Shopping with Wirecutter

Martha is endlessly on the hunt for the very best products that make daily living better. So it's no surprise that she took notice of Wirecutter, the product review site on The New York Times website. Just in time to help inform holiday shopping, Martha sits down with Wirecutter Deputy Editors Christine Cyr Clisset and Jason Chen. Martha wants to know: can we trust Wirecutter reviews? should we buy an instapot? what led to a spike in searches for bidets? Listen here to learn. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Martha, it sounds like you should be testing for us.
Oh I should. Anytime you want to have an opinion
of anything home related, you call Martha. Oh boy. When
looking to buy products, we all want quality. One website
that tries to make this search easier is wire Cutter.

(00:22):
Founded in two thousand and eleven and acquired by the
New York Times Company in two thousand and sixteen, Wirecutter
has cornered the market on product reviews. Wire Cutter's mission
is to recommend what really matters. They independently test and
review thousands of products to help one find just what
one needs while saving time and eliminating the stress of shopping.

(00:46):
From washing machines to gingerbread houses and everything in between,
Wirecutter reviews at all. With a holiday season here, I
thought it would be a great idea to sit down
with two editors from the website. It's a pleasure to
welcome Christine Sir Clasette and Jason Chen to my podcast.
How are you all? It's nice to be here. So

(01:07):
how long have you been with wire Cutter. I've been
at wire Cutter for three nap years and you, Gris,
I've been here going on ten years. In some capacity.
So before the acquisition by The Times, Well, Christine, you
were now deputy editor covering home for wire Cutter, But
at one time you did work at Martha Stewart living
on Media. What did you do at my company? Oh?

(01:30):
I loved working at your company, first of all, Um,
But I worked in the book department and special projects team,
So I worked on many books, lots of cookbooks and
craft books, and many special publications, magazines themed around different
different things Halloween and kids, crafts and things like that.
Did you work on Homekeeping Handbook? Indeed, I did. It

(01:52):
was the first project I worked on. I came in
as a freelancer and then by the time the book
was finished, I was a full time employee, right and
it was really really fun. That book is one of
my favorite books, and I think it's due for a
revision now because a lot of new cleaning techniques have
developed in products, and I was thinking of maybe doing

(02:13):
a new version of it. But it is one of
my favorite books. Oh, it's a fantastic book. I still
pull it down off my shelf sometimes. And when you're
thinking about updating it, I maybe consider some of the
sort of smart home tech things that you could include
because I think there's been a lot of evolution on
that and you're right, You're totally right, and that we
don't have a good chapter on that, yes, UM. And

(02:33):
what skills did you bring to wire Cutter when you
finally uh joined wire Cutter. Working at Martha Stewart was
actually one of my gateways into starting at wirecutter. UM.
The founder, Brian Lamb, was looking for someone to write
kitchen reviews, UM, you know, kitchen gear equipment reviews, and
I had a mutual friend who connected us. And because

(02:55):
I had edited so many cookbooks at Martha Stewart living
on the media, and I was an avid home cook
at the time, I UM, I started writing reviews for
the site, and so that that was the foundation essentially.
And what products do you enjoy testing the most for
this amazing site wire Cutter? Well when I UM. I

(03:16):
don't do so much testing now, but in the past,
my favorite things to test have been many kitchen you know,
kitchen small kitchen appliances, blenders, food processors. It's fun to
get all of those things in the same room and
try them out. I also edited much of our coverage
around bedding and mattresses and I love testing out sheets.

(03:37):
I love testing out linen sheets. And you're a you're
a fabric free glance and the fabric freak. Give me
all the fabric. And do you personally buy some of
the products that you test? Yes, I write about Yeah,
it's it's actually a hazard of the profession. Um. I
have a lot of things in my home that are
wire Cutter picks. Um. I usually consult the site before

(03:59):
I buy anything. Um. Yes, I probably have dozens and
dozens of wire Cutter picks at my home at this point.
How did you start at wire Cutter? So I worked
at a website called The Strategist, which is owned by
New York Magazine for about three years before I started
at the Wirecutter, and The Strategist was a site that
sort of was trying to be not the anti wire Cutter,

(04:22):
because Wirecutter has done obviously such tremendous work in testing
products vigorously, but Strategist was really is really trying to
do product reviews and recommendations from a kind of cultural
anthropological point of view. And when the opportunity to come
to Wirecutter present itself, it's sort of blew my mind open.

(04:43):
The fact that this place that looms so large my
imagination actually existed, and did the things that they claimed
to do, you know, really blew up a blew up
a fire proof safe to find out whether it was
actually fireproof, really tested air purifiers in a smoke key
room to figure out how much smoke was cleared. And

(05:03):
I felt like being a part of that process was
too great an opportunity to pass up. And um, so
do you both of you? Do you personally buy the
products that you recommend? I buy so many things from
recommend and so when we are getting products for the
site to actually test, we often will reach out to

(05:24):
publicists and manufacturers to get products to test, and we'll
also buy products. So don't you buy all the products?
So we do buy several of the products, but we
also have a very strict policy of after the testing
is completed, will either discard what we have actually gotten
for free, or we will donate it to organizations that
are unimproved list including Habitat for Humanity among others. And

(05:48):
there will be cases in which will hold onto things
too long term test them, but the idea is never
that even the things that we get for free will
be keeping for the long term right right. But personally,
I think pretty much everyone at Wirecutter buys a lot
of the things that we recommend, especially you know, we
don't none of us buy all of the things. But
if we are interested in a topic, if you're interested

(06:09):
in cooking, or you are really into audio equipment, UM,
I think that those those folks are going to have
a lot of those items. Now, it's a job that
you have, a job that I really love because I
do a lot of testing to Obviously, I test everything
that we design and uh and in various incarnations of
a product because I have to UH. And I always

