Speaker 1: Martha, it sounds like you should be testing for us.
Speaker 1: Oh I should. Anytime you want to have an opinion
Speaker 1: of anything home related, you call Martha. Oh boy. When
Speaker 1: looking to buy products, we all want quality. One website
Speaker 1: that tries to make this search easier is wire Cutter.
Speaker 1: Founded in two thousand and eleven and acquired by the
Speaker 1: New York Times Company in two thousand and sixteen, Wirecutter
Speaker 1: has cornered the market on product reviews. Wire Cutter's mission
Speaker 1: is to recommend what really matters. They independently test and
Speaker 1: review thousands of products to help one find just what
Speaker 1: one needs while saving time and eliminating the stress of shopping.
Speaker 1: From washing machines to gingerbread houses and everything in between,
Speaker 1: Wirecutter reviews at all. With a holiday season here, I
Speaker 1: thought it would be a great idea to sit down
Speaker 1: with two editors from the website. It's a pleasure to
Speaker 1: welcome Christine Sir Clasette and Jason Chen to my podcast.
Speaker 1: How are you all? It's nice to be here. So
Speaker 1: how long have you been with wire Cutter. I've been
Speaker 1: at wire Cutter for three nap years and you, Gris,
Speaker 1: I've been here going on ten years. In some capacity.
Speaker 1: So before the acquisition by The Times, Well, Christine, you
Speaker 1: were now deputy editor covering home for wire Cutter, But
Speaker 1: at one time you did work at Martha Stewart living
Speaker 1: on Media. What did you do at my company? Oh?
Speaker 1: I loved working at your company, first of all, Um,
Speaker 1: But I worked in the book department and special projects team,
Speaker 1: So I worked on many books, lots of cookbooks and
Speaker 1: craft books, and many special publications, magazines themed around different
Speaker 1: different things Halloween and kids, crafts and things like that.
Speaker 1: Did you work on Homekeeping Handbook? Indeed, I did. It
Speaker 1: was the first project I worked on. I came in
Speaker 1: as a freelancer and then by the time the book
Speaker 1: was finished, I was a full time employee, right and
Speaker 1: it was really really fun. That book is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite books, and I think it's due for a
Speaker 1: revision now because a lot of new cleaning techniques have
Speaker 1: developed in products, and I was thinking of maybe doing
Speaker 1: a new version of it. But it is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite books. Oh, it's a fantastic book. I still
Speaker 1: pull it down off my shelf sometimes. And when you're
Speaker 1: thinking about updating it, I maybe consider some of the
Speaker 1: sort of smart home tech things that you could include
Speaker 1: because I think there's been a lot of evolution on
Speaker 1: that and you're right, You're totally right, and that we
Speaker 1: don't have a good chapter on that, yes, UM. And
Speaker 1: what skills did you bring to wire Cutter when you
Speaker 1: finally uh joined wire Cutter. Working at Martha Stewart was
Speaker 1: actually one of my gateways into starting at wirecutter. UM.
Speaker 1: The founder, Brian Lamb, was looking for someone to write
Speaker 1: kitchen reviews, UM, you know, kitchen gear equipment reviews, and
Speaker 1: I had a mutual friend who connected us. And because
Speaker 1: I had edited so many cookbooks at Martha Stewart living
Speaker 1: on the media, and I was an avid home cook
Speaker 1: at the time, I UM, I started writing reviews for
Speaker 1: the site, and so that that was the foundation essentially.
Speaker 1: And what products do you enjoy testing the most for
Speaker 1: this amazing site wire Cutter? Well when I UM. I
Speaker 1: don't do so much testing now, but in the past,
Speaker 1: my favorite things to test have been many kitchen you know,
Speaker 1: kitchen small kitchen appliances, blenders, food processors. It's fun to
Speaker 1: get all of those things in the same room and
Speaker 1: try them out. I also edited much of our coverage
Speaker 1: around bedding and mattresses and I love testing out sheets.
Speaker 1: I love testing out linen sheets. And you're a you're
Speaker 1: a fabric free glance and the fabric freak. Give me
Speaker 1: all the fabric. And do you personally buy some of
Speaker 1: the products that you test? Yes, I write about Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's actually a hazard of the profession. Um. I
Speaker 1: have a lot of things in my home that are
Speaker 1: wire Cutter picks. Um. I usually consult the site before
Speaker 1: I buy anything. Um. Yes, I probably have dozens and
Speaker 1: dozens of wire Cutter picks at my home at this point.
Speaker 1: How did you start at wire Cutter? So I worked
Speaker 1: at a website called The Strategist, which is owned by
Speaker 1: New York Magazine for about three years before I started
Speaker 1: at the Wirecutter, and The Strategist was a site that
Speaker 1: sort of was trying to be not the anti wire Cutter,
Speaker 1: because Wirecutter has done obviously such tremendous work in testing
Speaker 1: products vigorously, but Strategist was really is really trying to
Speaker 1: do product reviews and recommendations from a kind of cultural
Speaker 1: anthropological point of view. And when the opportunity to come
Speaker 1: to Wirecutter present itself, it's sort of blew my mind open.
Speaker 1: The fact that this place that looms so large my
Speaker 1: imagination actually existed, and did the things that they claimed
Speaker 1: to do, you know, really blew up a blew up
Speaker 1: a fire proof safe to find out whether it was
Speaker 1: actually fireproof, really tested air purifiers in a smoke key
Speaker 1: room to figure out how much smoke was cleared. And
Speaker 1: I felt like being a part of that process was
Speaker 1: too great an opportunity to pass up. And um, so
Speaker 1: do you both of you? Do you personally buy the
Speaker 1: products that you recommend? I buy so many things from
Speaker 1: recommend and so when we are getting products for the
Speaker 1: site to actually test, we often will reach out to
Speaker 1: publicists and manufacturers to get products to test, and we'll
Speaker 1: also buy products. So don't you buy all the products?
Speaker 1: So we do buy several of the products, but we
Speaker 1: also have a very strict policy of after the testing
Speaker 1: is completed, will either discard what we have actually gotten
Speaker 1: for free, or we will donate it to organizations that
Speaker 1: are unimproved list including Habitat for Humanity among others. And
Speaker 1: there will be cases in which will hold onto things
Speaker 1: too long term test them, but the idea is never
Speaker 1: that even the things that we get for free will
Speaker 1: be keeping for the long term right right. But personally,
Speaker 1: I think pretty much everyone at Wirecutter buys a lot
Speaker 1: of the things that we recommend, especially you know, we
Speaker 1: don't none of us buy all of the things. But
Speaker 1: if we are interested in a topic, if you're interested
Speaker 1: in cooking, or you are really into audio equipment, UM,
Speaker 1: I think that those those folks are going to have
Speaker 1: a lot of those items. Now, it's a job that
Speaker 1: you have, a job that I really love because I
Speaker 1: do a lot of testing to Obviously, I test everything
Speaker 1: that we design and uh and in various incarnations of
Speaker 1: a product because I have to UH. And I always
Speaker 1: tell my staff, you know, if if I pick up
Speaker 1: a teacup that we've designed and I can't put my
Speaker 1: finger through the handle, what the heck is that keep
Speaker 1: on good for? And UH? And a lot of people
Speaker 1: overlook stuff like that. They forget that design is also
Speaker 1: part of the workmanship and also the usability uh of
Speaker 1: a product. So so I've been I've been I've been
Speaker 1: a private Wirecutter tester for a long time. And that's
Speaker 1: why I read the I read the column every single
Speaker 1: day in my digital version of The New York Times.
Speaker 1: It's down at the very bottom of my newspaper before
Speaker 1: you get to the games, and I do all the
Speaker 1: games in the morning too, before I get out of bed.
