Sunday 20 March 2011

Airwick Freshmatic and cheap refills

I bought an Airwick Freshmatic a couple of months ago for the bathroom. It gives an automatic squirt of airfreshner every 30 minutes or so. Here in the UK, a replacement aerosol can to go in the device costs about £2.50 but there are cheaper ones for about £1 - but not made by Airwick.

The devide wants about non-genuine refills but I tried anyway. The replacement fitted OK but afte one squirt the red light on the device started flashing to show it had detected a refill it did not like. Question was - how did it know?

I took a good look and found some black/white bands on the side of the genuine refill nozzle and a small photosensor on the device to read these marks. As the nozzle went down to give a squirt, the sensor would see a change from black to white and so knew all was OK. My cheap refill did not do this - but a white stripe painted on the nozzle (I used the old typist correction fluid) was enough to fool the device and let me carry on.

Cheap refills for me now! Sorry Airwick (Reckitt-Benkiser)

Labels:

24 Comments:

At 28 April 2011 at 15:29 , Blogger Kelvinator said...

Very clever work Aayron. Love it. Tell me, does the device still work with the red light flashing?

 
At 1 May 2011 at 10:25 , Blogger Aayron said...

Works fine with the Green light - if you get the red light then it won't spray. Some other brand Refills are too big to fit in device. Those branded Air Pure and Air Express are too big.

The ones to go for are Broome brand made by OTL and sometimes to be found in Poundland.

Had a problem last week - batteries going flat so each time it sprayed it reset and so ended up spraying every 15 seconds!

 
At 19 February 2012 at 05:10 , Blogger Dusnoki said...

Could you send me a picture of what u did please? :D i'm struggling with it all day long :) thanks

 
At 24 February 2012 at 11:57 , Blogger Aayron said...

Having struggled to add a picture, I ended up creating a new blog entry with the picture attached.

 
At 25 June 2012 at 13:59 , Blogger Blaze said...

Dude!!! Best idea ever!! worked like a charm! Thanks from South Africa!!

 
At 25 June 2012 at 14:02 , Blogger Blaze said...

Oh yeah BTW, I used a piece of white label sticker on the side of the nozzle of the airosol container.. Fooled it!! ;)

 
At 19 January 2013 at 04:57 , Blogger PT Pipe Dreamer said...

My original airwick refil just ran out so i put a copy one in, had red light after one squirt.

Checked the little white nozzle bit on the original and there are no marks there ?

I can see the little sensor, i tried swapping the nozzle ends over but still wont work ?

Anyone help

 
At 19 January 2013 at 13:01 , Blogger zmartdog said...

Another tip is to just keep your original nozzle and put it on your cheaper one istead. Worked fine for me. Good luck

 
At 7 March 2013 at 09:53 , Blogger Unknown said...

just tried white nail polish red light green now and waiting for spray and yessss it work thank you very much luv it dont you

 
At 16 December 2013 at 23:04 , Blogger Unknown said...

Great blog. Your blog is interesting and so informative. Wait for your next blog post.
air wick freshmatic max refills

 
At 2 October 2014 at 10:47 , Blogger Vanessa du Frat said...

Ahah, just found this post, and I tried it, soooo cool, thanks a lot!!!

 
At 7 October 2014 at 19:36 , Blogger Unknown said...

can anyone tell me the name or generic brands I can buy for my Air Wick can sprayer? Where has anyone else purchase them or can you share the brand name so I can research it

 
At 12 February 2015 at 19:32 , Blogger Pompoms said...

This product is really very good, however way tool expensive. I pay $4.59 a can or 2 for $8.00..Costco sells 3 cans with a dispensor for about 10.00. So I guess I will keep buying the packs from Costco.

 
At 21 July 2015 at 07:08 , Blogger amz said...

hi. i bought a new airwick container and yet mine flashes red light... any idea please?

 
At 24 November 2015 at 07:19 , Blogger Unknown said...

Change the noozle. Take the noozle with the black marks that comes with the can in the complete package with the sparyer and pull it off, do the sane with the refill and replace it with the noozle with the black marks. Done !

 
At 1 February 2016 at 04:05 , Blogger dj57 said...

Yes as above change to the nozzil with two black lines, the airwick reads this, also you may have to trim a little of the neck the nozzle fits on, or even clue a little pastic on to the top of the nozzle to make it fit, well worth it for £1.00 refils happy days

 
At 29 February 2016 at 19:18 , Blogger Unknown said...

Well I just take the nozil off the original and put it on the cheap one. So much easier . No cutting no painting just pop off and pop on

 
At 7 March 2016 at 13:47 , Blogger Gordon said...

It doesn't fit

 
At 7 March 2016 at 13:48 , Blogger Gordon said...

It doesn't fit

 
At 19 March 2016 at 05:31 , Blogger Unknown said...

I used the old nozzle for one of our sprayers. The other had already been thrown out but rather than paint or stickers I just used a good ol' Sharpie. Done in seconds and good to go.

 
At 3 November 2016 at 02:47 , Blogger 3D Motor Maker said...

You are all over thinking the problem. I just slid a piece of white paper down the side of the nozzle - works a charm.

 
At 31 March 2019 at 06:46 , Blogger Unknown said...

Red light flashes even with new batteries and air wick refill
any ideas?

 
At 31 March 2019 at 07:32 , Blogger Stephen said...

There are several versions of the genuine refills. You may have the wrong one for your air freshener.

 
At 5 April 2020 at 00:24 , Blogger Kylieah said...

I got a cheap refill but the red light came on with the first spray. I just used a black marker to draw the lines on and it is working now.

 

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