(06:30):
tell my staff, you know, if if I pick up
a teacup that we've designed and I can't put my
finger through the handle, what the heck is that keep
on good for? And UH? And a lot of people
overlook stuff like that. They forget that design is also
part of the workmanship and also the usability uh of
a product. So so I've been I've been I've been

(06:53):
a private Wirecutter tester for a long time. And that's
why I read the I read the column every single
day in my digital version of The New York Times.
It's down at the very bottom of my newspaper before
you get to the games, and I do all the
games in the morning too, before I get out of bed.
I can't get up out of bed without doing all

(07:14):
the games. Um So, But wire Cutter is always interesting.
And my most recent purchase of was the space heaters
you did because they were very inexpensive. I think, I
think that's my space heater that I finally chose. Was
your number one choice for the price, uh something like
I think it was less than twenty nine dollars, and

(07:35):
they it works very well. It's a little dinky, but
but for the price, it seems to be safe. Um
and it seems to work very well. Because I have
a lot of on my farm, I have a lot
of little spots that um are not quite winterized. You know,
the pipe might freeze in the wall of the bathroom
and I don't want that to happen, so I put

(07:57):
a little electric heater there when when it subs zero.
So um so those are so that was my my
last purchase was the space heres. But I really did
read that article very carefully. Another UM product that I
was very interested in was the window air conditioning that
you wrote about, and that was that was more complicated

(08:17):
because window air conditioners, you know, I have to be
a certain wind than a certain height and um and
for your window, and so I had a little bit
more difficulty with that one. But generally you do an
amazing job because you do cover a tremendous number of products.
How many products per investigation do you choose? Oh? My goodness?

(08:38):
So I think it really does very honestly, depending on
the product. So the way that the process works. And
Christine can speak to this um even better than I can.
But generally, our writers and editors work very closely to
identify the the top contenders in any given category, and
that can number anything from a dozen to two dozen

(08:59):
to four dozen, um, if we're talking about something like, uh,
laptops under five dollars. You know, we first decide which
products are living in this category that we consider. Then
we create a model list and identify all of the
specs who compare them on this sort of theoretical table.
And to even backtrack a little bit to find out

(09:19):
what these sort of models that make the modelists are
we're talking with experts, were reading various forms, were checking
retailer websites, and then from the model list. After we
sort of compare everything. Then we decide what to actually
test and the things that we actually test, because obviously
there are only so many hours in the day and
so much bandwidth that a person has, you can't possibly

(09:40):
test every single thing, and so you widow the list
down to I would say, for something like laptops, we
would test maybe something on the number of half a
dozen to ten different laptops. So you're into and you're
in the tech division, you're doing you're doing iPhones exactly
your phone, but speakers, sound bars, all of those things.

(10:02):
And then from there, you know, it's a real conversation
that we have between writers and editors to determine, based
on our testing, what makes the most sense for most people,
what makes the most sense for a particular use case.
A lot of what Wirecutter has done in the past
is really trying to help you with that decision fatigue,
because you really don't really want to come to a
site and have fifteen different things that you're trying to

(10:24):
pick from. It's really helpful to have Wirecutter cut through
that noise, and that's what we're really trying to do.
After that process, um, when I started to read wire
cutter and and use it as a as a tool
for purchasing product. Um. It brought back to mind, Um,
the consumer reports, the old fashioned consumer reports which my
mother used. And I don't know when when did consumer

(10:47):
reports start as a as a thing? Do you remember?
I was just I was just gonna actually just look
this up. About eighty years ago. Yeah. So, so my
mom was a devotee of consumer reports because in those days,
we didn't have Google to look up products, we didn't
have Amazon with with the user recommendations, we didn't have

(11:08):
any of that. So how the heck were you going
to buy a mixer for your bread if you didn't
really do your own research. And so it was a
lot of fun to to go to Consumer Reports. But
this is like a monster consumer Reports. I bet consumer
Reports never had two hundred employees. Well, I actually Consumer

(11:29):
Reports does have a lot of people work there. It
still exists, right, exists, and we think Consumer Reports does
great work. How do you differ from Consumer Reports? Yeah,
I can speak to that about so consumer Reports. Um,
I'm going to say they do great work. They have
a lab up in Westchester, they have lots of people
working there. Uh, and you know they cover many of
the same things we cover. What really distinguishes Wirecutter though,

(11:50):
from other review sites or review organizations in this space,
is that we we are always our foundation is always
thinking about how people use products in their home, in
their personal life. We don't do lab testing for the
most part. We we know that most products go through
rigorous lab testing before they even make it to market.
As I'm sure you know you don't have to tell

(12:11):
us that that particular heater that I bought it's going
to last me for four d and sixty five days. Well,
we don't have to tell you. We don't need to
go to a lab and test the safety mechanisms of
that for instance. But what we want to do is
we want to get that space heater into someone's home
and have them use it day after day and and
tell us is it easy to turn on? Is it?

(12:31):
Is it? Uh? Is it convenient? Is it? Does it
make sense? Does it make a lot of noise when
you're sleeping? Is it annoying? We want to we want
to have a sense of how it is to live
with these products. I mean, like you said earlier, design
is really important, especially in someone's home and how we
use products we're all using products all the time, and
something that's well designed is going to make your life better.
And so we're always coming from the perspective of using

(12:55):
all of these products in our homes. And so our
our employees are dispersed their all over the country. Our
writers live in you know, almost every state, not every state,
but all you know, both coasts, south, north, UM. And
so we're getting we're getting an opportunity to test these
things in different types of homes, in different types of climates, UM.
And I think that's something that really distinguishes us. And

(13:17):
we also use all of these products for a long time.
So you know, I have a food processor in my
kitchen right now that I've been that I tested for
wirecutter in I'm still using it. I'm still giving feedback
on it. It's still doing great. By it might be
I have I have my mother's Crazy Art and I

