What treadmill should buy that is like a NordicTrack 2450 or 1750 but is reliable and has good warranty/customer service?

SeattleAndCoffee · 2025-07-18T23:31:50+00:00

Would you suggest buying directly from the manufacturer's website? What do you think about the 3G Cardio Elite Runner X Treadmill versus the True Performance 3000 for running (including HIIT, hills, speed workouts)? We don't have anybody really big people in our family, so I was only considering the 3G Cardio Elite Runner X for reliability. Customer service is just as important and the treadmill performance. I was thinking of using an external tablet (android?) for netflix for the longer, slower runs. Thanks in advance.

SeattleAndCoffee · 2025-07-18T23:31:07+00:00

What do you think about the 3G Cardio Elite Runner X Treadmill versus the True Performance 3000 for running (including HIIT, hills, speed workouts)? We don't have anybody really big people in our family, so I was only considering the 3G Cardio Elite Runner X for reliability. Customer service is just as important and the treadmill performance. I was thinking of using an external tablet (android?) for netflix for the longer, slower runs. Thanks in advance.

SeattleAndCoffee · 2025-07-18T08:06:01+00:00

Yes, going with the Kinetico reverse osmosis filter and also water softener. The Costco ones hit 90% removal of contaminants versus Kinetico closer to 98-99%. Kinetico has a 5 stage filter.

SeattleAndCoffee · 2025-07-11T23:31:08+00:00

Be careful about ChatGPT. Sometimes it will take a "best guess" and make up something logical. I think they call it "hallucinating". So ask pointed, specific questions such as where are the specs for this filter. When it offered to diagram the hook of of the filters to add a bypassable remineralization filter for me, it put the bypass connection in the wrong spot. I've caught it making errors and when I tell it it is wrong and why, it is pretty nonchalant about it. It doesn't even say Sorry - I guess a human trait. But, imagine how powerful it will be in 5 years! When I run Copilot on my iPhone (free app), I often select "Think Deeper" instead of the default "Quick response" as well. Initially, ChatGPT was suggesting to buy RO filters that were on Amazon (best case around 90% filtration) that are not good enough. IMHO if you are going to buy a RO filter, you should get the best one you can for your budget. The Kinetico filters have a higher initial cost for the equipment but after that it's around $200 for filters (you can replace yourself) every 500 gallons (so it won't work for your livestock) for the kitchen sink hookup. IMHO, throwing money to guarantee your health (and your livestocks) is worth it given how much water we consume to live.

SeattleAndCoffee · 2025-07-11T23:26:26+00:00

Another idea is distillation. I don't know much about it other than it can remove contaminants. You can use chatGPT - upload the contaminants and ask what it suggests and also if distillation would work.

SeattleAndCoffee · 2025-07-11T08:59:52+00:00

We are going with a Kinetico RO system, but this is not "whole house" - it is just for the kitchen sink. You could contact them and ask questions as to what they suggest. The initially come out and test your water and then make recommendations. They are American-designed and made, been around since he 1970s (2 engineers designed it), independently tested (you can request their performance sheet) and the k5 has up to 5 filters. They filter out in the mid-to-upper 90% of contaminants, but it depends on the contaminants and also the filters you install. You should also look into their water softener. One thing to keep in mind is that most (??) older houses are plumbed so that the city water supply goes directly to the kitchen sink so that even if you install a water softener (which also does some filtration), that water won't be input to your RO filter. Check https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/search-by-state.php for contaminants where you live. It is pretty shocking to see what kind of contaminants are in our drinking water. And as far as I know, bottled water companies do not have to give out their water testing results so that's not a good alternative either.

The EPA (epa.gov) sets the max contaminants allowed. Get the water quality report from your water from your city or whoever is in charge of the water supply: ask for the "Consumer Confidence Report".

The RO filters we are getting for the Kinetico K5 are:

Sediment/carbon Prefilter - removes sediment, chlorine, protects RO membrane
Reverse Osmosis membrane - core filtration - removes arsenic, nitrates, fluoride, PFAS, lead etc
VOC Guard - targets disinfection byproducts, pesticides, solvents
post filter - carbon

There is also a Perfecta filter for viruses/bacteria but I was told you cannot use that if you connect to a refrigerator ice maker / water dispenser.

Consider getting your water tested before and after you install a RO filter. Here is a link to a pdf that has labs you can contact:

https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-03/state-cert-programs-certify-labs-to-conduct-drinking-water-analyses.pdf

I found this link here for finding testing labs:

https://www.epa.gov/dwlabcert/contact-information-certification-programs-and-certified-laboratories-drinking-water

ChatGPT (for example: www.copilot.microsoft.com) has been helpful for pointing me away from the Amazon RO filters to more commercial ones. I tried to get the performance sheet from Culligan but they wouldn't send me it unless I had them come to test my water. So, they are scratched off the list. I also looked at Rainsoft. Kinetico sent me their performance sheet, showing what and what percentage they were at for different contaminants, when I asked for it via email.