Speaker 1: I can't get up out of bed without doing all
Speaker 1: the games. Um So, But wire Cutter is always interesting.
Speaker 1: And my most recent purchase of was the space heaters
Speaker 1: you did because they were very inexpensive. I think, I
Speaker 1: think that's my space heater that I finally chose. Was
Speaker 1: your number one choice for the price, uh something like
Speaker 1: I think it was less than twenty nine dollars, and
Speaker 1: they it works very well. It's a little dinky, but
Speaker 1: but for the price, it seems to be safe. Um
Speaker 1: and it seems to work very well. Because I have
Speaker 1: a lot of on my farm, I have a lot
Speaker 1: of little spots that um are not quite winterized. You know,
Speaker 1: the pipe might freeze in the wall of the bathroom
Speaker 1: and I don't want that to happen, so I put
Speaker 1: a little electric heater there when when it subs zero.
Speaker 1: So um so those are so that was my my
Speaker 1: last purchase was the space heres. But I really did
Speaker 1: read that article very carefully. Another UM product that I
Speaker 1: was very interested in was the window air conditioning that
Speaker 1: you wrote about, and that was that was more complicated
Speaker 1: because window air conditioners, you know, I have to be
Speaker 1: a certain wind than a certain height and um and
Speaker 1: for your window, and so I had a little bit
Speaker 1: more difficulty with that one. But generally you do an
Speaker 1: amazing job because you do cover a tremendous number of products.
Speaker 1: How many products per investigation do you choose? Oh? My goodness?
Speaker 1: So I think it really does very honestly, depending on
Speaker 1: the product. So the way that the process works. And
Speaker 1: Christine can speak to this um even better than I can.
Speaker 1: But generally, our writers and editors work very closely to
Speaker 1: identify the the top contenders in any given category, and
Speaker 1: that can number anything from a dozen to two dozen
Speaker 1: to four dozen, um, if we're talking about something like, uh,
Speaker 1: laptops under five dollars. You know, we first decide which
Speaker 1: products are living in this category that we consider. Then
Speaker 1: we create a model list and identify all of the
Speaker 1: specs who compare them on this sort of theoretical table.
Speaker 1: And to even backtrack a little bit to find out
Speaker 1: what these sort of models that make the modelists are
Speaker 1: we're talking with experts, were reading various forms, were checking
Speaker 1: retailer websites, and then from the model list. After we
Speaker 1: sort of compare everything. Then we decide what to actually
Speaker 1: test and the things that we actually test, because obviously
Speaker 1: there are only so many hours in the day and
Speaker 1: so much bandwidth that a person has, you can't possibly
Speaker 1: test every single thing, and so you widow the list
Speaker 1: down to I would say, for something like laptops, we
Speaker 1: would test maybe something on the number of half a
Speaker 1: dozen to ten different laptops. So you're into and you're
Speaker 1: in the tech division, you're doing you're doing iPhones exactly
Speaker 1: your phone, but speakers, sound bars, all of those things.
Speaker 1: And then from there, you know, it's a real conversation
Speaker 1: that we have between writers and editors to determine, based
Speaker 1: on our testing, what makes the most sense for most people,
Speaker 1: what makes the most sense for a particular use case.
Speaker 1: A lot of what Wirecutter has done in the past
Speaker 1: is really trying to help you with that decision fatigue,
Speaker 1: because you really don't really want to come to a
Speaker 1: site and have fifteen different things that you're trying to
Speaker 1: pick from. It's really helpful to have Wirecutter cut through
Speaker 1: that noise, and that's what we're really trying to do.
Speaker 1: After that process, um, when I started to read wire
Speaker 1: cutter and and use it as a as a tool
Speaker 1: for purchasing product. Um. It brought back to mind, Um,
Speaker 1: the consumer reports, the old fashioned consumer reports which my
Speaker 1: mother used. And I don't know when when did consumer
Speaker 1: reports start as a as a thing? Do you remember?
Speaker 1: I was just I was just gonna actually just look
Speaker 1: this up. About eighty years ago. Yeah. So, so my
Speaker 1: mom was a devotee of consumer reports because in those days,
Speaker 1: we didn't have Google to look up products, we didn't
Speaker 1: have Amazon with with the user recommendations, we didn't have
Speaker 1: any of that. So how the heck were you going
Speaker 1: to buy a mixer for your bread if you didn't
Speaker 1: really do your own research. And so it was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun to to go to Consumer Reports. But
Speaker 1: this is like a monster consumer Reports. I bet consumer
Speaker 1: Reports never had two hundred employees. Well, I actually Consumer
Speaker 1: Reports does have a lot of people work there. It
Speaker 1: still exists, right, exists, and we think Consumer Reports does
Speaker 1: great work. How do you differ from Consumer Reports? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can speak to that about so consumer Reports. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm going to say they do great work. They have
Speaker 1: a lab up in Westchester, they have lots of people
Speaker 1: working there. Uh, and you know they cover many of
Speaker 1: the same things we cover. What really distinguishes Wirecutter though,
Speaker 1: from other review sites or review organizations in this space,
Speaker 1: is that we we are always our foundation is always
Speaker 1: thinking about how people use products in their home, in
Speaker 1: their personal life. We don't do lab testing for the
Speaker 1: most part. We we know that most products go through
Speaker 1: rigorous lab testing before they even make it to market.
Speaker 1: As I'm sure you know you don't have to tell
Speaker 1: us that that particular heater that I bought it's going
Speaker 1: to last me for four d and sixty five days. Well,
Speaker 1: we don't have to tell you. We don't need to
Speaker 1: go to a lab and test the safety mechanisms of
Speaker 1: that for instance. But what we want to do is
Speaker 1: we want to get that space heater into someone's home
Speaker 1: and have them use it day after day and and
Speaker 1: tell us is it easy to turn on? Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it? Uh? Is it convenient? Is it? Does it
Speaker 1: make sense? Does it make a lot of noise when
Speaker 1: you're sleeping? Is it annoying? We want to we want
Speaker 1: to have a sense of how it is to live
Speaker 1: with these products. I mean, like you said earlier, design
Speaker 1: is really important, especially in someone's home and how we
Speaker 1: use products we're all using products all the time, and
Speaker 1: something that's well designed is going to make your life better.
Speaker 1: And so we're always coming from the perspective of using
Speaker 1: all of these products in our homes. And so our
Speaker 1: our employees are dispersed their all over the country. Our
Speaker 1: writers live in you know, almost every state, not every state,
Speaker 1: but all you know, both coasts, south, north, UM. And
Speaker 1: so we're getting we're getting an opportunity to test these
Speaker 1: things in different types of homes, in different types of climates, UM.
Speaker 1: And I think that's something that really distinguishes us. And
Speaker 1: we also use all of these products for a long time.