(13:37):
have my mother's kitchen Aid four or five mixer and
it still works. And that was from nineteen in the
nineteen fifties. I think my mother's mixer and it's a
fantastic mixer, and that that caused me to buy many, many,
many more kitchen aid mixers now I haven't seen a
I haven't seen a mixer on the site. We recommend

(13:58):
kitchen aid. Yeah, okay, I haven't seen that column. Where
does the name wire cutter come from? This is the
elusive question. Wire cutter Um Brian Lamb named the site
wire cutter, And according to Brian Um, this name he
chose because it actually had no meaning really, and he

(14:19):
had been he'd been looking for a name that he
could give his own meaning to, basically, and so he
named it wire cutter, and the names stuck. And I
think over time there there's been lots of theories about
whether it had to do with the text space, but
that doesn't really, that doesn't really line up. It really
has to do with just a name that he could
give meaning to, a symbol really. Yeah. So in two

(14:41):
thousand and sixteen, a wire Cutter had already made a
name for itself in terms of product recommendation UH and
building an audience for people who really wanted to get
some good information about the products that they buy UM,
and The New York Times was interested enough to purchase
it from somewhere in the vicinity of thirty million cash,

(15:03):
I read somewhere. Do you think that's about the number
that it is up for debate. Um, he's never been
made public. It's not public, but it has been reported on. Now,
was Wirecutter one of the recommend ers of the insta pot? Yes,
we were. They tell me about that because I don't
remember reading wire Cutter at that time. You know, when

(15:25):
I when I went online with The New York Times
was during COVID because I I still get the print edition.
So I don't really read the print edition now for
as thoroughly as I read the online edition. But that's
when I went online. You know, there it was Wirecutter
was right in front of me on my little iPad,
So I was gonna read it. Um and uh so

(15:48):
what about the insta pot? Tell me that because that
is one of the most phenomenal product innovations in the
last I would say, twenty five years. I agree in
terms of kitchen yeah, I agree. We were very resistant
to into testing the instant pot. Um. We I think
about twenty fourteen first started talking about it. It had

(16:09):
already been out for a little while, and it had
been sort of this gaining sort of cult, uh the
stature amongst home home cooks, and uh we we did.
We did decide, Okay, well it's time we need to
bring in a number of different electric pressure cookers. And
once we brought in all of these electric pressure cookers
and which the instant pot is one of them, and

(16:30):
tested them, we realized, wow, these are pretty great. Um,
and they're all they're especially great for anyone who really
needs to save time in the kitchen. But it's not
just because an instant pot or an electric pressure cooker
is fast at cooking. It's more about the hands off
part of cooking, which makes it really great for people
with kids who might need to be cooking while they're

(16:51):
doing other things in the home, or for anyone who really,
you know, you want to leave sort of like you know,
a slow cooker, but you doesn't take so long, right,
So um, and once we started testing them over and
over again, we found that the instant pot winds. There
are many many different brands making electric pressure cookers at
this point, but uh, the instant pot wins. And I

(17:12):
think what's really fun about this product also is that
there are all of these subcultures on the Internet of
different groups of people that are just very into making
food in the instant pot. And one of those groups
would be, Um, Indian cooks. There's there's just this thriving,
awesome community of recipes that you can find on the internet.
Curries take a while, They take a while, And how

(17:33):
nice it is to throw everything, and it's and it's
not like you have to so tell you this and
and poach that and then add them together. And you
can hardly ruin Indian food. It's yeah, and there and
and pressure cookers are actually quite popular in India also,
and so I think it was a recognition for us
that oh, this is actually a way of cooking in

(17:53):
other parts of the world, and um, it's just becoming
popular here now. Well, is the instant pot as popular
as it was or have sales dwindled? I think it's
still just as popular. I don't think I saw quite
as many sales this this holiday season as I saw
the last couple of years, But I think it remains
a very very popular item. Yeah, I feel like it's

(18:14):
reached sort of critical mass to the point that it
started out as a trend and then now it's sort
of a mainstay. The sort of way that air fryers
have or weighted blankets just part of our our language.
Let's talk about the weighted blanket. Okay, somebody has sent
me a blanket that is so heavy and so thick,

(18:35):
and you're you're going to suffocate under that blanket. I
don't get I don't get it. But my grandchildren love
weighted blankets, love them them. Why they are very soothing.
It's like you, you put this heavy thing on your body.
It calms your your limbs down. It makes them just
feel very soothed. I like to move around. I like

(18:56):
to turn over and roll around. And I have a
cat that's that's so it likes to do all those things.
And and the blanket really is kind of irritating, but
it's very popular, very popular. There is a version that's recommended,
I think our way to blanket that is sort of
woven and so it's not as I have that one too.
I got all of them, got it to do my

(19:18):
own research. And guess what, they're all in a great
big pile. They're going into the Christmas grab bags. Martha,
it'sunds like you should be testing for us. Oh I should.
Any time you want to have an opinion of anything
home related, Okay, you call Martha. Oh boy, Well, how
has the brand expanded over the years since two thousand

(19:40):
and sixteen. How how big was it in the in
two thousand and sixteen, in seen, we had about seventy
employees I think full time employees at that time, and
at this point we have about two hundred full time employees.
And one of the big changes is that the makeup
of the company has really expanded. We were mostly editorial
when we were purchased by the Times, and now we

(20:00):
have a much bigger digital organization, so we have many
engineers and product managers, and we have a whole commerce
team and you know, so we really got much more
of a robust digital and business side of the company.
So you're sort of like a store, even though you're
recommending the purchase of where to buy it at the
best price, because every day listeners you can find out

(20:21):
that say the space heater that I recommend that I bought, uh,
it's the where to buy it at the cheapest price,
and sometimes the prices vary tremendously, like from to thirty
five's a big difference in price if you're buying ten
of them. So uh So it's um, it's kind of
interesting that that there's but you recommend where to buy

(20:45):
it also at the best price. Yes, and you also
recommend the best, and you sometimes recommend the second best.
And then I read somewhere that wire Cutter also um
receives a be for every item sold at at specific stores. Um.
So is that the way you get you get paid?

