PhotonWrangler
Flashaholic
I bought a couple of "UVC Sanitizer Box" devices recently out of curiosity to see if the LEDs might be useful for other projects. This is a white plastic tub with a door that's marketed as something for sanitizing your cellphone, keys or other small objects. Put your phone inside, close the door and push the button to "sanitize" it in 5 minutes.
The photos on the carton show an array of bluish LEDs running along both sides of the tub and imply that the device bathes your cellphone in UVC light.
Upon close inspection I found that all of the LEDs look the same except for one larger metal encased one on the left side. The others are smaller ones with white plastic cases. Hmm.
I unboxed a second unit and found the same thing. This wasn't a manufacturing fluke; they intended to have one LED that's somehow different from the rest of them. Could it be that only one of the LEDs is actually UVC and the rest are fake?
It turns out that this is indeed the case. I used a UVC-detecting phosphor indicator and confirmed that this sanitizer contains exactly ONE actual UVC LED, and the rest are regular blue LEDs whose wavelength was carefully chosen to resemble the same visible color that's emitted by the actual UVC LED. This means that if you put your cellphone in thiis unit, it will only sanitize the upper left corner of the phone! The rest is just Covid sanitization theater.
I wanted to give everyone a heads-up on this so you don't wind up fake-sanitizing your phones or other devicves. The SKU on the bottom of the carton is 7498603211,, Item # 03211 from TV Direct LLC, sold in the DIY chain that rhymes with petards for around $10.
The photos on the carton show an array of bluish LEDs running along both sides of the tub and imply that the device bathes your cellphone in UVC light.
Upon close inspection I found that all of the LEDs look the same except for one larger metal encased one on the left side. The others are smaller ones with white plastic cases. Hmm.
I unboxed a second unit and found the same thing. This wasn't a manufacturing fluke; they intended to have one LED that's somehow different from the rest of them. Could it be that only one of the LEDs is actually UVC and the rest are fake?
It turns out that this is indeed the case. I used a UVC-detecting phosphor indicator and confirmed that this sanitizer contains exactly ONE actual UVC LED, and the rest are regular blue LEDs whose wavelength was carefully chosen to resemble the same visible color that's emitted by the actual UVC LED. This means that if you put your cellphone in thiis unit, it will only sanitize the upper left corner of the phone! The rest is just Covid sanitization theater.
I wanted to give everyone a heads-up on this so you don't wind up fake-sanitizing your phones or other devicves. The SKU on the bottom of the carton is 7498603211,, Item # 03211 from TV Direct LLC, sold in the DIY chain that rhymes with petards for around $10.