Speaker 1: So you know, I have a food processor in my
Speaker 1: kitchen right now that I've been that I tested for
Speaker 1: wirecutter in I'm still using it. I'm still giving feedback
Speaker 1: on it. It's still doing great. By it might be
Speaker 1: I have I have my mother's Crazy Art and I
Speaker 1: have my mother's kitchen Aid four or five mixer and
Speaker 1: it still works. And that was from nineteen in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. I think my mother's mixer and it's a
Speaker 1: fantastic mixer, and that that caused me to buy many, many,
Speaker 1: many more kitchen aid mixers now I haven't seen a
Speaker 1: I haven't seen a mixer on the site. We recommend
Speaker 1: kitchen aid. Yeah, okay, I haven't seen that column. Where
Speaker 1: does the name wire cutter come from? This is the
Speaker 1: elusive question. Wire cutter Um Brian Lamb named the site
Speaker 1: wire cutter, And according to Brian Um, this name he
Speaker 1: chose because it actually had no meaning really, and he
Speaker 1: had been he'd been looking for a name that he
Speaker 1: could give his own meaning to, basically, and so he
Speaker 1: named it wire cutter, and the names stuck. And I
Speaker 1: think over time there there's been lots of theories about
Speaker 1: whether it had to do with the text space, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't really, that doesn't really line up. It really
Speaker 1: has to do with just a name that he could
Speaker 1: give meaning to, a symbol really. Yeah. So in two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen, a wire Cutter had already made a
Speaker 1: name for itself in terms of product recommendation UH and
Speaker 1: building an audience for people who really wanted to get
Speaker 1: some good information about the products that they buy UM,
Speaker 1: and The New York Times was interested enough to purchase
Speaker 1: it from somewhere in the vicinity of thirty million cash,
Speaker 1: I read somewhere. Do you think that's about the number
Speaker 1: that it is up for debate. Um, he's never been
Speaker 1: made public. It's not public, but it has been reported on. Now,
Speaker 1: was Wirecutter one of the recommend ers of the insta pot? Yes,
Speaker 1: we were. They tell me about that because I don't
Speaker 1: remember reading wire Cutter at that time. You know, when
Speaker 1: I when I went online with The New York Times
Speaker 1: was during COVID because I I still get the print edition.
Speaker 1: So I don't really read the print edition now for
Speaker 1: as thoroughly as I read the online edition. But that's
Speaker 1: when I went online. You know, there it was Wirecutter
Speaker 1: was right in front of me on my little iPad,
Speaker 1: So I was gonna read it. Um and uh so
Speaker 1: what about the insta pot? Tell me that because that
Speaker 1: is one of the most phenomenal product innovations in the
Speaker 1: last I would say, twenty five years. I agree in
Speaker 1: terms of kitchen yeah, I agree. We were very resistant
Speaker 1: to into testing the instant pot. Um. We I think
Speaker 1: about twenty fourteen first started talking about it. It had
Speaker 1: already been out for a little while, and it had
Speaker 1: been sort of this gaining sort of cult, uh the
Speaker 1: stature amongst home home cooks, and uh we we did.
Speaker 1: We did decide, Okay, well it's time we need to
Speaker 1: bring in a number of different electric pressure cookers. And
Speaker 1: once we brought in all of these electric pressure cookers
Speaker 1: and which the instant pot is one of them, and
Speaker 1: tested them, we realized, wow, these are pretty great. Um,
Speaker 1: and they're all they're especially great for anyone who really
Speaker 1: needs to save time in the kitchen. But it's not
Speaker 1: just because an instant pot or an electric pressure cooker
Speaker 1: is fast at cooking. It's more about the hands off
Speaker 1: part of cooking, which makes it really great for people
Speaker 1: with kids who might need to be cooking while they're
Speaker 1: doing other things in the home, or for anyone who really,
Speaker 1: you know, you want to leave sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: a slow cooker, but you doesn't take so long, right,
Speaker 1: So um, and once we started testing them over and
Speaker 1: over again, we found that the instant pot winds. There
Speaker 1: are many many different brands making electric pressure cookers at
Speaker 1: this point, but uh, the instant pot wins. And I
Speaker 1: think what's really fun about this product also is that
Speaker 1: there are all of these subcultures on the Internet of
Speaker 1: different groups of people that are just very into making
Speaker 1: food in the instant pot. And one of those groups
Speaker 1: would be, Um, Indian cooks. There's there's just this thriving,
Speaker 1: awesome community of recipes that you can find on the internet.
Speaker 1: Curries take a while, They take a while, And how
Speaker 1: nice it is to throw everything, and it's and it's
Speaker 1: not like you have to so tell you this and
Speaker 1: and poach that and then add them together. And you
Speaker 1: can hardly ruin Indian food. It's yeah, and there and
Speaker 1: and pressure cookers are actually quite popular in India also,
Speaker 1: and so I think it was a recognition for us
Speaker 1: that oh, this is actually a way of cooking in
Speaker 1: other parts of the world, and um, it's just becoming
Speaker 1: popular here now. Well, is the instant pot as popular
Speaker 1: as it was or have sales dwindled? I think it's
Speaker 1: still just as popular. I don't think I saw quite
Speaker 1: as many sales this this holiday season as I saw
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, But I think it remains
Speaker 1: a very very popular item. Yeah, I feel like it's
Speaker 1: reached sort of critical mass to the point that it
Speaker 1: started out as a trend and then now it's sort
Speaker 1: of a mainstay. The sort of way that air fryers
Speaker 1: have or weighted blankets just part of our our language.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the weighted blanket. Okay, somebody has sent
Speaker 1: me a blanket that is so heavy and so thick,
Speaker 1: and you're you're going to suffocate under that blanket. I
Speaker 1: don't get I don't get it. But my grandchildren love
Speaker 1: weighted blankets, love them them. Why they are very soothing.
Speaker 1: It's like you, you put this heavy thing on your body.
Speaker 1: It calms your your limbs down. It makes them just
Speaker 1: feel very soothed. I like to move around. I like
Speaker 1: to turn over and roll around. And I have a
Speaker 1: cat that's that's so it likes to do all those things.
Speaker 1: And and the blanket really is kind of irritating, but
Speaker 1: it's very popular, very popular. There is a version that's recommended,
Speaker 1: I think our way to blanket that is sort of
Speaker 1: woven and so it's not as I have that one too.
Speaker 1: I got all of them, got it to do my
Speaker 1: own research. And guess what, they're all in a great
Speaker 1: big pile. They're going into the Christmas grab bags. Martha,
Speaker 1: it'sunds like you should be testing for us. Oh I should.
Speaker 1: Any time you want to have an opinion of anything
Speaker 1: home related, Okay, you call Martha. Oh boy, Well, how
Speaker 1: has the brand expanded over the years since two thousand
Speaker 1: and sixteen. How how big was it in the in
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen, in seen, we had about seventy
Speaker 1: employees I think full time employees at that time, and
Speaker 1: at this point we have about two hundred full time employees.
Speaker 1: And one of the big changes is that the makeup
Speaker 1: of the company has really expanded. We were mostly editorial
Speaker 1: when we were purchased by the Times, and now we
Speaker 1: have a much bigger digital organization, so we have many
Speaker 1: engineers and product managers, and we have a whole commerce
Speaker 1: team and you know, so we really got much more
Speaker 1: of a robust digital and business side of the company.
Speaker 1: So you're sort of like a store, even though you're
Speaker 1: recommending the purchase of where to buy it at the
Speaker 1: best price, because every day listeners you can find out
Speaker 1: that say the space heater that I recommend that I bought, uh,
Speaker 1: it's the where to buy it at the cheapest price,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the prices vary tremendously, like from to thirty
Speaker 1: five's a big difference in price if you're buying ten
Speaker 1: of them. So uh So it's um, it's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting that that there's but you recommend where to buy
Speaker 1: it also at the best price. Yes, and you also
Speaker 1: recommend the best, and you sometimes recommend the second best.
Speaker 1: And then I read somewhere that wire Cutter also um
Speaker 1: receives a be for every item sold at at specific stores. Um.
Speaker 1: So is that the way you get you get paid?
Speaker 1: Or yeah, so there is an affiliate model that and
Speaker 1: how do you keep how do you keep church and states?
Speaker 1: And oh gosh, this is uh the million dollar question,
Speaker 1: and it really is what distinguishes Wirecutter from virtually any
Speaker 1: side out there. And so the church and state question
Speaker 1: really is the question of keeping business separate from editorial.
