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Sonic Soak test and review

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Published on: 16-07-2018 / Modified: 23-01-2020

Crowdfunding

Sonic Soak got it's money from crowdfunding on Indiegogo, they managed to raise more than 2 million dollars to bring their idea to life. Ok, crowdfunding? What does it mean?

Crowdfunding should be seen as purchasing in advance. There are many ideas of new products/concepts on sites like Indiegogo or Kickstarter. If you find a product you're interested it, you can buy it at a cheaper price before it even exists. Your money will then be used to back the funding campaign and in the end, with a bit of luck, you'll get what you have paid for. Of course, there is always a risk that the initial idea never becomes a product so before investing, think carefully.

Sites like Indiegogo or Kickstarter are specialized in crowdfunding. So far I funded the Xgimi H1 projector, Wasteland 2 and Wasteland 3 and now Sonic Soak would be my fourth crowdfunding campaign.

I made my payment in March and at the beginning of July I still have not received anything because the production of the Sonic Soak has experienced some delays. The first items were sent in June and I received an email this week indicating that my order will arrive mid-August. Delays are common in this kind of project so I just have to wait. Sonic Soak managed to raise 2.2 million dollars, it is a great success, it should give them the means to reach their production objective.

Timeline / updates

18/04/18:
I bought one unit of Sonic Soak's device for 150 USD

31/08/18:
I received a mail telling me that the unit has been shipped

06/09/18:
I have received the device! I can now start testing it.

09/09/18:
unboxing the device, taking some pictures. The device died with a bang during the first test. I contacted Sonic Soak about it

10/09/18:
I discovered that I wasn't the only one with the same problem (especially in Europe)

15/09/18:
after multiple mails exchanged with Sonic Soak, they asked me to ship back the device to China.

01/10/18:
my defective sonic soak unit has arrived in China, I'm now waiting for feedback from the company.

16/10/18:
I have received a refund for the shipping cost and Sonic Soak has informed me that they would send a new unit as soon as one is available.

26/11/18:
I have received a new unit this morning, I'll test it in the next couple of days. It took a long time to get my unit back but SonicSoak kepts its engagement.

09/12/18:
I finally found time to test the Sonic Soak device (for the second time).

06/04/19:
I used the device to clean some newly bought clothes and
it literally blew up
, it's the second time!

06/12/19:
I received a new unit with better support for Europe and it finally works

Unboxing

The Sonic Soak device finally arrived and the box was much bigger than I had expected. I have taken some pictures to show the box and its content. It's pretty basic actually, there the device, a pouch and two leaflets. The box is very sober but doesn't give the impression to buy a shitty low cost chinese product, that's already a good start. I was really surprised by the size of the device, I thought it was smaller. The power connector is much bigger than the ultrasound device, it looks a bit like a wifi transmitter/extender while the ultrasound device looks more like a medical device. Now that I have everything, let's start playing with this new toy.

Initial test

The manual explains how to operate the device and for its first start you need to wrap the ultrasound device in thin aluminium foil and put it in a recipient full of water. As you can see or hear ultrasounds, you can at least see the effect by wrapping the device in an aluminium foil and that worked! On the picture you can see that it literally bore holes in the foil!

It's already dead

I was really excited to test this new stuff so I opened the box, read carefully the setup instruction and started my first test. To see if the device is working, you need to wrap it in a thin aluminium foil and put the ultrasound device in a water recipient. The objective of this test is to see if the device is working fine, the ultrasound should create holes in the aluminium fold. After the wrapping, I carefully put the device in the water and switch it on. It starts buzzing and I hear the aluminium foil litterally cracking, I could see some aluminium dust appearing at the bottom of the recipient, all seemed to work as expected until I heard a bang from the power connector. The device died only 1 minute after it started working. I tried the device in another power plug, I repeated the operation on different places in my house, the device is clearly dead. My electricity setup at home is new, the problem is definitely not coming from there. Now, the only thing I can do is contacting Sonic Soak and we'll see how fast (and well) they can react.

Am I angry? No but I'm disappointed, especially after seeing what the device can do to an aluminium foil. I hope now that I'll get another one soon so that I can do a complete test.

Second test - Aluminium fold

For my second test I followed the same method as for the first one. I first wrapped the device in aluminium fold and plunged it into the water for a couple of minutes. I was a bit afraid that it would blow up again but it worked fine without any issue. At the end of the test, I could see holes in the aluminium fold and some aluminium dust at the bottom of the water recipient. So first test is ok!

Second test - handkerchief + strawberry jam

For the second test I took a water recipient that I filled with hot water. I took a handkerchief, rubbed some strawberry jam on it, added some standard washing machine soap. I plunged the Sonic Soak into the water, it started buzzing like always, I could see some movement in the water, soap was moving around. I set the counter to 720 secondes and waited patiently until the end. I move the handkerchief a couple of times while the device was working.