(21:07):
Or yeah, so there is an affiliate model that and
how do you keep how do you keep church and states?
And oh gosh, this is uh the million dollar question,
and it really is what distinguishes Wirecutter from virtually any
side out there. And so the church and state question
really is the question of keeping business separate from editorial.

(21:29):
And at Wirecutter, our editors and writers have no insight
into this sort of commerce relationships that are very very
good commerce team is building. And so what you're referring to, Martha, Martha,
is this idea of affiliate revenue. And so when somebody
clicks something to buy from Wirecutter, there may be the
possibility that we are earning an affiliate commission off of

(21:49):
those purchases. Whether it be there are definite situations in
which we are nothing from the things that we recommend,
and so writers and editors when we are testing things,
when we're making these picks. We're completely unaware, barring the
highest levels of the editor organization, completely unaware about how
these picks are made and chosen. And um, where is

(22:11):
wire Cutter's headquarters? So we are in the Long Island
City office, which is a quick train ride away from
the Avenue building. And who is your target reader? That's
a very good question, you know. I think I would
love to hear Christine's thought on this too, because I
feel like for me, what I've always considered, We've talked

(22:35):
a lot about, you know, is this person living in
the city, is this person living uh somewhere rural? Does
this person fit any kind of age profile or or
demographic And I think that what I've sort of landed
on and talking with my writers and editors is this
idea of a psychographic profile that you might not necessarily
be somebody who wants to spend the absolute most to

(22:58):
get the most spensive thing, but for the things that
you consider worth it to you and important, you are
going to be willing to spend the money if you
are really avid Baker. We all know somebody who is
four years old and just moved to the city and
doesn't know how to make holiday cookies, but knows that
the kitchen Aids stand mixer is the one to get

(23:19):
that person who is going to find that information on
wire could And so we don't necessarily think that it's
necessarily just somebody who wants uh the priceest item, but
somebody who's looking for the best quality for the colpy
big would you say your audience is, well, do you
have an idea of how many millions of people? We have?
Millions of people millions and millions of people come to us,

(23:40):
um and you know, I think it. You know, it's
obviously at this time of year, around the holidays, we
have a lot more people coming to us because we
just shopping. And yeah, and I would just add to
what what Jason just said around our target audience, it's
really we are always trying to uh for our readers.
Were always trying to look for the best value. So

(24:03):
it's not just about UM, we want to look for
something that that performs really well, it's at the right price, right,
and so we're looking I think our target readers are
people who really care about that. They're not willing. There
are some people who they they're just gonna go and
buy whatever is on the internet. Or they're going to
buy the most expensive thing because they think it might
be the best. From our testing, we can tell you

(24:24):
the most expensive thing is not always the best thing.
And if you read regularly you just find that out. Yeah,
you do. You you get a good education in terms
of of price, you get a good education. In terms
of manufacturer uh, you get a good uh. And also looks.
And it's nice that you do mention what things look
like because one of my my my most important messages

(24:46):
to designers is make it pretty, because there's a lot
of ugly stuff out there, and you might as well
get the one that's prettiest that's also the best technologically
and everything else. But it's really it's really hard to
find that. And you do that all the time. I
noticed that, Yeah, it is important. We like to think
about if you were to have all of the things

(25:09):
that we recommend in your home, would they look good together,
would they look would it feel cohesive? I think that's
an important piece of it. And we have lots of
things that would look good in lots of homes, but
we we do try to think about the way that
that something looks defintely. So you subscribe to wire Cutter

(25:35):
if you're not, if you're not a New York Times subscriber, UM,
you can subscribe to wire cutter for a fee. How much?
How much a year? Currently it's for It's forty a year.
If you want to subscribe just to wire cutter. But
you can also subscribe if you're a subscriber to the
New York Times all Access, where you you have access
to the to the New York Times, cooking the cross Words,

(25:57):
to now the Athletic, which is a new part of
the company. Um, you can you just pay that fee?
I can't. I can't really remember what that that is
at this point. But there's a fair amount of content
you can read without being a subscriber. So if you're
not a subscriber to The Times or to Wirecutter specifically,
you can read a good amount of the site before
hitting the Paywell, so how much since wire cut since

(26:19):
sometimes what wire Cutter? How much would you say wire
cutter has sold in terms of products? How many billions
of dollars? Must be huge? I hesitate to give a
number because I don't quite know the number, but it's
a lot. I would say that that is the beauty
of it is that we don't actually know. Yeah, we
have the we have insight into some of the numbers,

(26:39):
but we we don't have that some big someone knows someone. Now,
what is the biggest wire cutter spike that you can
recall in terms of popularity? Well, we had a lot
of spikes over the pandemic. Yes, like what, Well, I'll
share what we uh? So, do you remember that there

(27:02):
was a huge toilet paper shortage and so our Biday
guide went up five thousand percent in track because no
one could get toilet paper. So people were buying the
days and then the days were selling out and people,
you know, it was pretty wild. The days are one
of the best inventions ever ever. There are eight uh

(27:24):
and uh and they're they're typical of let's say France.
Everybody has a bid Day in France. Japan absolutely, and
those fabulous mechanical toilets that the Japanese invented, uh Toyo
and those others are so fantastic. So so again, listeners,
pay attention. The bid Day is a very good thing. Also, Yeah,

(27:48):
my we have we have a bi Day and our
kids love it. It's it's great for kids to did
you actually also, by the way, did you recommend a
toilet paper. We did. We have a toilet paper recommendation,
and I think at this point, oh, I have to
go look and see. I think we have, um, there
might be a Target one and they're surprisingly we actually
like a lot of Target house brand items, which but

(28:11):
I'll have to look it up to look at the
seventh generation also as recommended by White Cutter. Okay, because
mine and mine, I'm sure it was on the lowest
of the low of your list, which is Scott's one
thousand tissue, the thinnest, the thinnest, cheapest Scot's tissue. Interesting
because I hate that thick, wasteful paper. You don't need that,