Speaker 1: And at Wirecutter, our editors and writers have no insight
Speaker 1: into this sort of commerce relationships that are very very
Speaker 1: good commerce team is building. And so what you're referring to, Martha, Martha,
Speaker 1: is this idea of affiliate revenue. And so when somebody
Speaker 1: clicks something to buy from Wirecutter, there may be the
Speaker 1: possibility that we are earning an affiliate commission off of
Speaker 1: those purchases. Whether it be there are definite situations in
Speaker 1: which we are nothing from the things that we recommend,
Speaker 1: and so writers and editors when we are testing things,
Speaker 1: when we're making these picks. We're completely unaware, barring the
Speaker 1: highest levels of the editor organization, completely unaware about how
Speaker 1: these picks are made and chosen. And um, where is
Speaker 1: wire Cutter's headquarters? So we are in the Long Island
Speaker 1: City office, which is a quick train ride away from
Speaker 1: the Avenue building. And who is your target reader? That's
Speaker 1: a very good question, you know. I think I would
Speaker 1: love to hear Christine's thought on this too, because I
Speaker 1: feel like for me, what I've always considered, We've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about, you know, is this person living in
Speaker 1: the city, is this person living uh somewhere rural? Does
Speaker 1: this person fit any kind of age profile or or
Speaker 1: demographic And I think that what I've sort of landed
Speaker 1: on and talking with my writers and editors is this
Speaker 1: idea of a psychographic profile that you might not necessarily
Speaker 1: be somebody who wants to spend the absolute most to
Speaker 1: get the most spensive thing, but for the things that
Speaker 1: you consider worth it to you and important, you are
Speaker 1: going to be willing to spend the money if you
Speaker 1: are really avid Baker. We all know somebody who is
Speaker 1: four years old and just moved to the city and
Speaker 1: doesn't know how to make holiday cookies, but knows that
Speaker 1: the kitchen Aids stand mixer is the one to get
Speaker 1: that person who is going to find that information on
Speaker 1: wire could And so we don't necessarily think that it's
Speaker 1: necessarily just somebody who wants uh the priceest item, but
Speaker 1: somebody who's looking for the best quality for the colpy
Speaker 1: big would you say your audience is, well, do you
Speaker 1: have an idea of how many millions of people? We have?
Speaker 1: Millions of people millions and millions of people come to us,
Speaker 1: um and you know, I think it. You know, it's
Speaker 1: obviously at this time of year, around the holidays, we
Speaker 1: have a lot more people coming to us because we
Speaker 1: just shopping. And yeah, and I would just add to
Speaker 1: what what Jason just said around our target audience, it's
Speaker 1: really we are always trying to uh for our readers.
Speaker 1: Were always trying to look for the best value. So
Speaker 1: it's not just about UM, we want to look for
Speaker 1: something that that performs really well, it's at the right price, right,
Speaker 1: and so we're looking I think our target readers are
Speaker 1: people who really care about that. They're not willing. There
Speaker 1: are some people who they they're just gonna go and
Speaker 1: buy whatever is on the internet. Or they're going to
Speaker 1: buy the most expensive thing because they think it might
Speaker 1: be the best. From our testing, we can tell you
Speaker 1: the most expensive thing is not always the best thing.
Speaker 1: And if you read regularly you just find that out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you do. You you get a good education in terms
Speaker 1: of of price, you get a good education. In terms
Speaker 1: of manufacturer uh, you get a good uh. And also looks.
Speaker 1: And it's nice that you do mention what things look
Speaker 1: like because one of my my my most important messages
Speaker 1: to designers is make it pretty, because there's a lot
Speaker 1: of ugly stuff out there, and you might as well
Speaker 1: get the one that's prettiest that's also the best technologically
Speaker 1: and everything else. But it's really it's really hard to
Speaker 1: find that. And you do that all the time. I
Speaker 1: noticed that, Yeah, it is important. We like to think
Speaker 1: about if you were to have all of the things
Speaker 1: that we recommend in your home, would they look good together,
Speaker 1: would they look would it feel cohesive? I think that's
Speaker 1: an important piece of it. And we have lots of
Speaker 1: things that would look good in lots of homes, but
Speaker 1: we we do try to think about the way that
Speaker 1: that something looks defintely. So you subscribe to wire Cutter
Speaker 1: if you're not, if you're not a New York Times subscriber, UM,
Speaker 1: you can subscribe to wire cutter for a fee. How much?
Speaker 1: How much a year? Currently it's for It's forty a year.
Speaker 1: If you want to subscribe just to wire cutter. But
Speaker 1: you can also subscribe if you're a subscriber to the
Speaker 1: New York Times all Access, where you you have access
Speaker 1: to the to the New York Times, cooking the cross Words,
Speaker 1: to now the Athletic, which is a new part of
Speaker 1: the company. Um, you can you just pay that fee?
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't really remember what that that is
Speaker 1: at this point. But there's a fair amount of content
Speaker 1: you can read without being a subscriber. So if you're
Speaker 1: not a subscriber to The Times or to Wirecutter specifically,
Speaker 1: you can read a good amount of the site before
Speaker 1: hitting the Paywell, so how much since wire cut since
Speaker 1: sometimes what wire Cutter? How much would you say wire
Speaker 1: cutter has sold in terms of products? How many billions
Speaker 1: of dollars? Must be huge? I hesitate to give a
Speaker 1: number because I don't quite know the number, but it's
Speaker 1: a lot. I would say that that is the beauty
Speaker 1: of it is that we don't actually know. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: have the we have insight into some of the numbers,
Speaker 1: but we we don't have that some big someone knows someone. Now,
Speaker 1: what is the biggest wire cutter spike that you can
Speaker 1: recall in terms of popularity? Well, we had a lot
Speaker 1: of spikes over the pandemic. Yes, like what, Well, I'll
Speaker 1: share what we uh? So, do you remember that there
Speaker 1: was a huge toilet paper shortage and so our Biday
Speaker 1: guide went up five thousand percent in track because no
Speaker 1: one could get toilet paper. So people were buying the
Speaker 1: days and then the days were selling out and people,
Speaker 1: you know, it was pretty wild. The days are one
Speaker 1: of the best inventions ever ever. There are eight uh
Speaker 1: and uh and they're they're typical of let's say France.
Speaker 1: Everybody has a bid Day in France. Japan absolutely, and
Speaker 1: those fabulous mechanical toilets that the Japanese invented, uh Toyo
Speaker 1: and those others are so fantastic. So so again, listeners,
Speaker 1: pay attention. The bid Day is a very good thing. Also, Yeah,
Speaker 1: my we have we have a bi Day and our
Speaker 1: kids love it. It's it's great for kids to did
Speaker 1: you actually also, by the way, did you recommend a
Speaker 1: toilet paper. We did. We have a toilet paper recommendation,
Speaker 1: and I think at this point, oh, I have to
Speaker 1: go look and see. I think we have, um, there
Speaker 1: might be a Target one and they're surprisingly we actually
Speaker 1: like a lot of Target house brand items, which but
Speaker 1: I'll have to look it up to look at the
Speaker 1: seventh generation also as recommended by White Cutter. Okay, because
Speaker 1: mine and mine, I'm sure it was on the lowest
Speaker 1: of the low of your list, which is Scott's one
Speaker 1: thousand tissue, the thinnest, the thinnest, cheapest Scot's tissue. Interesting
Speaker 1: because I hate that thick, wasteful paper. You don't need that,
Speaker 1: I mean unless you're messy, but you don't need that.
