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.