, see supra ¶¶ 46-47, internal communications reveal that Defendants knew the mask could not provide the level of protection offered by an N95.
The zero-accountability culture of capitalist corporatism needs to be cast into a scorching lava pit.
I agree there should be a fine given that "N95" refers to masks that have actually passed NIOSH testing, but I think it interesting to know if the mask worked.
If the masks worked, there was never a risk to public health.
I encourage everyone to read the complaint, there is no grey area here and no accidents. This was explicit fraudulent behavior by executives (including the CEO) who knew their mask didn't work very well, knew what "N95" means and that their mask couldn't qualify, and made many conscious decisions to lie to the public anyway.
That is a pretty good "willfully fraudulent" argument rather than "accidently overstating performance".
> The vote approving the complaint and proposed order was passed 3-0, and the FTC will use the $1.1 million sum, equal to revenue generated by the Zephyr, to provide full refunds to customers.
Of course, they did anywas.
However, they really should have gotten a lawyer or consultant specializing in health product regulations.
Even calling the mask "N95 Grade", which is an obvious statement that it didn't pass actual testing, is a major problem. It's vague enough that most will believe that it is equivalent to one that has actually passed testing. When it's supposed to catch 95% and catches 10% less, that's _triple_ the amount of crap passing through.
If you read through the FTC documents, you can see that they (Razer) knew it would not pass and so went with the strategy of getting people to believe that it was the same, without any proof.
The FTC could not prevent them from releasing the product or immediately cause them to remove it from market as Razer did not claim that it was N95 certified. Razer knew exactly what they were doing in getting around this and now they're paying the price for doing so, while the FTC sets an example for others that "if you even imply that your product is equivalent to being certified, we'll pin you for it."
That’s the entire point. Nobody would have cared otherwise.
The actual stats are that it reached, at maximum, with the fan running, 86.3% filtration. That's almost 3x the amount of crap getting through than an actual N95 certified mask (without needing a fan).