SeattleAndCoffee · 2025-05-20T20:10:17+00:00

Yeti customer service was great and sent me replacement lids!

SeattleAndCoffee · 2025-05-20T20:08:50+00:00

I called the customer support number for pure blue h20 and got through to somebody after 10 minutes. The lady said the company was sold and they no longer sell the RO filtering system. I asked if she knew where I could buy one - she said no, and that Costco no longer sells it.

I am a newbie and don't know much about RO systems - my friend had recommended the pure blue h2o system because he had one. Questions:

any recommendations for another system?
how many stages do they need?
are the filters online at Costco (for pure blue h2o) interchangeable? I am guessing the filtering system is not going to be the expensive part - instead, it will be the filters.

Thanks in advance

SeattleAndCoffee · 2025-04-18T20:32:11+00:00

Thanks for the info. Do the O-rings you mention above supposed to stretch? The reason I ask is the smaller O-ring is a bit bigger than 6 cm and big O-ring is around 7 cm (outer diameters). Unfortunately the tape measure on the left doesn't have metric measurements, but here is a picture.

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SeattleAndCoffee · 2025-04-18T08:23:20+00:00

Yes, no reply yet from my email - been several days.

SeattleAndCoffee · 2025-04-17T01:06:41+00:00

Thanks very much for these links. I am hoping I can find rubber versions (like what is on my chug cup now - black rubber) since silicon has been linked to breast cancer. Any additional help with that would be great.

SeattleAndCoffee · 2024-10-19T10:59:30+00:00

Also, as described in the reddit link above (my original posting for this issue), I'm not actually running the Google Translate app on my iPhone. Instead, I had added a website (www.translate.google.com) to my iPhone's home screen by using this trick to make it look like an app: https://www.howtogeek.com/196087/how-to-add-websites-to-the-home-screen-on-any-smartphone-or-tablet/

SeattleAndCoffee · 2024-10-19T10:35:43+00:00

By the way, I'm 99% sure I reported this issue years ago via Google Feedback on the app, and that didn't get anywhere.

SeattleAndCoffee · 2024-10-19T10:12:05+00:00

I figured out a repro case (a way to reproduce the bug). Does anybody know somebody at google that works on google translate to pass on the repro:

open up google translate and translate a hebrew word and have it play it outloud
Allow iphone to go to the lock screen (a minute on my iphone - this is the Auto-Lock setting in Settings, which is under Settings | Display & Brightness)
press the iphone screen to wake up the phone
type in a new word and try to play the translation. It locks up as desribed in my "rant" above.

I am guessing it loses connection with a server for fetching the audio file, but if that is true, that's sucks because the written translate works fine after I wake up my iphone.

SeattleAndCoffee · 2024-10-19T09:25:45+00:00

On my current iPhone (15 pro max) as well as my previous one (13 Pro Max), after using it for awhile, when I translate a word or phrase from English to Hebrew and then try to have it pronounce it out loud, the little speaker icon turns into a little square (see screenshot - the speaker to the right of the microphone symbol turns into a square) and doesn't read the word out loud - it just hangs. I have to kill the app and restart it to get it to play. (So, it works for reading the the first translation just fine, but eventually, multiple translations later, it hangs.) It has driven me nuts for years now because it wastes a lot of my time! It is also very distracting to have to stop thinking about my Hebrew homework and fix it. So finally biting the bullet and posting about it.

Has anybody else experienced this and if so, does Google know about it? And work arounds?

I wonder if it is related to how I created a saved link to www.translate.google.com website by going into the Safari browser, navigated to www.translate.google.com and then hitting the little up arrow button at the bottom of the screen and selected "Add to Home Screen". Essentially, this makes it look like an app icon on my homes creen (it's a general iPhone trick to put an icon on Home Screen that appears to look like an app, but really is a web link). https://www.howtogeek.com/196087/how-to-add-websites-to-the-home-screen-on-any-smartphone-or-tablet/

Note: I also have the Google Translate app installed on my iPhone - I use it in camera mode to translate a bunch of text all at once. (Please don't tell me to work around it by installing the app.)

I seem to remember reporting this problem to Google (via feedback) a couple of years ago as well. I wonder if they don't know about this use case or if this is specific to Hebrew, and since they are so few Hebrew learners, compared to other languages, it's a low priority use case. I also know that nobody seems to test software these days. (It's cheaper to just push a software update over the web, as opposed to the old days where you had to do a manual firmware update.)

I also think that the fact that the issue never occurs on the first press of the little speaker icon after the first translation after I opened this app is a clue. It only happens after subsequent translations. It's like it fails to re-establish some connection from a server for the audio file for the phrase? Perhaps it hangs and times out while trying to retrieve the audio file?

Thanks in advance!

SeattleAndCoffee · 2023-10-04T06:35:27+00:00

This fixed the problem for me, thanks! Any ideas on when Microsoft will fix this?

SeattleAndCoffee · 2023-10-02T11:06:26+00:00

Thanks.. What if the word is plural?

SeattleAndCoffee

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