Why VANNR is testing before making claims

We could have launched this site with a substance list. The supplier documents in this category come with them as standard: chlorine, heavy metals, scale, a stage count, a percentage. It would have taken an afternoon to put on a page.

We are not going to, and it is worth explaining why, because the reasoning is the product.

A certificate for a different product is not evidence

Filtration test results are specific. They apply to a particular housing, with a particular cartridge, containing a particular medium, tested at a particular flow rate and temperature, against a particular water, for a particular volume.

Change the housing and the contact time changes. Change the cartridge supplier and the medium changes. Change the flow rate and the result changes. A certificate that came with a component is evidence about that component under those conditions — not about the finished product a customer would unbox.

This is the single most common sleight of hand in the category, and it is usually not even deliberate. A brand receives documentation from a manufacturer, reasonably assumes it describes what they are selling, and publishes it. The claim travels further than the evidence.

What we are doing instead

Our sequence is deliberately boring. Product architecture. Supplier sample evaluation. Pressure and leak testing. Filtration testing of the final production configuration by an independent laboratory. Beta installations in real bathrooms. Then a production decision, then launch.

Filtration testing sits deliberately late in that list, after the hardware is settled. Testing an early sample would produce a number we would then have to withdraw.

What we will publish

The laboratory. The protocol. The exact configuration tested. The water used. The flow rate and temperature. The volume at which the result was measured, and the point at which performance falls off. And the limitations — including the parts that make the product sound less impressive.

We will also publish what VANNR ONE does not do. It will not soften water. It will not treat a medical condition. It will not do anything for the water anywhere else in your home.

Why this is a commercial decision, not just an ethical one

Every claim we publish is a claim we have to defend — to a customer who feels misled, to a competitor, or to a regulator. In the EU, unsubstantiated product claims are not a grey area. Building the evidence first is slower and considerably cheaper than building it after someone asks.

It is also, we think, the more interesting brand to build. There is no shortage of shower filters making large promises. There is a shortage of ones that tell you exactly what they measured.

If you want to follow the actual results

Founding-list members get the test results when we get them — including the ones that do not go our way — plus a say in finish and specification decisions before they are locked.