About
The name is a joke. The purpose is not.
Stuff VS Things exists to do the assembly, in one place, honestly.
- No brand pays for a score, a ranking or a review
- Criteria, weights and anchors published
- Errors get corrected, not quietly left
Researched and edited by Michael Ambrose · Unbroken Ads LLC
The problem
Everyone does the same research routine. Nobody does it for them.
Ask someone what they do before buying something expensive and they describe the same routine. They check Amazon. They check Reddit. They watch a video. They read a review site and wonder who paid for it. Then they assemble a picture out of four or five incompatible sources and buy something, unsure whether they missed the thing that mattered.
Nobody does that assembly for them. Manufacturer pages sell. Retailer reviews mix real buyers with syndicated marketing. Most review sites rank whatever pays best and describe everything as excellent.
- Check Amazon
- Check Reddit
- Watch a video
- Read a review site, wonder who paid for it
Or one place that does the assembly
How products are assessed
Read How We ScoreEvery product carries two scores, kept deliberately separate because they answer different questions.
Usability
Our own assessment, against fixed tables
Each category is scored on its own eight criteria. Each criterion is scored against a published anchor table, so a given figure produces the same score on every product in the category. The anchors are published. You can check our work.
Social
What independent sources actually say
Five pools: Reddit, web coverage, video, Amazon and retailer reviews. Those are the five places people already look. Collecting them, labelling what each one covers, and scoring them consistently is the thing no manufacturer page does.
The rules exclude a lot
Several of the most confident-looking numbers on the internet do not survive them.
- A brand’s own widgetA review widget served from a manufacturer’s own domain is marketing, however precise the number looks.
- Syndicated reviewsRetailer reviews syndicated from the manufacturer are the same widget wearing a retailer’s badge.
- Brand-level averagesA brand-level rating averaged over replacement cartridges is not a rating of a $2,000 system, and where we use one we say so.
What we do differently
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1
An honest gap beats a filled cell
If a product has no independent review coverage, the page says that rather than showing an invented number. If a certification could not be verified in the certifier’s own database, the page says manufacturer-stated. Nothing is entered to fill a column.
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2
Certification scope is checked, not repeated
A certification for materials safety says a housing does not leach. It says nothing about removing contaminants. A certification held by a contract manufacturer does not transfer to the brand selling the system. Where the certified scope is narrower than the marketing, the gap is usually the most valuable sentence on the page.
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3
Sources are checked for who wrote them
Direct-to-consumer companies publish “honest reviews” of their competitors as marketing. We have found several, including one written by a company whose own products we cover. Those do not count as independent coverage.
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4
Errors get corrected
We keep a record of what was checked, when, and what changed. When something published here turns out to be wrong, it gets fixed rather than quietly left.
What we cover
See all categories1,259 products scored across 5 categories, each with its own eight criteria and anchor tables. Depth in one category is worth more than a thin layer across ten.
Who runs this site
Michael Ambrose
Researcher and editor · Unbroken Ads LLC, Hollywood, Florida
Michael is a former engineer turned marketer who questions everything and wants to know the real answer. He built this site because he does not want to market anything to anyone who has not been told the truth about it first.
When he buys something himself, finding accurate data and honest reviews means checking source after source, because no single one can be trusted. For most shoppers that has become normal. Too many review sites read as though the brands paid for them: inflated reviews with no context, and every product excellent.
Michael on LinkedIn (opens in a new tab)- IndependentPublished by Unbroken Ads LLC. Not owned by, funded by, or affiliated with any manufacturer or retailer we cover.
- No previewsAssessments are written and scored in-house against the published method. No manufacturer sees a page before it goes up, and none has editorial input.
- Commission never moves a score We earn commission on some links. It does not affect a score, a ranking or a criticism, and the full statement is in our affiliate disclosure.
- Built from sources, not a lab We do not test products ourselves, and every page says what it is built from. How the pages are made.
Tell us we are wrong
If a specification here is out of date, a price is stale, a certification claim is incorrect, or an assessment has missed something, we want to know. Corrections are made on the evidence, not on who is asking.