(28:34):
I mean unless you're messy, but you don't need that.
And uh and the other ones, the big thousand or
ten thousand squares less much longer. So um, so I'm okay,
that's that's that's person we're getting to pursue. I will
also say that I think people with septic um systems
need to use that kind of Yeah, I have septic

(28:55):
so so can you don't want to clean your septic
system out ten times a year? Once a year is enough?
I think during the pandemic too, I think We were
talking earlier that a lot of these sort of air
quality concerns that we were having sort of represented uh
spikes on Wirecutter so and mass K and nine mass,
all these sort of um things that we were using

(29:18):
to protect ourselves and we didn't have a lot of
information about. Wire Cutter proved to be particular instrumental. Well,
that's yeah, that's of course themselves for their kids as well.
And then of course their purifiers, which were very popular
and Wirecutter even before the pandemic, during the pandemic became
oh yeah, my my grandchildren have the flattest one that

(29:38):
Wirecutter recommended that sits on a shelf in there and
an alcove in their rooms on the shelf and it's
almost invisible, but it works beautifully, and I think that
was a Wirecutter choice. My daughter is a big devote
So where do you do well you're testing, Well, it
depends on what we're testing. But you know, in our
we have our Long Islands space where we test really

(30:01):
large products, so mattresses and appliances. We have a test
kitchen there where we test all of our small appliances
and we try to develop tests that put these things
through the sort of the pattern that someone would use
at home. So if we're testing mattresses, we get thirty
members of our staff to come in. We cover all

(30:22):
the mattresses, so it's a blind testing. We have them
go in. We have a form that they have to
fill out on a computer or on their phone, and
they'll go in and lay on all the mattresses for
fifteen minutes. We have pillows, we give them little slippers
to wear um and you know, everyone fills in the
forum and lets us know what they think. And then
are our writers for mattresses for instance, I'm just giving

(30:44):
this as a as an example. They will be sleeping
on a lot of those mattresses at home, and so
we'll have the mattresses delivered to their apart. Long period
of time does it take to test the best mattress. Well,
for the testing in our office, that might take a week.
We might have those mattresses set up and have various
people coming through and trying them out, having the writers
lay on them, retry all of all of the mattresses,

(31:07):
and then our writers will sleep on the mattresses for
a couple of weeks, a couple of months. It sort
of depends on which one. What's the longest time of
product trip to test? That's a really good question. Um,
what how long we just did a new a new
product that just hit the market over the counter hearing aids.

(31:28):
How long Jason, did they spent testing those? That was
really like over a year's worth of testing. And this
was before over the counter hearing aids actually were you know,
to market. We people couldn't actually buy them, yet we
were able to get samples and test them with a
wide group of people and people who have and so um,

(31:50):
and we were able so we were able to publish
that guide right when those products were actually people I
didn't see that one. Yes, it came out of uh
maybe a little over a month ago, maybe a couple
of a couple of weeks. Oh, but with especially something
like an over the counter hearing a that's the kind
of thing you really want to spend time on and
get the right panelists to be able to test. That's

(32:12):
information that you want to make sure is right when
you're putting it out medical medically, you know important exactly
how big is your whole testing facility then? Is there
it is? Maybe is it fifteen squares something? Something like that.
We have a very large open space where we can

(32:34):
test a variety of different products. And then, like I
mentioned earlier, we have a kitchen that's really built out.
We have to to kitchen spaces in the test kitchen,
one where we can really we can do photos and videos,
and then one that's more of a prep kitchen. Definitely.
So I just I think I just noticed that you
chose as your best vacuum cleaner. I'm a fanatic about

(32:57):
vacuum cleaners. Uh that you did? You? Is it true
you chose the meal A. Oh we've loved the Meum. Yes. Yes.
As as a canister vacuum, we highly recommend amally okay yes?
Why Well, First of all, it does an exceptional job
at actually doing what a vacuum is supposed to do,
sucking up all the dirt. It Uh, it's lightweight. If

(33:19):
you compare it against other canister vacuums, it is much
easier to maneuver. It's later weight. If you have to
carry it upstairs, it's going to be much easier than
something else. It also lasts a long time. Meal A
really builds their products to last a long time, so
you should be able to buy a meal a canister
back and expect it to work for you for ten
to twenty years. I got a job with mel a

(33:42):
um recommend not recommending it because because or promoting it
because I owned. I think I owned about twenty seven
of them, because it's been my favorite vacuum ever since
the electoral arcs kind of petered out. Yeah, and it
is a good one, but you didn't recommend end when
you were recommending it that you use um easy glides

(34:04):
to It's like a piece of carpet um at he's
of carpet, little strips of to put them on the
meale so you don't hit your corners of your wall
and your would work well. Next time Martha recommends these
little easy glide strips. Now that's another thing you haven't done,
is um, what are the best? What are the best?

(34:27):
Non you know, non the slippy things that you can
move furniture with. I can move almost any piece of
furniture using an easy glide, But there's some that don't
work so well. You should do a you should do
a survey on those. Yeah, you should definitely do. Yeah,
you might find something better than I found, But I
found easy glides the best and then I said, you

(34:51):
my own research all the time. Um, so how many
employees are actually called on to test one product that
really does depend as well? Let's take an iPhone. Let's
let's just take an iPhone, let's say with an iPhone
with that product, which is actually on my team. We
have a writer, Roderick, who tests them himself, test the

(35:13):
phones himself, but we also enlist maybe a panel about
half a dozen people with different hands, different hands sizes,
sort of different um vision capabilities. We sort of want
to understand how that works from an accessibility perspective as well.
And from there we really are trying to understand what

