PhoneSoap 500-1 Cell Phone Sanitizer & Charger Box White (Open Box)

Our entire family recently came down with the stomach flu, so in addition to bleaching down the house top to bottom, we started thinking about other less obvious ways germs could be getting passed around. After reading about what germ traps our smartphones are, sure enough we came across PhoneSoap. I really wanted this to work and was excited to try it out. I followed the instructions, plugged it in and it immediately lit up...great! Or so I thought. Next I opened it up, placed my phone (Pixel 2) inside and closed the lid...and the light turned OFF. Hmm...I tried to see if it was running by looking through the small pinhole at the end of the device and could see nothing. It makes no noise so the only indicator that it's doing anything is the lightning indicator on top. Thinking maybe it was an issue with my phone (though unlikely), I placed our iPhone inside and tried again. Same result. The device only lit up when there was no phone inside, LOL! I guess it's great for cleaning empty air? Double checked their website and the description and confirmed the indicator light is supposed to come ON for 10 minutes while it is cleaning the device. So my unit was essentially doing the exact opposite. I called the customer support #, got an automated response to hold, listened to on-hold music for 5 minutes, then the automated system popped back up and said no one is around, please leave a message. So I instantly submitted a defective return and it's now headed back to wherever it came from. Bummer! I get it, hardware products are hard to design, test, manufacture and distribute to customers, especially as a smaller independent outfit without the largesse of Samsung or Apple to absorb enormous QC and support costs. Unfortunately, the bar is just higher for consumer electronics and there's not a lot of wiggle room for such a bad user experience.