Why Wirecutter Tests the Same Product for Years on End (2024)

After we test products for our guides, we do one of three things with them: Either we return them to the manufacturer or PR company, we donate or discard them (we’re not in this for swag), or we ask our writers or other people on staff to evaluate them for long-term testing. As the name suggests, such testing allows us to live with a pick for an extended period of time to gain greater insights about how it lasts. We want to know if a pair of hiking boots will hold up over a lengthy trek, for instance, or whether a mattress will start to buckle in the second month.

“There is no substitute for the time spent living with something and using it as you go,” says senior editor Harry Sawyers. Wirecutter’s editorial team does its best to re-create sustained wear and tear via an accelerated testing process (such as throwing storage bins down the stairs), but nothing can replace lived experience. Plus, not all product categories are best judged on durability alone. We wouldn’t throw a personal blender down the stairs, for example, but we might demote a blender pick if, say, its motor weakened and its blender cap started retaining water after just nine months of use.

Long-term test notes are nothing new at Wirecutter. Senior editor Erica Ogg, whose first job at Wirecutter in 2013 was to keep every guide accurate and up-to-date, notes that the site has been incorporating such observations for at least a decade. Back then, those extensive notes helped Wirecutter distinguish itself from other product-review sites, which might spend only a couple of days with a free test sample of a product before sending it back to the company. The same holds true today.

After we’ve written a guide and taken photos of the tested products, the writers of the guide may hold on to certain picks themselves for long-term testing. Other times we offer the picks to the larger editorial staff for long-term evaluation. (Supervising editor Marilyn Ong recommends this fun wheel tool for drawing names.)

The process looks a little something like this:

We log all tested products and their whereabouts. Over time, the long-term tester is expected to offer any feedback if issues arise and to keep notes on the item’s performance. Then, when editors update a guide, they incorporate those notes into the review.

If someone isn’t using their long-term testing item regularly, as in the case of a baby stroller once their little one has grown up, another staffer takes over the long-term testing, or we may donate the item to a local charity. This changing of hands through the years not only provides useful data on a pick’s performance over time but also brings unique perspectives to the guide.

Long-term testing can reveal flaws in a pick or underscore its quality. Take kids lunch boxes, for example. Senior editor Courtney Schley edited this guide years ago but remains a dedicated long-term tester. A mother of four, Courtney knows about school lunches (even if making them is her husband’s area of expertise). She has long-term tested three or four Bentgo lunch boxes (plastic and stainless steel), our pick for bento-style lunch boxes, and has noticed that they typically break after a year or two. Not bad, considering the abuse they go through. But the PlanetBox Rover Stainless Steel Lunch Box, our upgrade pick, is “indestructible,” says Courtney. It costs $60, but she estimates that it has survived at least 500 trips to and from school over several years, which means it’s a sounder investment than a Bentgo box.

A snapped hinge on a lunchbox is one thing, but long-term testing can also reveal more complex problems, such as software or firmware issues. For example, the Ultraloq U-Bolt Pro Wifi used to be the main pick in our guide to the best smart locks, but we changed it to also-great status after noticing battery drain and other quirks, such as the app’s failure to send a low-battery notification and a finicky fingerprint reader, that made it more of a specialty recommendation than a general pick for most people. The company communicated with us and acknowledged that the battery drain was a known but extremely rare issue. A firmware update released months later fixed the battery drain, and we’re still fans of the Ultraloq model’s features and general performance, so we continue to recommend it.

Sometimes though, long-term testing reveals a problem so critical, we can no longer recommend a pick. Senior staff writer Rachel Cericola, who covers smart-home technology, says that our smart-home picks usually fall out of favor because something newer or better comes along, rarely because they physically break. But that wasn’t the case with the Eufy Floodlight Cam S330, the floodlight pick in our guide to the best outdoor cameras guide. After nearly two years of periodic use, the camera suffered a water leak and broke. Rachel contacted Eufy customer service, who determined that the unit was defective but was ineligible for replacement since it was outside of its one-year warranty period. “An outdoor camera should be able to live outside for longer than 18 months,” says Rachel.

If you are a regular Wirecutter reader, you might have noticed that we adhere to a certain structure in our guides, with specific sections such as “Who this is for,” “How we picked and tested,” and “The competition.” (You can read more about the logic behind such sections in this look at the anatomy of a Wirecutter guide.) We incorporate the information from our long-term testing of a pick within our review of it. For instance, in our review of the Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy rice cooker, we have added a small section discussing how it has held up over the years (great, but a little difficult to wash by hand).

Whether we pull a pick or keep it in the same spot after performing new rounds of testing, we let readers know in an update box, which looks like this:

You’ll find the real meat and potatoes of long-term testing in the pick sections, where it’s our job to clearly explain a product’s merits before you decide to spend your hard-earned money. Usually, we put long-term testing notes in a section titled “How the [name of the product] has held up” or in the form of a paragraph with a bolded lead-in, like this one about our air purifier pick, the Coway Airmega AP-1512HH Mighty:

When we say that a product has stood the test of time, we confidently do so because we have taken the time to evaluate it. On other occasions, long-term testing can help us learn about flaws in an item that a reader might want to know about—or it can teach us why something should no longer be a pick at all. And that’s why, even after we publish a guide, our work isn’t done.

This article was edited by Amber Angelle and Jason Chen.