ZeroWater changed their filters and now have a time release of a metallic element into the water after about 20-30 refills. Meaning, they make you change the filter unless you can stand the terrible taste. Super scammy. Their water tastes really good... until it doesn't. Then it's horrible.

Maybe it's to make it obvious when the filter is no longer trustworthy rather than letting something harmful but flavorless get through?

Maybe they just want to make more money.

Sounds like they care about their customers enough to add a mechanism like that. I think a transparent filter with a sensing colored indicator would be a much better and more customer friendly solution though.

Other filters have a shitty digital timer on the pitcher lid last time I checked. It never worked well so I resorted to changing the Brita whenever it started tasting funny. Now I just buy artesian alkaline water. I feel much better.

Most of these filters suck. Better off making your own. Buy silver coil and NSF coconut carbon. Use a french press type device to push water through your silver assorted carbon. Easy! And you save plastic since you made the filter yourself :-)

>Now I just buy artesian alkaline water

When the third world revolts, this will be their rallying cry.

Does anyone have a better suggestion? I am all for changing the filter on time but if they are putting something in the water at their choosing, that seems wrong.

ConsumerReports rated the Clear2O filter one of the best [0]. I've been using it for over 24 months in Pittsburgh, PA and I can definitely taste the difference. I haven't done the math, but I feel like their filters are cheaper than Brita filters. They have published a fact sheet on their website [1] showing what their filters remove.

[0] http://www.consumerreports.org/products/water-filter/clear2o...

[1] http://clear2o.com/download/PERFORMANCE%20DATA%20SHEET.pdf

I have a big berkey filter, I read good things about it though not sure how it compares. Anyone know?

Colour the water but leave the taste - can choose the alert colour.

Is it not more likely that the filter broke and that's just a natural effect of what happens? I have seen bad filters before and they make the water taste like acid — worse than if the filter was removed entirely.

I have now used about 8-10 filters and this same problem happens every time. It's not broken.

I think this depends on your water. I use my filters for 6 months at a time, every single day, and haven't noticed any effect like that. They do acknowledge some people get a fishy smell on their troubleshooting page:

https://www.zerowater.com/troubleshooting.aspx

[citation needed]

The first thing I thought of when I read this was that it reminded me of the smell added to propane, to help people detect leaks. Perhaps the company simply determined that their filters stopped working at that point, and give a perceptible indication of it.

Holy smokes that is so scummy.

ConsumerSearch also did a meta review of the best water filters:

http://www.consumersearch.com/water-filters

They wrote a buying guide for your next water filter:

http://www.consumersearch.com/water-filters/how-to-buy-a-wat...

Also, FYI, many treatment centers in the US and abroad changed from chlorine to chloramine without informing the public. It has less of an oder and taste, but basically no carbon filters on the market can remove it. This obsoleted one of the primary utilities of each household filter, so if you want it, then lookup which treatment method is used in your locale and how to remove it (if you care).

Another thorough review of water filters: http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-water-filter-pitcher/

Seems in-depth, but I have a hard time trusting reviews like this when they make affiliate dollars on clickthroughs.

Why? They could recommend any product via Amazon. Not a huge incentive to lie. Though a healthy skepticism is always good. For what it's worth these are the folks behind the Wirecutter.com. They are legit.

Consumer Reports does basically the same thing but you have to pay to subscribe -- no ads

I knew Brita wasn't great, but I didn't know they were so inferior. Thanks for the info!

We tried to use Brita but after a few months we gave up and bought a real water filter. Kids noticed change in taste of water.

Real means what?

Reverse osmosis

As far as i know there is no easy way to remove lead from water with a typical filter design.