HOWEVER, the United States has pretty awesome water coming right out of the tap. And charcoal based filters are mostly taste filters. They aren't going to remove most pollutants (you'd need a reverse osmosis filter for that). It's an aside to this product discussion, but I really don't know how we've been duped into buying products that support a whole industry of bottled water and water purification. I say that as I look at my dumb brita filter on the counter...
Drinking bottled water is like paying taxes twice. Drink tap water unless the taste is prohibitive.
This company seems just another gimmick. The only person who might have a clue of the chemistry going on is the "world expert" David Beeman, who chooses to entertain us with marketing gibberish rather than facts. The vocabulary is chosen to confound the chemistry-illiterate viewer and appeal to chemophobia.
Organic, BPA, PLA, vegan, plastic, "Catalytic activated coconut shell carbon", etc. I would like to have a chat with this "world expert".
A big chunk of the world would give everything they have for access to our tap water. Gimme a break with your pathetic fear mongering.
My point is that precisely because he understands what he's doing, he has the duty to explain it to others, or at least not confound them. From my perspective, the sales pitch is relying on chemophobia to hook viewers.
No wonder people think of Kickstarter as a store. If the company really is serious, they should offer technical details concerning their product, the kind of details an investor wants. I'm willing to bet most people who funded the company so far have done so with blind trust in the designers/developers of the product.
I hope I'd lose my bet!
Instead, just get a multi-stage reverse osmosis filter unit. That'll take out virtually everything potentially nasty and/or bad tasting: chlorine, flouride, metal salts used to control algae, misc. minerals and so forth. Coffee and tea brewers, you really owe this to yourselves. The maintenance amounts to replacing a few filters in an under-sink unit every one to three years depending on your local water supply. No remembering to refill a pitcher, just a little extra spigot on your sink.
[1] BPA-free isn't good enough. Replacing one plasticizer with another that also has high estrogenic activity is pointless.
Read up on BPA, then go to your local dept. store's bottle section. Most of the bottles will be made of polymers that do not even involve BPA or BPs, but still advertise as BPA-free. It's only marketing.
Soma's proprietary formula produces the best tasting water.
You'll notice a crisp, pure taste you won't find anywhere else.
The only application that comes to mind would be regulating water hardness.
On the other hand, in several places in Poland a water filter is, actually, fairly useful.
For anything else? A filter is pretty much useless.
How big is it? Seems like it's about the size of a gallon jug. Maybe bigger. The hourglass shape, unlike a traditional filter, wastes a lot of fridge space.
Do I have to remove the filter to pour? That would be a deal-breaker for me. If not, is it spout directional, or can I pour at any angle?
Pouring from of a top-heavy hourglass could be awkward. Especially if it's weighted down with a filter.
Part of it is LA's fault, they use so much chlorine it smells like you're drinking from a jacuzzi. Even after letting it sit for a day or two for the chlorine/ozone to dissipate, it still tastes bad in a similar way. I'm not sure what the other minerals/contaminants are. Finally, our current building is old and we get red rusty water first thing in the morning once a week or so.
So yes, we filter our water before drinking, pretentious or not. We have a PUR 3-stage attached to the sink, and it costs a bit more than I'd like, but honestly ~10 bucks a month is nothing compared to the night/day improvement we get from it. I hope the claims about removing heavy metals are true for my daughter's sake.
Personally, I live in Escambia County, Florida... home of the worst water in the country, ranked. I don't know a single person that lives here who doesn't own a Brita filter because our water is nearly unpalatable. You will actually get strange looks if a local sees you drinking the tap water. And yes, I realize that the fact it is palatable at all puts us in a much better position than a great deal of the world. But why is it a crime for me to want my water to not taste like utter shit?
I can understand the general dismay at the strength of the claims being made. But don't dump all over the product because it's "just" a fancy Brita filter. It looks great, it makes the water taste better, and compostable isn't a terrible sell either.
Fresh sources sounds nice, but I'm lazy at heart. The alternative, having it delivered while living on a water planet (a stones throw from the Pacific) just seems too environmentally hostile.
I'm not sure if having a filter delivered to you every two months is all that sustainable. And the people I know who filter their water wouldn't want any kind of plastic in it's path; but the people who filter water here are pretty fanatic about that. I guess the main attraction in the US is to get rid of the chlorine?
Oh and $33 per delivery also seems like a lot? Are filters that expensive? (The page says the 3 filters in the first real pledge are $100+ in value.)
(Edit: it's $15, see below, much more reasonable, sorry about that.)
Would be interesting to see the subscription cost for filters after the initial run.