Speaker 1: And uh and the other ones, the big thousand or
Speaker 1: ten thousand squares less much longer. So um, so I'm okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's person we're getting to pursue. I will
Speaker 1: also say that I think people with septic um systems
Speaker 1: need to use that kind of Yeah, I have septic
Speaker 1: so so can you don't want to clean your septic
Speaker 1: system out ten times a year? Once a year is enough?
Speaker 1: I think during the pandemic too, I think We were
Speaker 1: talking earlier that a lot of these sort of air
Speaker 1: quality concerns that we were having sort of represented uh
Speaker 1: spikes on Wirecutter so and mass K and nine mass,
Speaker 1: all these sort of um things that we were using
Speaker 1: to protect ourselves and we didn't have a lot of
Speaker 1: information about. Wire Cutter proved to be particular instrumental. Well,
Speaker 1: that's yeah, that's of course themselves for their kids as well.
Speaker 1: And then of course their purifiers, which were very popular
Speaker 1: and Wirecutter even before the pandemic, during the pandemic became
Speaker 1: oh yeah, my my grandchildren have the flattest one that
Speaker 1: Wirecutter recommended that sits on a shelf in there and
Speaker 1: an alcove in their rooms on the shelf and it's
Speaker 1: almost invisible, but it works beautifully, and I think that
Speaker 1: was a Wirecutter choice. My daughter is a big devote
Speaker 1: So where do you do well you're testing, Well, it
Speaker 1: depends on what we're testing. But you know, in our
Speaker 1: we have our Long Islands space where we test really
Speaker 1: large products, so mattresses and appliances. We have a test
Speaker 1: kitchen there where we test all of our small appliances
Speaker 1: and we try to develop tests that put these things
Speaker 1: through the sort of the pattern that someone would use
Speaker 1: at home. So if we're testing mattresses, we get thirty
Speaker 1: members of our staff to come in. We cover all
Speaker 1: the mattresses, so it's a blind testing. We have them
Speaker 1: go in. We have a form that they have to
Speaker 1: fill out on a computer or on their phone, and
Speaker 1: they'll go in and lay on all the mattresses for
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes. We have pillows, we give them little slippers
Speaker 1: to wear um and you know, everyone fills in the
Speaker 1: forum and lets us know what they think. And then
Speaker 1: are our writers for mattresses for instance, I'm just giving
Speaker 1: this as a as an example. They will be sleeping
Speaker 1: on a lot of those mattresses at home, and so
Speaker 1: we'll have the mattresses delivered to their apart. Long period
Speaker 1: of time does it take to test the best mattress. Well,
Speaker 1: for the testing in our office, that might take a week.
Speaker 1: We might have those mattresses set up and have various
Speaker 1: people coming through and trying them out, having the writers
Speaker 1: lay on them, retry all of all of the mattresses,
Speaker 1: and then our writers will sleep on the mattresses for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, a couple of months. It sort
Speaker 1: of depends on which one. What's the longest time of
Speaker 1: product trip to test? That's a really good question. Um,
Speaker 1: what how long we just did a new a new
Speaker 1: product that just hit the market over the counter hearing aids.
Speaker 1: How long Jason, did they spent testing those? That was
Speaker 1: really like over a year's worth of testing. And this
Speaker 1: was before over the counter hearing aids actually were you know,
Speaker 1: to market. We people couldn't actually buy them, yet we
Speaker 1: were able to get samples and test them with a
Speaker 1: wide group of people and people who have and so um,
Speaker 1: and we were able so we were able to publish
Speaker 1: that guide right when those products were actually people I
Speaker 1: didn't see that one. Yes, it came out of uh
Speaker 1: maybe a little over a month ago, maybe a couple
Speaker 1: of a couple of weeks. Oh, but with especially something
Speaker 1: like an over the counter hearing a that's the kind
Speaker 1: of thing you really want to spend time on and
Speaker 1: get the right panelists to be able to test. That's
Speaker 1: information that you want to make sure is right when
Speaker 1: you're putting it out medical medically, you know important exactly
Speaker 1: how big is your whole testing facility then? Is there
Speaker 1: it is? Maybe is it fifteen squares something? Something like that.
Speaker 1: We have a very large open space where we can
Speaker 1: test a variety of different products. And then, like I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, we have a kitchen that's really built out.
Speaker 1: We have to to kitchen spaces in the test kitchen,
Speaker 1: one where we can really we can do photos and videos,
Speaker 1: and then one that's more of a prep kitchen. Definitely.
Speaker 1: So I just I think I just noticed that you
Speaker 1: chose as your best vacuum cleaner. I'm a fanatic about
Speaker 1: vacuum cleaners. Uh that you did? You? Is it true
Speaker 1: you chose the meal A. Oh we've loved the Meum. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1: As as a canister vacuum, we highly recommend amally okay yes?
Speaker 1: Why Well, First of all, it does an exceptional job
Speaker 1: at actually doing what a vacuum is supposed to do,
Speaker 1: sucking up all the dirt. It Uh, it's lightweight. If
Speaker 1: you compare it against other canister vacuums, it is much
Speaker 1: easier to maneuver. It's later weight. If you have to
Speaker 1: carry it upstairs, it's going to be much easier than
Speaker 1: something else. It also lasts a long time. Meal A
Speaker 1: really builds their products to last a long time, so
Speaker 1: you should be able to buy a meal a canister
Speaker 1: back and expect it to work for you for ten
Speaker 1: to twenty years. I got a job with mel a
Speaker 1: um recommend not recommending it because because or promoting it
Speaker 1: because I owned. I think I owned about twenty seven
Speaker 1: of them, because it's been my favorite vacuum ever since
Speaker 1: the electoral arcs kind of petered out. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: is a good one, but you didn't recommend end when
Speaker 1: you were recommending it that you use um easy glides
Speaker 1: to It's like a piece of carpet um at he's
Speaker 1: of carpet, little strips of to put them on the
Speaker 1: meale so you don't hit your corners of your wall
Speaker 1: and your would work well. Next time Martha recommends these
Speaker 1: little easy glide strips. Now that's another thing you haven't done,
Speaker 1: is um, what are the best? What are the best?
Speaker 1: Non you know, non the slippy things that you can
Speaker 1: move furniture with. I can move almost any piece of
Speaker 1: furniture using an easy glide, But there's some that don't
Speaker 1: work so well. You should do a you should do
Speaker 1: a survey on those. Yeah, you should definitely do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you might find something better than I found, But I
Speaker 1: found easy glides the best and then I said, you
Speaker 1: my own research all the time. Um, so how many
Speaker 1: employees are actually called on to test one product that
Speaker 1: really does depend as well? Let's take an iPhone. Let's
Speaker 1: let's just take an iPhone, let's say with an iPhone
Speaker 1: with that product, which is actually on my team. We
Speaker 1: have a writer, Roderick, who tests them himself, test the
Speaker 1: phones himself, but we also enlist maybe a panel about
Speaker 1: half a dozen people with different hands, different hands sizes,
Speaker 1: sort of different um vision capabilities. We sort of want
Speaker 1: to understand how that works from an accessibility perspective as well.
Speaker 1: And from there we really are trying to understand what
Speaker 1: makes the most sense for most people. And so we're
Speaker 1: trying together gather the opinions of different people on what
Speaker 1: they think about the iPhone. So so an Apple iPhone,
Speaker 1: when a new one comes out, like the fourteen just
Speaker 1: came out, Um, do you test that right away? We
Speaker 1: test that right away. And so there's there's an entire
Speaker 1: embargo procedure that happens. You get the phone basically as
Speaker 1: soon as you can, but then the embargo lifts, and
Speaker 1: then we want to have something that's basically ready to
Speaker 1: go right when the embargo lives, and so what does
Speaker 1: tend to happen is that in a situation like that, say,
Speaker 1: the right will write the piece, and then because we
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to long term tests and have something
Speaker 1: over time, the piece will be basically a living document.
