IMPORTANT Unlike most (if not all) other product evaluation publications, REALITY Ratings & Reviews does not charge a manufacturer to submit a product for evaluation.

FirstLook

A product usually enters the review process by having its preliminary overview posted in FirstLook. Once we receive a product for FirstLook:

Step 1 We review the manufacturer’s claims.

Step 2 We run a truncated series of tests in the REALITY RESEARCH LAB (RRL) if applicable.

Step 3 We use the product clinically (whenever possible and time permitting).

Step 4 The Editor-in-Chief will then combine the RRL findings with the clinical preview and produce a preliminary report that will be posted on the site and categorized as a FirstLook entry.

The Ratings

For a product to be considered for The Ratings, where it will be assigned a star and numerical rating and be ranked in its specific category, it must go through a full evaluation. This can also lead to other accolades, such as New Product of the Year and Product of the Year. Here are the steps:

Step 1 Manufacturers alert us as to what products they would like us to evaluate.

Step 2 We email the evaluators and let them know what products are being submitted for evaluations. The evaluators then volunteer to be on the evaluation team for each specific product. The minimum number of evaluators for consumable items is 11, while it is six for equipment items.

Step 3 The list of evaluators for each product is sent to the manufacturers. It is the manufacturers’ responsibility to ship the products to the evaluators in a timely manner.

Step 4 Once all the evaluators confirm receipt of the product through an email to us, the 3-month evaluation period will begin. Manufacturers are permitted to contact the evaluators during the evaluation period to be sure everything is working properly, but the evaluators are not required to reply to these overtures. Some evaluators welcome these contacts, while others prefer to evaluate the product without any contact with manufacturers.

During this 3-month period, the RRL will conduct lab tests (if applicable) on the product.

Step 5 At the end of the 3-month evaluation period, the evaluators will complete a custom evaluation form that the Editor-in-Chief creates for each product. We then collate the comments and scores of the evaluators, add in any appropriate RRL lab tests results, and post the final report on this site.

Step 6 Manufacturers are then sent an email with a link to their product’s report. We welcome any comments and/or corrections, but we don’t change reviews unless there are obvious errors of commission or omission.