How Our Readers Made Wirecutter Better in May 2020

Thanks for all the tweets, comments, and emails you wrote in May. Even though we can’t always respond, you’ve been sharing helpful performance feedback and tips with us and each other, flagging stock issues and deals, and asking good questions. Here are just a few of the ways you’ve helped us recently.

Coverage you inspired

Wirecutter’s Secret to Making Great Picks: Obsessive Spreadsheeting: We get a lot of questions about how we decide which contenders are the best and which ones get relegated to the Competition section. To shine a light on our process, fact checker Ellen Airhart wrote about comparison tables, the color-coded spreadsheets Wirecutter staffers use to collect data from our research and testing in preparation for making our final recommendations and writing our reviews. What other questions do you have about how we work? Let us know in the comments.

Free and Discounted Services for Teachers: We put this list together at the request of a teacher. Thank you to all teachers for your hard work during this difficult time.

7 Things You Need for an Ergonomically Correct Workstation: We’ve been getting lots of questions about working from home lately, since so many people have had to create new home-office spaces on the fly. If it sounds like you’ll be working from home for the foreseeable future, and if you’ve been spending an uncomfortable amount of your working hours slouched on a couch, consider investing in the gear necessary for keeping you as healthy and pain-free as possible. Good office chairs can be quite expensive purchased new; check your local office-liquidation stores for huge discounts available right now.

Things we’re looking into thanks to you

Screen protector fit issues with the new iPhone SE: Commenter Wes let us know that the TechMatte screen protector we were recommending for the new iPhone SE didn’t fit well. This came as a surprise to us for a few reasons. First, Apple had told us that all iPhone 7/8 cases would be compatible with the new SE, and that it would use the same exterior design. In addition, the screen protector that Apple sells works for the iPhone SE, 7, and 8, and in our own testing, we saw no differences in the curvature of the screen (testing by publications we respect found the same). Those factors all led us to believe that the protectors we’ve been recommending for years for the iPhone 7 and 8 would work for the SE—but we were wrong. We appreciate that Wes let us know there was a problem right away, and we apologize to all readers who were affected by this. We have since conducted additional testing, and we updated the guide with surefire screen protector recommendations for the iPhone SE last week.

Changes to one of our favorite thermostats: Commenter Ashby let us know that the Ecobee SmartThermostat’s eco+ mode has been a major source of frustration recently, especially since it wasn’t immediately clear how to turn eco+ mode off. Editor Jon Chase investigated the issue and replied in the comments:

Hi Ashby--we looked into it with our long-term testing models and have reached out to the company for more detail, but the good news for anyone who is having issues is that you can disable eco+ for a customizable period, including indefinitely. To do so, go to the app and click on the main menu button (bottom left corner); click on the arrow by eco+ and on the next page touch the green "enable" and then select disable indefinitely (or one week or today). That will make your ecobee work as it had in the past. We have several related questions for the company as, like you, we weren't thrilled to learn that our 'stat had updated automatically and that our kids bedroom had become uncomfortably chilly as a result.

We’re planning to post updates when the company replies.

Good questions

Do bike helmets go bad? On our review of bike helmets for commuters, commenter mxxcon asked us whether helmets deteriorate over time.

Turns out that senior staff writer Eve O’Neill wrote a blog post answering that question a few years ago, laying out what to keep in mind when you’re wondering whether it’s time to replace your helmet. You should replace your helmet if you’ve been in a crash or taken a hard fall, but otherwise you don’t need to worry about the foam itself deteriorating over time. However, the chin straps, retention system, and outer shell can all degrade over time, due to either wear and tear or UV exposure. If you ride frequently, replacing your helmet periodically seems wise to us, but a helmet that you store out of the sun and use only occasionally may last for quite a long time. Just make sure to give old helmets a thorough inspection before getting out on your bike again.

What’s the best way to store different kinds of produce in the fridge? On our guide to the best reusable produce bags and beeswax wraps, commenter Steve asked us about the ideal storage strategies for various fruits and veggies.

Steve’s timing was excellent: Senior staff writer and kitchen expert Lesley Stockton was just finishing up a post covering how to keep your produce fresh for weeks, with instructions for a broad variety of fruits, herbs, roots, and vegetables, from potatoes to ginger to watercress. Commenter pri101 asked us if we could distill Lesley’s advice into a handy reference chart, which is a great idea—we’re happy to report that a chart is officially in the works.

Excellent contributions

Shout-out to Bart Windrum! On a post about our favorite go-to ceiling fan, senior editor Harry Sawyers asked readers to share suggestions, requests, and information about their experiences to help us plan how to expand our coverage of ceiling fans in the future. Bart Windrum rose to that challenge on the last day of May, going into depth on personal experience, price range, and criteria, as well as favorite and least-favorite models—this comment is like a Wirecutter review in its own right. Here’s one particularly notable passage from Bart’s comment, which gives us insight into ways we could make our coverage more helpful:

The more I shopped the less I liked everything I saw. Many housing shapes are odd (my terms for them: cake, cylinder, bell, sphere) and virtually all of them are too massive for small rooms. Hugger models that install as close to ceilings as possible almost always extend the full visual mass of the housing even more. A class of “haute design” fans feature blades I refer to as propellers, making the fans objets d’art. I really like the look of blades whose ends disappear into the housing rather than affix to visible arms, yet those disappearing blades inevitably increase the mass of the housing. Some models limit blade colors to match the housing, making the fan monochromatic. Light lenses tend toward the annoyingly large with the worst being deeply bowl-shaped. Saving real-world shopping for last revealed what I expected—that it’s near impossible to get a real sense of a fan’s mass and aesthetics from pictures; I kept wanting to see depictions from different angles and distances. The likely-impossible ideal is to see all of one’s contenders “in the flesh.”

Impressive work, Bart. Thanks for sharing your experience with us and with other readers.

Shout-out to Burner Man! In the comments of our post on ideas for organizing small kitchens, Burner Man penned an ode to over-the-door hooks, racks, and shelves, sharing wisdom on optimizing the magnetic real estate offered by the fridge and making clever use of hooks and over-the-door racks inside cabinets. These tips and pieces of advice speak to many years of wrangling equipment in a less-than-generously-sized kitchen environment. Thanks, Burner Man, for sharing your hard-won knowledge. This isn’t the first time we’ve been impressed by reader expertise in this arena: Late last year we published a roundup of readers’ small-kitchen tips and suggestions.

Editor’s note

The protests that have followed the killing of George Floyd have amplified conversations about systemic racism in every part of people’s lives. We know the problems of racial injustice can’t be solved with products. However, we also know we can do our part to do and be better. Black lives matter. We are actively working to improve the role that race and representation play in the products we recommend, the companies they come from, the sources we seek out in our research, and the diversity of our own staff. We know that doing better in all of these areas will directly improve our ability to help readers.

We are also listening. What can we do better? What advice and context are you looking for that you’re not getting from us yet? We don’t have all the answers, but we welcome your feedback. Comment below or email us to let us know.

—Ben Frumin, editor-in-chief