Razer to pay out over $1 million in refunds over its misleading (and hideous) Zephyr face mask

rockpapershotgun.com:

Razer, makers of various pretty good gaming peripherals and one deeply questionable face mask, have been slapped with a $1.1 million fine by US regulators after said mask was determined to have misled buyers over the amount of protection it afforded. Kotaku reports that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took issue with Razer’s claim that the Zephyr, an RGB monstrosity released during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, could act as a medical-grade N95 respirator – it could not – and will allocate $1 million of that fine towards refunds for fooled, if colourfully illuminated, buyers.

As early as the 2021 press release announcing it, with the initial name of Project Hazel, Razer had indeed suggested that the Zephyr would feature "N95 medical-grade respirator protection," with much of the press – including, hands up, us – relaying the claim. However, as various users and media discovered, the mask’s filters were not actually certified to the N95 standard (which is broadly equivalent to the FFP2 standard here in Europe). In fact, Razer never even submitted the design to the federal agencies that could grant N95 certification through testing.

A few years later, Razer have long removed any mention of N95 filtering from its Zephyr marketing and packaging, but that was evidently too little, too late for the FTC. In yesterday's statement, the regulator said that Razer "falsely marketed" and "misrepresented" the protection it provided, including from COVID, and they'd be subject to a $100,000 civil penalty on top of the money being claimed for refunds.

I’m not saying this as some kind of smug victory lap – there is a non-zero chance that people got sick and/or made others sick because they believed the Zephyr was more effective than it was – but my word, I remember hating this thing. I hated how it looked, I hated how much more expensive it was than a regular N95 medical mask, I hated how many people wrote previews and posted photos from demo events wearing it like it was a