I seriously doubt this bag is real. This is long-winded. I only have a few ways to test without the UV cards. It does not light up the UV images / holographic images that are embedded in my driver’s license or my passport. The trick is to stick your phone in an open portion so the magnet lets the light’s activate. I have a regular UV light pen and it does. It did not change the shade of my transition lenses in my glasses. This happened in about 10 seconds with the UV pen and it also did not change the color of an egg to red. I tried every trick I could search for without a microscope and samples. This could be a very very low power UVC light which would be one that I wouldn’t count on to actually sterilize anything in the 3 to 5 min, just put on a fancy light show. It also does not come with a power supply, you will need your own. You can however use the bag as a reflector if you have an actual UV light you may want to put in here. But I would stay away from this one.
Agreed. Looks like yet another near-UV LED product. UV-C isn’t even purple to the human eye. At best this is maybe UV-A, but that’s not disinfecting.
Lunch bag with purple LEDs.
There are LEDs that produce disinfecting UVC, but they seem to be very expensive. This makes sense as they need to have quartz lenses with metal bodies, since most plastics and glass will filter out the UVC. I have made some sterilizers, but by far the most cost effective way is to get UVC emitting fluorescent bulbs. You can get them in either bare-bulb form and hook them up to a ballast or you can get them in a CFL style with a built-in ballast, where the bulb just screws into a standard light socket. They sell bulbs both with and without the ozone-blocking coating.
I regard anything with LEDs in it at this price point as either gimmicky (too low powered) or straight-up fake.
The best inexpensive way is the banana test. Put some electrical tape on a couple places, put your banana near the light, fire it up and leave it for a few minutes. Your banana will turn brown/black in areas exposed to UV-C. Peal off the tape and it will still be yellow. Over time, after exposure, the banana will get darker but the tapped areas will stay yellow. I’ve purchased ONE bulb that I’ve sent back. It was a 360 screw in type that did nothing but get hot. I’ve also made a couple of boxes. I used a HVAC UV-C light and a smaller type UV-C light. Tested and it works. I just installed a dual light kit in my HVAC. Off ebay for $63. Installed it just before my MERV-13 filter in an area so it will “reflect” all over, killing anything that gets near it. I did the banana trick. Took less then 5 minutes to turn a yellow banana to a blackend mess, with 3 yellow stripes. As these sellers post the output of these lights to be in the UV-C range, who’s to say they are not lying? The first thing one should do is the banana test. Cards are fine, but expensive.
I have a UVC corded lamp and a UVC LED phone sanitizer. Both these after running a cycle produce a slight Ozone smell which tells me the UV is working. Does this product produce an Ozone odor in when used? If not then I would question it ability to disinfect. Ozone is a by product if all but the most expensive quartz UV tube lamps. Normal glass and plastic with give off an Ozone odor.