Do the three speeds and the timer settings give useful convenience to someone who drives daily?

A control is not a saving. Every one of Safar's published controls is something you reach over and do, and a driver who gets in twice a day reaches over twice a day. What they are buying is the right to change their mind about strength, and that is worth having or it is not.

The answer, in full

Not convenience, no. Control, yes, and the two are different purchases. Here is what is published: three speed settings, and a one, two or three hour auto-off timer, on a 20ml bottle with a 2000 mAh battery over Type-C that gives up to ten hours continuous or thirty hours intermittent per charge. Every one of those controls is something you operate. You switch the device on, you pick a speed, and you decide about the timer, and if you drive daily you do all of that daily. So the settings do not subtract from your week; they decide what happens during it. That is worth real money if your journeys differ from one another - a stronger run when you are alone, a quieter one with passengers in the back, a run that ends after an hour when the car is parked at the office. It is worth much less if every drive is the same drive, because then you will set it once in your head and repeat that setting for a year. SOSA publishes no per-speed duration and no oil-consumption rate, so I cannot tell you what any setting costs you in oil or in battery. Safar is ₹3,999, or ₹4,499 for the hotel-inspired variant. A portion of every SOSA order supports girl-child education through Nanhi Kali.

What the three speeds and the timer do, and what they cost you in actions

I have written this as three honest ledger entries rather than three benefits, because two of the figures a daily driver would want here are not published and I would rather say so than fill the gap.

Three speed settings: output on the day, chosen on each journey

Safar publishes three speed settings and you choose one at the moment you switch the device on. This is the thing nothing else in the range does: the 12ml hanging bottle has a stopper that loosens for stronger and tightens for subtler, and that is a setting you make once and leave. The speeds are a setting you make again every time. SOSA publishes no coverage figure, no scent-throw figure and no per-speed duration, so there is no number attached to any of the three and your nose is the only instrument.

One more decision per journey, in exchange for control over output.

The auto-off timer: one, two or three hours, and nothing longer

The published timer is one hour, two hours or three hours. There is no six-hour option and I have seen that error in three separate briefs, so I will say it plainly: where a journey runs past three hours, the run ends and you start it again. For a daily driver the timer earns its keep in one specific case, which is a car you walk away from: set an hour, and the run finishes without you coming back to it. On a commute shorter than an hour, the shortest setting outlasts the drive and you are reaching for the switch regardless.

The figures that do not exist: per-speed duration, and what a setting costs

What a daily driver really wants is a figure for what each of the three settings takes out of a bottle in a month. There is no published answer. SOSA publishes no per-speed duration and no oil-consumption rate, so no cost per hour, no refill interval and no running cost exists for any setting. The published battery figures - up to ten hours continuous or thirty hours intermittent per charge - describe the 2000 mAh cell and not the oil. If you want your own number, mark the bottle level with a marker pen, write down the date, drive your ordinary month on one setting, and mark it again.

Mark your own bottle. It is the only figure that will ever be true for you.

The speeds do not change which scent you have chosen

SOSA publishes no strength ranking of the nine car scents, so no setting turns one scent into another and no scent is the one that suits a particular speed. Eight of the nine come as a 10ml spray or a 12ml hanging at the same price per scent, and the waterless nebuliser refills are ₹1,049 for 100 gm and ₹1,849 for 300 gm. Mysore Orange Blossom ₹559 is a spray only.

Before you buy a strength control, find out whether you like the scent at all. The three-spray discovery sets are ₹709 to ₹909. See the discovery sets →

Daily driving against each published control

If your week is the same drive twice a day, I would not spend ₹3,999 on the ability to vary something you will not vary. A 12ml hanging bottle at ₹459 to ₹519 has one stopper in two directions and the range publishes 4 to 6 weeks of continuous diffusion, and for an unchanging routine that may be the whole of what you need. SOSA publishes no ranking of the formats by how much work they feel like, so that part of the decision is yours.

“Three settings are worth something to a varied week. To an identical one they are three ways of choosing the same thing.”

Working out what the controls are worth to you

1. List this week's journeys. Mark the ones where you had passengers.
2. If that mark appears rarely, you will rarely change speed. Note that.
3. Ask whether you ever leave the car with the fragrance still running.
4. If the answer is no, the timer is buying you nothing. Price it accordingly.

Questions, answered