After 720 seconds I checked the handkerchief, it was cleaner than when I dropped it into the water but the stain was still clearly visible. I decided to give it a second go without changing anything. I dropped it back into the water and turned the device on for 360 seconds this time. Once completed, I checked the handkerchief and the stain was almost completely gone, you could still see something to be honest but it was almost gone. I then rubbed the handkerchief a little bit in the water and the stain went mostly away. I really took a very careful check to see some traces.

Second test - screwdriver

After the handkerchief I wanted to test the Sonic Soak on a tool so I took one of my screwdriver, it had some white paint on the tip and some grease on the handle. I dropped the screwdriver in the water and left it with the Sonic Soak for 720 seconds. When I pulled my screwdriver out of the water I checked if there was any difference and yes, there was a difference but it was not spectacular. There was a little bit less white paint and the handle felt smoother but the biggest stains were still there.

Cheese raclette

Last night we had a raclette with some friends and what I don't like about raclettes is the cleaning. The last time we had raclette I damaged the coating of the little plates by rubbing too hard the melted cheese. I wanted to give it a try with Sonic Soak and see if it was of any help. The (good) surprise is that it greatly helped. I dropped the plates in hot water with sodium bicarbonate and I left Sonic Soak running for 720 seconds. From the start I could see the cheese peeling of the plates and the water getting dirty. After 720 seconds, most of the cheese was still there but it went off very easily by simple rubbing the plates with my fingers. I then removed the biggest part of the cheese that way and decided to plunge the plates for another round of 720 seconds to finish the cleaning and it did a good job. In the end, I still had to rub the plates a little bit but they were almost clean.

From the start, you can see cheese floating around:





After 720 seconds and rubbing with my fingers, the water is really dirty but most of the cheese is gone.



Finally, after 2x720 seconds, I clean what's left of the cheese with my fingers and I get clean plates



Now, to be honest, I'm sure there are other ways to clean those plates but what I liked is that I didn't have to do much and I did not damage the plates this time. If you leave the plates for a long time in hot water with the right product, it will also come off but it will take a much longer time.

Water tank for pets

I have two birds and they get their water through a water tank for pets which consists in a water container and a small metal tube at the bottom. The issue with this type of recipient is that water stagnates and some green stuff appears at the bottom. As the water container cannot be access easily with tools or your fingers, it is almost impossible to clean properly so I decided to give it a try with Sonic Soak.

As you can see, there is a lot of green stuff at the bottom.



I then plunged everything in hot water with soap and the Sonic Soak. I selected 720 seconds to start with.



After 720 seconds I checked the the water tank and yes, there was still some green stuff but a lot was already gone.



I repeated the operation twice which means that in total the Sonic Soak ran for 3x720 seconds. Just have a look at the picture below, it worked!



Yes, there are still some small traces but compared to the original state of the water tank, I can say that Sonic Soak did a pretty good job here!

Dead, again...

I recently bought sports clothes to go cycling that I want to clean before wearing them. As I had only two pieces of cloth to clean, I decided to use my Sonic Soak device. I turned it on like I usually do it, it started working like it usually does and then suddenly the device produced a loud bang and died. It's the second time it happens while I didn't do anything extraordinary with the device. I'll contact Sonic Soak but now there is no way I can recommend you to buy this device.

Update november 2019

Sonic Soak has sent me a new unit (it's my third one) and this unit has been designed to work in Europe. It will take me a while to test everything for the third time but so far it looks like it's working.

New version - test

The new version I received is supposed to support Europe standards and even if it looks totally the same from the outside, it hasn't blown up like the previous ones. I first did a test with a handkerchief stained with ketchup and red wine.

Then I plunged it in hot water with some soap and the new version of Sonic Soak:

I accelerated the movie so that you don't have to wait too much to see the result. The first thing that I noticed is that Sonic Soak vibrates much more than the previous version, you can really feel the vibration when you put your hand in the water. As you can see in the video, the stain are going away quite quickly. With the previous unit I had, I also went away but I had to use the device for more than 20 minutes to get to the same results. In this video, it takes around 6 minutes.

After the handkerchief, I tried a fried pan where some grease had burned after cooking some sausages. This kind of filth is not easy to remove with a simple sponge. As soon as I plunged the Sonic Soak device into the water, the water started to get darker. I could hear the device vibrating on the frying pan and the vibrations are also much more visible in the water too.




Again, I accelerated the video to avoid wasting too much your time but in the end, the result was that the pan was almost clean, I could rub the remaining grease with my finger. It also took something like 5-5 minutes to get to that result.

I have used my new unit for more than an hour now and it hasn't blow up like the other ones. I'll continue using it and update this page if anything happens with this third unit but it's the first time I can use it so much without any issue.