Should I set the one-hour timer or just switch it off myself?

People ask this expecting a mechanical answer, because the device has a clock in it and clocks feel authoritative. The record has no mechanical answer. It gives three speeds, a one, two or three hour shut-off, and a battery figure per charge, and it says nothing at all about which way of stopping a run is better.

The answer, in full

Do both. Set the one-hour shut-off as a floor, and switch the unit off by hand when you park and remember. The clock then acts only on the days your memory does not, which is the one thing a clock is good for. SOSA publishes no warranty term, no battery-cycle figure and no per-speed duration. So anybody who tells you that one way of stopping it is kinder to the hardware is inventing a figure that does not exist. A portion of every SOSA order supports girl-child education through Nanhi Kali.

Three ways of ending a run, and what each one asks of you

Stopping Safar is not one decision but three, and they differ only in what has to happen for the run to end. Nothing in the record makes one of them better for the hardware.

Your hand: exact, and only as reliable as you are

Pressing the control when you park ends the run with the drive. Nothing is left going and nothing has to be remembered later. The weakness is obvious: it works on the days you do it, and a commute is exactly the journey you make while thinking about something else.

Exact on the days it happens.

The one-hour shut-off: the floor under a bad morning

One hour is the shortest published setting. Used on a short drive it will usually outlast the journey, which is the point: it is not trying to match the drive, it is making sure the run ends without you. Set it, and the worst case has a ceiling.

Both together: the setting as a floor, your hand as the finish

This is what I do. The shut-off is set, so the run always ends; my hand ends it earlier on the days I remember, which is most days. The one thing I lose is the chance to learn what the unit would do left alone, and the way to learn that is a deliberate fortnight of leaving it alone with the bottle level marked.

A floor and a finish do different jobs.

Does the choice depend on which oil is in the bottle

No published figure connects a scent to how a run should end, and SOSA publishes no strength ranking of the nine, so the answer is no. What can change is you: an oil you are still getting to know is one you may want to switch off early, and one you have lived with for a month is one you may let run. That is preference rather than performance, and it is yours.

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The clock, your hand, and what is published about each

If you want to settle it for yourself rather than take my word, mark the bottle level with a marker pen and log the date. Run a fortnight ending every drive by hand, mark it again, then a fortnight letting the shut-off do the work, and mark it a third time. That is your own number, and it is the only one that will ever describe your driving.

“Set the shut-off because mornings go wrong. Use your hand because it is exact. Nothing published prefers either.”

How to stop a run, decided in four steps

1. Set the shut-off to one hour and leave the setting alone.
2. Switch the unit off by hand whenever you remember at the kerb.
3. Mark the bottle level with a pen and write down the date.
4. Compare a fortnight of each, then keep the habit you prefer.

Questions, answered