(35:34):
makes the most sense for most people. And so we're
trying together gather the opinions of different people on what
they think about the iPhone. So so an Apple iPhone,
when a new one comes out, like the fourteen just
came out, Um, do you test that right away? We
test that right away. And so there's there's an entire
embargo procedure that happens. You get the phone basically as

(35:55):
soon as you can, but then the embargo lifts, and
then we want to have something that's basically ready to
go right when the embargo lives, and so what does
tend to happen is that in a situation like that, say,
the right will write the piece, and then because we
have the opportunity to long term tests and have something
over time, the piece will be basically a living document.
You know, we will add more to the guide once

(36:18):
we know what it functions like over a longer period
of time. So are you up to date on the iPhone?
So what do you say about that? You like it
a lot? That's that's our favorite it is right now. Okay,
so there's mine. I just got it. I put it
in my uh my thirteen X pro case. It overheated
and stop functioning, and I had to take it out

(36:40):
of the case because the case was a fraction fraction
fraction of an inch too small. Yes, so I had
to get a new case right away, right you know
that's it didn't have to be a fraction bigger than
the thirteen. So it cost me another hundred dollars to
get a new case. On the chargers the same. Thank
goodness to the third cheen um, my granddaughter benefited because

(37:03):
she got the thirteen, so she's she's very happy with
the thirteen. She didn't like these cases. But I like
these cases. But but what's the difference? What's the difference really?
I mean, I can tell you what I think the
difference is, but I'm going to hear what wire. I
think that the battery lasts longer, the camera is better,
and the display is better. I mean, if you are

(37:23):
really going to compare the thirteen unfortunes side by side,
the crystal clear display is really what makes I agree
about the camera that I certainly I didn't know about
the charge. Yeah, okay, that's good channel, that's good channel. Okay.
But we are big advocates of holding onto your tech
if you don't need to replace it, if the thirteen
is still working for you, hold onto it for the

(37:44):
exact same reason I trade. I traded down to my
grandchildren and my daughter, you know, because they actually get
a lot. Of course exactly, we're not big proponents of
go out and get the newest thing all the time
just because it's it's it's quote unquote the best. But
if you are ready to move on, we definitely think
or if you're buying something brand new from scratch, the
fourteen is the one to go with. What are their

(38:14):
check products in the last year, Um, did you really
pay attention to oh man, there's so many interesting things,
so this is a bit of a gimmick, but we
did weigh in on them. There's something um called sleep
headphones that you can use now. So if you are
somebody who likes to listen to music when you sleep,
listen to podcast to fall asleep, but you don't want

(38:34):
to disturb your partner, you can put on these sort
of fuzzy felt headphones that wrap around your head. They've
got a built in sort of ear but within them.
The idea is that you're able to fall asleep even
if you're a side sleeper using these headphones. We tested
a couple. We don't love them, but there there are
options out there if that's the only way you can
fall asleep. There are sunglasses now with built in Bluetooth

(38:57):
headphones or Bluetooth speakers rather so that when you put
on the headphones, the music is actually only going to you.
We're not big fans of those either, but Bose makes
a pair, Anchor makes a pair. They are available if
you don't want to have an actual year put in
your phone in your ear while you're seeing I would
tell everybody have you talked to doctors who are specialists

(39:18):
in hearing. We definitely have yeah, yeah, yeah, because I
wouldn't wear your phones for anything. There's a very We've
done several pieces and you know, they talk about, yeah,
they talk about, you know, the the loudness and how many,
how how how loud can you go without injuring your hearing.
I think it all hurt hurts your hearing. That's definitely

(39:40):
a point of view. I think if you're also somebody
who turns the volume way up and is using your
headphones at your desk all day, that really is something
to be concerned about. Definitely. It's it's something to be
concerned about for kids as well. And we recommend a
set that's called the Bureau and they're really great. They're
over your headphones and there's a sound limiting on the

(40:02):
headphones that actually works. We've tested them a lot of
a lot of kids headphones. The sound limiting, you know,
part of it feature doesn't actually limit the sound to
the decibels that that it needs to be. And so
because there's a certain number of decibles that are approved,
but but over that you can and you can really
impair yourself for the rest of your life. So I'd

(40:23):
love to see a real study on that. I'm sure
somebody's working on it. Some doctors are working on it.
But you do pay attention to all of that at once.
We actually, within the testing for those exact kids headphones,
discovered that some headphones went above the decible level that
they purported to, which was a key finding. We did
a joint uh collaboration with The Times on a report

(40:44):
on that a couple of years ago. So let's talk
about ethics. Does wire cutter get pressure from manufacturers to
choose their products or to at least consider their products.
You must get a lot of stuff. I think we
definitely do experience that pressure. I mean we are in
communication as reporters, all are with people who are representing

(41:05):
various companies. And if you mentioned that public relations exactly exactly,
And I think that what is crystal clear to all
wire employees is that we have very very strict set
of standards and ethics. You know, we don't allow even
the whiff of impropriety to allow to enter any of it.
You must have missed some fantastic products over the years

(41:27):
just by not knowing about it. That's definitely true. And like,
what is there something in tech that you've missed that
you're you're embarrassed about. I think that there are things
that you know. What is really been interesting about working
at Wirecutter versus a lot of other publications that have
worked at is that Wirecutter is extremely engaged with the community,

(41:48):
and so our users and commenters are people that we're
listening to all the time and responding too often, and
they are going to be keeping us accountable. They will
be letting us know exactly what product category or is
we've missed, what brands we've missed, and so in a
lot of respects, if we feel as if there's something
that has become a blind spot for us, we do

(42:08):
have an engaged group of people who are going to
be letting us know. I don't think that there's anything
that within the recent paths that I've worked at wire Cutter,
I would say that I regret that we've missed. I
would say that we have actively decided not to cover
certain things, if only because, like we were saying earlier,
there are things that might be flashes in the pan

(42:29):
or that our transition, wire Cutter is just not going
to be in the business of our met ne're testing necessarily.
I would also add that what we end up testing
is usually the cream of the crop. We're usually testing
the things that a savvy shopper who's out on shopping
on the internet probably would have found this group of
items because there are the things that have been rated