Speaker 1: You know, we will add more to the guide once
Speaker 1: we know what it functions like over a longer period
Speaker 1: of time. So are you up to date on the iPhone?
Speaker 1: So what do you say about that? You like it
Speaker 1: a lot? That's that's our favorite it is right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: so there's mine. I just got it. I put it
Speaker 1: in my uh my thirteen X pro case. It overheated
Speaker 1: and stop functioning, and I had to take it out
Speaker 1: of the case because the case was a fraction fraction
Speaker 1: fraction of an inch too small. Yes, so I had
Speaker 1: to get a new case right away, right you know
Speaker 1: that's it didn't have to be a fraction bigger than
Speaker 1: the thirteen. So it cost me another hundred dollars to
Speaker 1: get a new case. On the chargers the same. Thank
Speaker 1: goodness to the third cheen um, my granddaughter benefited because
Speaker 1: she got the thirteen, so she's she's very happy with
Speaker 1: the thirteen. She didn't like these cases. But I like
Speaker 1: these cases. But but what's the difference? What's the difference really?
Speaker 1: I mean, I can tell you what I think the
Speaker 1: difference is, but I'm going to hear what wire. I
Speaker 1: think that the battery lasts longer, the camera is better,
Speaker 1: and the display is better. I mean, if you are
Speaker 1: really going to compare the thirteen unfortunes side by side,
Speaker 1: the crystal clear display is really what makes I agree
Speaker 1: about the camera that I certainly I didn't know about
Speaker 1: the charge. Yeah, okay, that's good channel, that's good channel. Okay.
Speaker 1: But we are big advocates of holding onto your tech
Speaker 1: if you don't need to replace it, if the thirteen
Speaker 1: is still working for you, hold onto it for the
Speaker 1: exact same reason I trade. I traded down to my
Speaker 1: grandchildren and my daughter, you know, because they actually get
Speaker 1: a lot. Of course exactly, we're not big proponents of
Speaker 1: go out and get the newest thing all the time
Speaker 1: just because it's it's it's quote unquote the best. But
Speaker 1: if you are ready to move on, we definitely think
Speaker 1: or if you're buying something brand new from scratch, the
Speaker 1: fourteen is the one to go with. What are their
Speaker 1: check products in the last year, Um, did you really
Speaker 1: pay attention to oh man, there's so many interesting things,
Speaker 1: so this is a bit of a gimmick, but we
Speaker 1: did weigh in on them. There's something um called sleep
Speaker 1: headphones that you can use now. So if you are
Speaker 1: somebody who likes to listen to music when you sleep,
Speaker 1: listen to podcast to fall asleep, but you don't want
Speaker 1: to disturb your partner, you can put on these sort
Speaker 1: of fuzzy felt headphones that wrap around your head. They've
Speaker 1: got a built in sort of ear but within them.
Speaker 1: The idea is that you're able to fall asleep even
Speaker 1: if you're a side sleeper using these headphones. We tested
Speaker 1: a couple. We don't love them, but there there are
Speaker 1: options out there if that's the only way you can
Speaker 1: fall asleep. There are sunglasses now with built in Bluetooth
Speaker 1: headphones or Bluetooth speakers rather so that when you put
Speaker 1: on the headphones, the music is actually only going to you.
Speaker 1: We're not big fans of those either, but Bose makes
Speaker 1: a pair, Anchor makes a pair. They are available if
Speaker 1: you don't want to have an actual year put in
Speaker 1: your phone in your ear while you're seeing I would
Speaker 1: tell everybody have you talked to doctors who are specialists
Speaker 1: in hearing. We definitely have yeah, yeah, yeah, because I
Speaker 1: wouldn't wear your phones for anything. There's a very We've
Speaker 1: done several pieces and you know, they talk about, yeah,
Speaker 1: they talk about, you know, the the loudness and how many,
Speaker 1: how how how loud can you go without injuring your hearing.
Speaker 1: I think it all hurt hurts your hearing. That's definitely
Speaker 1: a point of view. I think if you're also somebody
Speaker 1: who turns the volume way up and is using your
Speaker 1: headphones at your desk all day, that really is something
Speaker 1: to be concerned about. Definitely. It's it's something to be
Speaker 1: concerned about for kids as well. And we recommend a
Speaker 1: set that's called the Bureau and they're really great. They're
Speaker 1: over your headphones and there's a sound limiting on the
Speaker 1: headphones that actually works. We've tested them a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of kids headphones. The sound limiting, you know,
Speaker 1: part of it feature doesn't actually limit the sound to
Speaker 1: the decibels that that it needs to be. And so
Speaker 1: because there's a certain number of decibles that are approved,
Speaker 1: but but over that you can and you can really
Speaker 1: impair yourself for the rest of your life. So I'd
Speaker 1: love to see a real study on that. I'm sure
Speaker 1: somebody's working on it. Some doctors are working on it.
Speaker 1: But you do pay attention to all of that at once.
Speaker 1: We actually, within the testing for those exact kids headphones,
Speaker 1: discovered that some headphones went above the decible level that
Speaker 1: they purported to, which was a key finding. We did
Speaker 1: a joint uh collaboration with The Times on a report
Speaker 1: on that a couple of years ago. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about ethics. Does wire cutter get pressure from manufacturers to
Speaker 1: choose their products or to at least consider their products.
Speaker 1: You must get a lot of stuff. I think we
Speaker 1: definitely do experience that pressure. I mean we are in
Speaker 1: communication as reporters, all are with people who are representing
Speaker 1: various companies. And if you mentioned that public relations exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: And I think that what is crystal clear to all
Speaker 1: wire employees is that we have very very strict set
Speaker 1: of standards and ethics. You know, we don't allow even
Speaker 1: the whiff of impropriety to allow to enter any of it.
Speaker 1: You must have missed some fantastic products over the years
Speaker 1: just by not knowing about it. That's definitely true. And like,
Speaker 1: what is there something in tech that you've missed that
Speaker 1: you're you're embarrassed about. I think that there are things
Speaker 1: that you know. What is really been interesting about working
Speaker 1: at Wirecutter versus a lot of other publications that have
Speaker 1: worked at is that Wirecutter is extremely engaged with the community,
Speaker 1: and so our users and commenters are people that we're
Speaker 1: listening to all the time and responding too often, and
Speaker 1: they are going to be keeping us accountable. They will
Speaker 1: be letting us know exactly what product category or is
Speaker 1: we've missed, what brands we've missed, and so in a
Speaker 1: lot of respects, if we feel as if there's something
Speaker 1: that has become a blind spot for us, we do
Speaker 1: have an engaged group of people who are going to
Speaker 1: be letting us know. I don't think that there's anything
Speaker 1: that within the recent paths that I've worked at wire Cutter,
Speaker 1: I would say that I regret that we've missed. I
Speaker 1: would say that we have actively decided not to cover
Speaker 1: certain things, if only because, like we were saying earlier,
Speaker 1: there are things that might be flashes in the pan
Speaker 1: or that our transition, wire Cutter is just not going
Speaker 1: to be in the business of our met ne're testing necessarily.
