UV Soap is an automatic surface sanitizer product and I was asked if I wanted to cover it with a review. I said yes and a couple of days ago the product arrived. I've been using it since then and well, here's what I think of it.
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It is a good quality, small and compact product that uses UV light to deliver irradiation to a target surface and quickly eliminate germs and viruses. Now, while I can fully confirm the first part of that prior sentence, there's no way for me to 100% confirm if the product does what it actually advertises for, you know the whole sanitizing part.
The UV emitter on the unit has two LED UV lights that do the sanitizing work and one blue LED light so that you can understand when the unit is actually doing the sanitizing. The sub 300nm wavelength light damages any infectious agents' reproductive capacity. The whole cycle of sanitization lasts 60 seconds and is fully automated. UVSoap has a built-in IR sensor that can detect when a person is in the room. After the person leaves the room, the cycle starts and it sanitizes the surface. The whole thing is powered by three AA batteries which should last for around 220 total sanitization cycles.
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The unit is small, very portable and you can mount it pretty much whenever you want. A few examples are on a door to sanitize the door handle or in the bathroom to sanitize the faucet handle or on the wall for the light switch and so on. Or you can have a dedicated space, wherever you want, where you can place different objects like your keys, cellphone, wallet, whatever is small enough, and you can basically give it a UV bath. You can attach the unit to different surfaces like glass or smooth tiles and metal via the suction cup. Included in the packaging is also a round piece of smooth plastic with some strong adhesive on the other side which you can glue to rough surfaces like wood so that the suction cup has something to attach to.
Now the two main "problems" I have with this product are that one, it doesn't have a power switch and second, it doesn't have a button to initiate a cycle. Once you put those three batteries in the unit is live, always on and the cycles start automatically after they detect something. I wish I had more control over it. If I decide to remove the unit for whatever reason, I have to take out one of the batteries otherwise it might start a cycle on its own. Also, if I want to just give my phone or keys a quick UV bath I simply can't cause there isn't a dedicated button. I have to place the item under wherever I have placed the unit, leave the room, and wait for the cycle to complete. More control would have been appreciated and hopefully, we can see that included in the next iteration of this product.
Today we are living in a strange new world. There's a global pandemic due to COVID going on and of course, people need to be extremely careful what they touch as they don't know if a surface is contaminated or not. Products like UV Soap that advertise things like "Eliminate 99% of infectious agents" and actually deliver on what they claim can be lifesavers. And I believe that this sanitizer or if you'd imagine "an army" of sanitizers placed over faucet handles, light switches, door handles, etc. would be great for places that get a lot of traffic from all sorts of people. Think your workplace, or coffee shops, restaurants, public toilets, buses, metros, etc. cause you never who touched that surface prior to you. UV sanitization would be an additional layer to the overall safety of people. But for home use, I don't really think this item would do much cause if you are living with someone infected with a disease, having a clean doorknob would be the least of your problems when the rest of the house might be contaminated.
Is it really worth the asking price of $29,99? To me if feels like it. The product has a great quality build, has two UV LED and it seems to work as advertised. Does it actually kill 99% of infectious agents? That, I don't know, you be the judge.
There will be a Kickstarter campaign soon for this product and once live, I'll link it here. For more information check out their official website here.