(42:50):
the highest by user reviews or by other publications, or
they're made by very well known brands that are known
in that space. And so by the time we have
something in our hands to test, it's usually this group
of products that are already probably at the top of
you know, of the category, and so we're we do
We are often pitched by pr companies and manufacturers to

(43:14):
to test certain things. And the way we really leave
it to our journalists to go out into the world
as if they were real shoppers with real money, to
go find this product that they want to buy, and
and through that process they generally come back with the
things that they should test the top of the top.
The United States is diverse by um, by area and

(43:37):
also by population. Um. Have you seen a big difference
in in in popularity of product from from north northeast
to southwest, etcetera. Well, there are certain products that are
better suited for certain parts of the country for sure.
So uh, you know, air conditioners, for instance, that's going

(43:57):
to be very popular in the Northeast, in the Southwest,
It's going to be popular in a lot of parts
of the country, but probably not in the Northwest. Generally
people in the Northwest don't have windows that really fit
air conditioners, window window units. Um. But we also see
we're starting, unfortunately, to see more trends around natural disasters.
So UM, air purifiers for instance, are very very popular

(44:20):
in California during the fall. Yeah. And and you know,
we tend to see trends around when hurricane season is
happening in the in the in the southeast. UM. And
you know, I think there are certain products that are
pretty universal across the board, but when it comes to
heating and cooling, when it comes to some of these
air quality issues, I think you do tend to see
some trends in different parts of the country. And we

(44:41):
know that everybody was shopping for home and for garden
during of the pandemic. Um, what shopping trends have you
seen post pandemic. It's only been a short time, but
what's been crazy. We continue to see interest in air
quality that continues to be something that people are concerned about.
People the first in the first part of this year,

(45:02):
I think we're as we get a little bit farther
away from the heat of the pandemic, we are we
are seeing, you know, some changes. But over this past year,
people have still been very interested in air purifiers, in
K nine masks, in you know, how to keep safe
from COVID basically. But what we are also seeing, and
this isn't terribly surprising, is an interest in travel again.

(45:23):
People want to shop for carry on luggage and for
all of the things that go along with with travel,
so that you know, that's a good thing. I think
I have a soft suitcase of kipling from who knows
how long ago when I climbed Kilimanjaro, So I think
I'm going to take that one with me. It was
good luck then, I think it's probably gonna be good
luck now. But but so you're doing suitcases, and yeah,

(45:45):
we have we have suitcase outerwear, you know, sort of
all of the smaller things like packing cubes that you
might want to bring on your trip to to make
your bag more organized. We're seeing a lot more interest
in that type of content. I've never used a packing
tube and my life. You might like it. It's the
way to keep everything organized within your bigger bag. There's

(46:05):
a little bit of compression that it helps you achieve.
Toka non zip block baggies, it's it's definitely two point
oh of the block baggies. So I have two grandchildren,
tendit eleven. Um, many of my friends have kids. UM,
what would you suggest are the hottest gifts for this

(46:25):
holiday season? This is a great question. Yeah, we so
we've we we definitely don't go for trends, So I'm
not gonna be able to tell you what the hottest
thing on social media for for this age group is.
But we do have gift guides for ages one through
teens and tweens, and we the things we put in

(46:45):
these gift guides generally are things that are appropriate for
the age group, that are developmentally appropriate, and so what
we're seeing. UM, I can tell you a few things
that have been popular this season for tweens. We have, UM,
we have this l e ed light that we recommend
in one of our guides. It's the Isaac Jacobs led

(47:07):
Neon wall sign and it you can get you can
get a pineapple. You can get all sorts of different
signs and it's just something fun to put in a room.
And I think tweens love it, but I think it
would also be appropriate for kids that onto your It's
like one of those old school l e ed signs
that you might have on a wall, but it's sort
of there are lots of fun different designs that you
put on your wall. Um we One of our most

(47:29):
popular tween gifts has also been this giant bean bag
that you can put into your kid's room and they
can hang out there and read or just hang out
with their daughter. Was way ahead of wire coat. Yeah,
the kids have their bean bags in their rooms that
they read on. I mean they love it. They covered

(47:49):
with with lamb skin or something. Oh my god, they're
so comfortable. They're very comfortable. That did not exist when
I was raising my daughter one. They love it though, Yes,
what else? Well? Uh So, Lego sets continue to be classic,
very popular for a lot of age groups. I would
say we see people from from you know, the four

(48:12):
five age group all the way up to adults that
are very interested in the most expensive Lego project now
oh gosh, to three four hundred dollars. I don't know,
they're very they can get very but what is the project?
I mean, it's because Star Wars was the thing? Is
it still Star Wars? Well, I don't know about the
most expensive, but the some of the products, some of

(48:34):
the popular lego sets for adults that we've been recommending
are the this new line of botanical legos. So they're
bouquets and cactuses, and they're they're pretty fun to build
and pretty. They're pretty easy to have them. Yeah, and
they teach a lot, They teach a lot relations, etcetera, etcetera.
What about gifts for pets for pets? Oh, Jason, so

(48:56):
many gifts for pets. There's so many, you know. One
of our most popular it gifts for pets that I
actually got from my own dog is the I think
it's called outward Hound like higher squirrel. It's it's basically, um,
a plushy tree trunk and it's got holes in it,
and then there are squirrels within that are squeakers, and

(49:17):
so the dog, my dog Finn, after them. Yes, just
so big is it? It is? You can get a
small version that fits maybe three, and you can get
a larger trunk that fits maybe nine and then you
can buy replacement versions of the squirrels that inevitably get
torn apart. Oh, I must, maybe I'll get that for
the Frenchies. It's great. It's really they have their own
real squirrels that they're after in a real tree trunk

(49:40):
by the way, where they spend every single day at
We had to put a fence around the apple tree
because they were going to kill the this ancient apple
tree that has a squirrel in it that taunts the
dogs every day. So there's a real prey drive you. Now,
I should have taken that as a as an idea
for a toy that's probably be very popular. That manufacturer

(50:02):
must be making a lot of money with that drunk
that many people travel for the holidays. Um, what should
we have as a travel gadget? Goodness, I have a
whole list. Yeah, we have a lot of We actually
have a piece up right now around what you should
be bringing with you when you're traveling. It's up now.

