[Gurgler]

There is a similar organization in the USA: Consumer Reports. It used to be a magazine, now I believe it's just a website. Entirely funded by subscription - and not advertisement or other sponsorship - they tackle entire categories of consumer goods in the USA, rigorously testing and ranking competing products across many metrics.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

They are also incorruptible.

If they give your product good marks, you are not allowed to mention it in your marketing (Not sure how they enforce it; maybe they stop reviewing your stuff).

I worked at a company that regularly got top marks from them, and our Marketing folks would have fits, because they couldn't mention it.

[alamortsubite]

Sounds great, but Consumer Reports definitely has a checkered past. Read about the Suzuki Samurai debacle, in which they methodically manipulated their tests (strictly for that vehicle, and not any of the others in its class that they were simultaneously evaluating), with the goal of destroying the vehicle's reputation.

https://www.aim.org/aim-report/aim-report-a-black-eye-for-co...

[TheRealDunkirk]

They might be ethical, but they don't "live" with appliances to really figure out what they're dealing with, either. I used Consumer Reports' recommendation to buy a full set of appliances for a new house about 18 years ago. I bought "GE Gold" washer, dryer, fridge, stove, microwave, and dishwasher.

Within 2 years, every single one had failures. For instance, the oven's convection fan failed in a month. The washer AND dryer completely failed within 3 years. I bought refurbished units from a local guy, and when I told him what I had, he didn't even want them to flip again.

I, too, resigned myself to the fact that, unless you pay for commercial-grade appliances, it's all crap, and you may as well just buy the cheapest thing at Lowe's, and replace it when it fails. The industry deserves all the loss of trust they have earned.

[grepfru_it]

I’ve had great success with them, my vacuum is going strong after 13+ years, washer and dryer great after 9 years. But I’m still harboring negative feelings about their car reviews. They marked the 2013 Ford Edge as a great vehicle with minimal flaws, but when they reviewed the 2014 Ford Edge they found an array of problems and lowered the score. While I was researching and shopping for my Ford Edge I found the 2013 and 2014 were exactly the same cars. I think they enhanced the weld points for ANCHOR points to support 60lbs instead of 45lbs, but that was the extent of changes.. small and incremental. Yet CR faulted them for excess road noise, stiff suspension, and reliability. I test drove both mode years and they both performed and sounded exactly the same. Major parts including suspension were interchangeable as well. We went with the 2013 to save money before the CR reviews for 2014 came out. It made me realize their reviews are not consistent, especially when Tesla Model S went from having top marks to all of a sudden being scored very low. These are not cars that drastically changed between the years, so just buyer beware YMMV

FWIW, I do love my Ford Edge and it is still the daily driver for our household

[tomohawk]

I'm a member of CR, but they obviously have their biases and blind spots.

Sometimes they start with a premise they want to prove instead of just providing a straight review of the products. They may do this by selecting the criteria (key performance metrics), for example.

Sometimes, they just don't competently evaluate the products because they fail to take into account real world consumer needs.

The quality of reviews in CR these days doesn't hold a candle to what CR used to provide, but I remain a member because even a weak signal is better than the other random stuff out there like Amazon reviews.

[nobodyofnote]

They actually do allow you to mention it in marketing; I've worked with them for a consumer product. What you can't do is use it in "paid" marketing.

Emails, social media posts, website landing pages, collateral in-store/retail is all fully acceptable. You can also pay additional fees to them for additional materials to use in communications.

[pandaman]

It is apparently allowed to put a link to the review, saying "Check out how CR reviewed us" e.g. https://www.lg.com/us/laundry

[game-of-throws]

Another similar site is https://www.rtings.com/. They do very scientific, thorough quality tests. I've only used them to buy monitors so far, but it looks like they're starting to branch out from tech -- they have new categories for blenders and vacuums.

[ghostpepper]

Hopefully they don't go the same path as the Wirecutter. Started out great and small and independent and slowly started watering down reviews as they branched into more and more areas. They are now owned by the NYTimes and the quality of the reviews is much more hit and miss.

[TylerE]

Their conclusions are somewhat suspect sometimes though… with weird qualifications for “best” that often barely effect actual functioning. Like, heavily weighting quietness over power.

[wtallis]

Are you referring specifically to their car reviews? Those seem to regularly attract criticism for not being more like traditional car enthusiast-oriented reviews.

I think that's largely due to car enthusiasts having insufficient self-awareness about the degree to which their priorities differ from those of mainstream consumers. PC gamers and PC building enthusiasts are also frustratingly prone to this kind of thing. (I spent several years reviewing PC hardware for a living, which included constantly fielding comments from readers who seemed to be genuinely unable to understand how their could be a market for low-end components.)

[linkdink]

At least they're open about how they weighed their values. And they give you enough information to draw your own conclusions from your own values. Some people want to be told what's "best", and they've found a way to make everyone (minus one) happy.

[abawany]

Consumers Report still has a magazine - I subscribe to it for a lower cost than the online access.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I had a problem with them where their rating methodology for carpet cleaners was not adequate. So the cleaner with strongest cleaning capability was like 10th in the list, instead of first

[cptnapalm]

It's still a magazine. Source: I work at a library and put the September 2022 issue on the shelf last week.

[mcphage]

My dad always used Consumer Reports to pick products, and... I dunno, they didn't seem to be super great.

[switchbak]

I've seen some reviews for which I know a fair amount, and often the testing and rating rubric are ... Bewildering and unsophisticated. I love the idea of Consumer Reports a lot more than the actual thing itself.