Speaker 1: I would also add that what we end up testing
Speaker 1: is usually the cream of the crop. We're usually testing
Speaker 1: the things that a savvy shopper who's out on shopping
Speaker 1: on the internet probably would have found this group of
Speaker 1: items because there are the things that have been rated
Speaker 1: the highest by user reviews or by other publications, or
Speaker 1: they're made by very well known brands that are known
Speaker 1: in that space. And so by the time we have
Speaker 1: something in our hands to test, it's usually this group
Speaker 1: of products that are already probably at the top of
Speaker 1: you know, of the category, and so we're we do
Speaker 1: We are often pitched by pr companies and manufacturers to
Speaker 1: to test certain things. And the way we really leave
Speaker 1: it to our journalists to go out into the world
Speaker 1: as if they were real shoppers with real money, to
Speaker 1: go find this product that they want to buy, and
Speaker 1: and through that process they generally come back with the
Speaker 1: things that they should test the top of the top.
Speaker 1: The United States is diverse by um, by area and
Speaker 1: also by population. Um. Have you seen a big difference
Speaker 1: in in in popularity of product from from north northeast
Speaker 1: to southwest, etcetera. Well, there are certain products that are
Speaker 1: better suited for certain parts of the country for sure.
Speaker 1: So uh, you know, air conditioners, for instance, that's going
Speaker 1: to be very popular in the Northeast, in the Southwest,
Speaker 1: It's going to be popular in a lot of parts
Speaker 1: of the country, but probably not in the Northwest. Generally
Speaker 1: people in the Northwest don't have windows that really fit
Speaker 1: air conditioners, window window units. Um. But we also see
Speaker 1: we're starting, unfortunately, to see more trends around natural disasters.
Speaker 1: So UM, air purifiers for instance, are very very popular
Speaker 1: in California during the fall. Yeah. And and you know,
Speaker 1: we tend to see trends around when hurricane season is
Speaker 1: happening in the in the in the southeast. UM. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think there are certain products that are
Speaker 1: pretty universal across the board, but when it comes to
Speaker 1: heating and cooling, when it comes to some of these
Speaker 1: air quality issues, I think you do tend to see
Speaker 1: some trends in different parts of the country. And we
Speaker 1: know that everybody was shopping for home and for garden
Speaker 1: during of the pandemic. Um, what shopping trends have you
Speaker 1: seen post pandemic. It's only been a short time, but
Speaker 1: what's been crazy. We continue to see interest in air
Speaker 1: quality that continues to be something that people are concerned about.
Speaker 1: People the first in the first part of this year,
Speaker 1: I think we're as we get a little bit farther
Speaker 1: away from the heat of the pandemic, we are we
Speaker 1: are seeing, you know, some changes. But over this past year,
Speaker 1: people have still been very interested in air purifiers, in
Speaker 1: K nine masks, in you know, how to keep safe
Speaker 1: from COVID basically. But what we are also seeing, and
Speaker 1: this isn't terribly surprising, is an interest in travel again.
Speaker 1: People want to shop for carry on luggage and for
Speaker 1: all of the things that go along with with travel,
Speaker 1: so that you know, that's a good thing. I think
Speaker 1: I have a soft suitcase of kipling from who knows
Speaker 1: how long ago when I climbed Kilimanjaro, So I think
Speaker 1: I'm going to take that one with me. It was
Speaker 1: good luck then, I think it's probably gonna be good
Speaker 1: luck now. But but so you're doing suitcases, and yeah,
Speaker 1: we have we have suitcase outerwear, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: all of the smaller things like packing cubes that you
Speaker 1: might want to bring on your trip to to make
Speaker 1: your bag more organized. We're seeing a lot more interest
Speaker 1: in that type of content. I've never used a packing
Speaker 1: tube and my life. You might like it. It's the
Speaker 1: way to keep everything organized within your bigger bag. There's
Speaker 1: a little bit of compression that it helps you achieve.
Speaker 1: Toka non zip block baggies, it's it's definitely two point
Speaker 1: oh of the block baggies. So I have two grandchildren,
Speaker 1: tendit eleven. Um, many of my friends have kids. UM,
Speaker 1: what would you suggest are the hottest gifts for this
Speaker 1: holiday season? This is a great question. Yeah, we so
Speaker 1: we've we we definitely don't go for trends, So I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to tell you what the hottest
Speaker 1: thing on social media for for this age group is.
Speaker 1: But we do have gift guides for ages one through
Speaker 1: teens and tweens, and we the things we put in
Speaker 1: these gift guides generally are things that are appropriate for
Speaker 1: the age group, that are developmentally appropriate, and so what
Speaker 1: we're seeing. UM, I can tell you a few things
Speaker 1: that have been popular this season for tweens. We have, UM,
Speaker 1: we have this l e ed light that we recommend
Speaker 1: in one of our guides. It's the Isaac Jacobs led
Speaker 1: Neon wall sign and it you can get you can
Speaker 1: get a pineapple. You can get all sorts of different
Speaker 1: signs and it's just something fun to put in a room.
Speaker 1: And I think tweens love it, but I think it
Speaker 1: would also be appropriate for kids that onto your It's
Speaker 1: like one of those old school l e ed signs
Speaker 1: that you might have on a wall, but it's sort
Speaker 1: of there are lots of fun different designs that you
Speaker 1: put on your wall. Um we One of our most
Speaker 1: popular tween gifts has also been this giant bean bag
Speaker 1: that you can put into your kid's room and they
Speaker 1: can hang out there and read or just hang out
Speaker 1: with their daughter. Was way ahead of wire coat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the kids have their bean bags in their rooms that
Speaker 1: they read on. I mean they love it. They covered
Speaker 1: with with lamb skin or something. Oh my god, they're
Speaker 1: so comfortable. They're very comfortable. That did not exist when
Speaker 1: I was raising my daughter one. They love it though, Yes,
Speaker 1: what else? Well? Uh So, Lego sets continue to be classic,
Speaker 1: very popular for a lot of age groups. I would
Speaker 1: say we see people from from you know, the four
Speaker 1: five age group all the way up to adults that
Speaker 1: are very interested in the most expensive Lego project now
Speaker 1: oh gosh, to three four hundred dollars. I don't know,
Speaker 1: they're very they can get very but what is the project?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's because Star Wars was the thing? Is
Speaker 1: it still Star Wars? Well, I don't know about the
Speaker 1: most expensive, but the some of the products, some of
Speaker 1: the popular lego sets for adults that we've been recommending
Speaker 1: are the this new line of botanical legos. So they're
Speaker 1: bouquets and cactuses, and they're they're pretty fun to build
Speaker 1: and pretty. They're pretty easy to have them. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they teach a lot, They teach a lot relations, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: What about gifts for pets for pets? Oh, Jason, so
Speaker 1: many gifts for pets. There's so many, you know. One
Speaker 1: of our most popular it gifts for pets that I
Speaker 1: actually got from my own dog is the I think
Speaker 1: it's called outward Hound like higher squirrel. It's it's basically, um,
Speaker 1: a plushy tree trunk and it's got holes in it,
Speaker 1: and then there are squirrels within that are squeakers, and
Speaker 1: so the dog, my dog Finn, after them. Yes, just
Speaker 1: so big is it? It is? You can get a
Speaker 1: small version that fits maybe three, and you can get
Speaker 1: a larger trunk that fits maybe nine and then you
Speaker 1: can buy replacement versions of the squirrels that inevitably get
Speaker 1: torn apart. Oh, I must, maybe I'll get that for
Speaker 1: the Frenchies. It's great. It's really they have their own
Speaker 1: real squirrels that they're after in a real tree trunk
Speaker 1: by the way, where they spend every single day at
Speaker 1: We had to put a fence around the apple tree
Speaker 1: because they were going to kill the this ancient apple
Speaker 1: tree that has a squirrel in it that taunts the
Speaker 1: dogs every day. So there's a real prey drive you. Now,
Speaker 1: I should have taken that as a as an idea
Speaker 1: for a toy that's probably be very popular. That manufacturer
Speaker 1: must be making a lot of money with that drunk
Speaker 1: that many people travel for the holidays. Um, what should
Speaker 1: we have as a travel gadget? Goodness, I have a
Speaker 1: whole list. Yeah, we have a lot of We actually
Speaker 1: have a piece up right now around what you should
Speaker 1: be bringing with you when you're traveling. It's up now.