(50:24):
You definitely should bring a power bank or you know,
a USB battery pack so that you can charge your
devices while you're while you're out and about. Um, it's
a good idea to have a long charging cord because
you don't know where you're going to end up, and
you might you might need to be at an airport
where you you know, the outlet is a little bit
is a little bit far away. A good noise canceling
headphones are a good idea for a long trip like this. UM.

(50:48):
Noise noise canceling headphones tend to be best for travel
because they really block out the sound that like an
airplane hum or as it's like yeah, yeah, so that's good. UM.
A universal travel adapter is good, especially if you're you're
traveling abroad. We'd also recommend um a necessary organizer so

(51:09):
that you can organize all of your cables and all
of your small gadgets. UM kind of similar to having
a packing cube. It helps you keep everything organized. Again,
not a bag. No more zip blocks please. So what
product trends do you feel are overrated? I mean you
don't touch on those, do you? Or do you suggest

(51:30):
that there are some that are over We have things
we test that we don't end up liking and we
don't recommend buying, but then there there people tend to
still want to buy them. UM. I would put air fryers.
Air fryers is in that that category. We don't. It's
basically a small convection oven. And if you we think
you can get better value out of a convection toaster oven,
which is just a little tiny oven with air blowing. Um.

(51:54):
But people like like these pod air fryers, and especially
if you're a you know, maybe cooking for your elf
and you just need a little bit of food. Well, Emerrole,
he was part of our company, loves his air fryer.
There are lots of people that people love that one.
We think rated on wire cutter, I better look it up. Um.

(52:15):
I would say that there are also certain I think
that smart home products are very very cool category. Smart
speakers have obviously changed the way that we interact with
our homes. Smart plugs are great. I think not everything
needs to be smart. I don't know that we need
a smart frying pan. I do not want a refrigerator

(52:36):
that tells me that I'm out of milk. There you go, Martha, Okay,
And I tried a little course at m I G
many many years ago when I talked about that, I
just don't want my appliance just talking to me. I
don't want my dryer. I don't want that buzzer on
the dryer to tell me that goes on and on
and on because it's stopped. I can tell what it
stops to do is listen. I will say that I

(52:57):
I'm completely with you. There are in stances where smart
appliances are very helpful, especially for people with accessibility issues.
So let's say that you find or you have vision
there there are real instances where some of these smart
appliances can be very very helpful. But in some cases
it's just a gimmick. Definitely, Yeah, definitely, So that's I

(53:18):
was I was going to ask the question that, uh
that I and the doctors who who have been working
at my hospital at Mount Sinai, the Martha Stewarts Center
for Living, have predicted the silver tsunami, and that's unprecedented
increase in the number of older people in the world. Um.
Many want to age at home. They don't want to
be put into other people's homes or into you know,

(53:41):
and uh so those products, um that will help make
their lives easier. Is that has that been a category
that you've been recommending? That is actually a category we're
building out right. But I hope you do, and you
should work with them with my hospital. That would be great.
We love to the Center for Living is is all
about home care. The pctors in our mouth sign I

(54:01):
visit the patients at home. They find that if they
have an illness, they recover quicker at home. So I
would like to know about the products that you're looking
at for them. We so we're at the very beginning
of building this category out. We've we've experimented in the
past with with reviewing products for people that will make
it easier for them to age at home and UM,
but we're really going more full force on it now.

(54:23):
And you know, I think it the delicate balance for
us and covering this category is that there we recognize
that there are some readers who are buying these products
for themselves, and there are some readers who are caregivers
buying these products for totally a parent or a sibling,
and so trying to navigate that and balance that coverage
and make it as helpful as possible for for all

(54:45):
of those communities is really important to us. Right now,
we're working on UM a couple of guides. We're working
on pill boxes, so we're looking at pill boxes that
are just stand that just like the regular ones you
would open. But we're also looking at smart pill boxes
to see if there's any functionality be there that would
be helpful for people. We're starting a guide to medical
alert systems for people who are having you know, maybe

(55:07):
who talk to me about that. I'm working with the
company right now. It's very innovative and uh, that might
be a very good subject for I think you're a
little premature. Maybe wait another six months. We really working
on it. That this is innovative. I wouldn't be involved

(55:27):
with unless I thought it was really really good because
because of the Center for Living in my interest in
successful aging. That's this is very important. And I live
alone and I need a life alert, but not the
life alert that already exists. I need something much much better.
What do you need? I need something that in case,
in case I have a fall, will be able to

(55:49):
reach somebody somewhere that could help me. Uh. And they
don't all do that, None of them do it. Depending
on where you are, you know, you're not as sured.
And that has a battery life of more than one day.
Right that's the other big problem because right now, all
the life alerts only are about a day of charge

(56:10):
and you take it off at night, and then you
take a shower and you fall in the shower and
nobody's there to help you. Yeah. See, there's a lot
of a lot of a lot of challenges in a
in a life alert. So that's another subject. We will
come back to wire Cutter when when we have hopefully
helped develop the best best product out there. But Christine

(56:31):
and Jason, thank you so much. This has been really
interesting and uh and uh. To read product reviews from
wire Cutter, head on over to n Y times dot
com slash wire Cutter. I'm sure you're going to find
it to be a great resource that you will turn
to time and time again, especially during the holiday seasons.

(56:54):
Happy holidays to all of you, and thank you again.
It was very nice sitting down with you. It was
wonderful to flix