Speaker 1: You definitely should bring a power bank or you know,
Speaker 1: a USB battery pack so that you can charge your
Speaker 1: devices while you're while you're out and about. Um, it's
Speaker 1: a good idea to have a long charging cord because
Speaker 1: you don't know where you're going to end up, and
Speaker 1: you might you might need to be at an airport
Speaker 1: where you you know, the outlet is a little bit
Speaker 1: is a little bit far away. A good noise canceling
Speaker 1: headphones are a good idea for a long trip like this. UM.
Speaker 1: Noise noise canceling headphones tend to be best for travel
Speaker 1: because they really block out the sound that like an
Speaker 1: airplane hum or as it's like yeah, yeah, so that's good. UM.
Speaker 1: A universal travel adapter is good, especially if you're you're
Speaker 1: traveling abroad. We'd also recommend um a necessary organizer so
Speaker 1: that you can organize all of your cables and all
Speaker 1: of your small gadgets. UM kind of similar to having
Speaker 1: a packing cube. It helps you keep everything organized. Again,
Speaker 1: not a bag. No more zip blocks please. So what
Speaker 1: product trends do you feel are overrated? I mean you
Speaker 1: don't touch on those, do you? Or do you suggest
Speaker 1: that there are some that are over We have things
Speaker 1: we test that we don't end up liking and we
Speaker 1: don't recommend buying, but then there there people tend to
Speaker 1: still want to buy them. UM. I would put air fryers.
Speaker 1: Air fryers is in that that category. We don't. It's
Speaker 1: basically a small convection oven. And if you we think
Speaker 1: you can get better value out of a convection toaster oven,
Speaker 1: which is just a little tiny oven with air blowing. Um.
Speaker 1: But people like like these pod air fryers, and especially
Speaker 1: if you're a you know, maybe cooking for your elf
Speaker 1: and you just need a little bit of food. Well, Emerrole,
Speaker 1: he was part of our company, loves his air fryer.
Speaker 1: There are lots of people that people love that one.
Speaker 1: We think rated on wire cutter, I better look it up. Um.
Speaker 1: I would say that there are also certain I think
Speaker 1: that smart home products are very very cool category. Smart
Speaker 1: speakers have obviously changed the way that we interact with
Speaker 1: our homes. Smart plugs are great. I think not everything
Speaker 1: needs to be smart. I don't know that we need
Speaker 1: a smart frying pan. I do not want a refrigerator
Speaker 1: that tells me that I'm out of milk. There you go, Martha, Okay,
Speaker 1: And I tried a little course at m I G
Speaker 1: many many years ago when I talked about that, I
Speaker 1: just don't want my appliance just talking to me. I
Speaker 1: don't want my dryer. I don't want that buzzer on
Speaker 1: the dryer to tell me that goes on and on
Speaker 1: and on because it's stopped. I can tell what it
Speaker 1: stops to do is listen. I will say that I
Speaker 1: I'm completely with you. There are in stances where smart
Speaker 1: appliances are very helpful, especially for people with accessibility issues.
Speaker 1: So let's say that you find or you have vision
Speaker 1: there there are real instances where some of these smart
Speaker 1: appliances can be very very helpful. But in some cases
Speaker 1: it's just a gimmick. Definitely, Yeah, definitely, So that's I
Speaker 1: was I was going to ask the question that, uh
Speaker 1: that I and the doctors who who have been working
Speaker 1: at my hospital at Mount Sinai, the Martha Stewarts Center
Speaker 1: for Living, have predicted the silver tsunami, and that's unprecedented
Speaker 1: increase in the number of older people in the world. Um.
Speaker 1: Many want to age at home. They don't want to
Speaker 1: be put into other people's homes or into you know,
Speaker 1: and uh so those products, um that will help make
Speaker 1: their lives easier. Is that has that been a category
Speaker 1: that you've been recommending? That is actually a category we're
Speaker 1: building out right. But I hope you do, and you
Speaker 1: should work with them with my hospital. That would be great.
Speaker 1: We love to the Center for Living is is all
Speaker 1: about home care. The pctors in our mouth sign I
Speaker 1: visit the patients at home. They find that if they
Speaker 1: have an illness, they recover quicker at home. So I
Speaker 1: would like to know about the products that you're looking
Speaker 1: at for them. We so we're at the very beginning
Speaker 1: of building this category out. We've we've experimented in the
Speaker 1: past with with reviewing products for people that will make
Speaker 1: it easier for them to age at home and UM,
Speaker 1: but we're really going more full force on it now.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think it the delicate balance for
Speaker 1: us and covering this category is that there we recognize
Speaker 1: that there are some readers who are buying these products
Speaker 1: for themselves, and there are some readers who are caregivers
Speaker 1: buying these products for totally a parent or a sibling,
Speaker 1: and so trying to navigate that and balance that coverage
Speaker 1: and make it as helpful as possible for for all
Speaker 1: of those communities is really important to us. Right now,
Speaker 1: we're working on UM a couple of guides. We're working
Speaker 1: on pill boxes, so we're looking at pill boxes that
Speaker 1: are just stand that just like the regular ones you
Speaker 1: would open. But we're also looking at smart pill boxes
Speaker 1: to see if there's any functionality be there that would
Speaker 1: be helpful for people. We're starting a guide to medical
Speaker 1: alert systems for people who are having you know, maybe
Speaker 1: who talk to me about that. I'm working with the
Speaker 1: company right now. It's very innovative and uh, that might
Speaker 1: be a very good subject for I think you're a
Speaker 1: little premature. Maybe wait another six months. We really working
Speaker 1: on it. That this is innovative. I wouldn't be involved
Speaker 1: with unless I thought it was really really good because
Speaker 1: because of the Center for Living in my interest in
Speaker 1: successful aging. That's this is very important. And I live
Speaker 1: alone and I need a life alert, but not the
Speaker 1: life alert that already exists. I need something much much better.
Speaker 1: What do you need? I need something that in case,
Speaker 1: in case I have a fall, will be able to
Speaker 1: reach somebody somewhere that could help me. Uh. And they
Speaker 1: don't all do that, None of them do it. Depending
Speaker 1: on where you are, you know, you're not as sured.
Speaker 1: And that has a battery life of more than one day.
Speaker 1: Right that's the other big problem because right now, all
Speaker 1: the life alerts only are about a day of charge
Speaker 1: and you take it off at night, and then you
Speaker 1: take a shower and you fall in the shower and
Speaker 1: nobody's there to help you. Yeah. See, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of a lot of challenges in a
Speaker 1: in a life alert. So that's another subject. We will
Speaker 1: come back to wire Cutter when when we have hopefully
Speaker 1: helped develop the best best product out there. But Christine
Speaker 1: and Jason, thank you so much. This has been really
Speaker 1: interesting and uh and uh. To read product reviews from
Speaker 1: wire Cutter, head on over to n Y times dot
Speaker 1: com slash wire Cutter. I'm sure you're going to find
Speaker 1: it to be a great resource that you will turn
Speaker 1: to time and time again, especially during the holiday seasons.
Speaker 1: Happy holidays to all of you, and thank you again.
Speaker 1: It was very nice sitting down with you. It was
Speaker 1: wonderful to flix