How loud is an electric kitchen composter?
An electric kitchen composter carries a maker figure of 24 to 60 dB, from Reencle's chart figure for its Gravity to the 60 dB ceilings on Lomi 2 and Airthereal's R500, and no maker here states a distance or weighting.
These are the figures as each maker printed them for the picks:
- Reencle Gravity: "less than 26 dB" on its page, 24 dB in Reencle's chart
- Reencle Essential: 27 dB
- Reencle Prime: "under 28 dB" on its page, 28 dB in the chart
- GEME Terra 2: 30-40 dB
- Mill Essential and Mill Plus: about 42 dB during a Dry & Grind cycle
- Lomi 3: under 45 dB
- Airthereal Revive R800 Lite: under 50 dB
Plain numbers are few: Reencle's 27 dB for the Essential, the 24 and 28 dB in its chart, and Mill's figure, which Mill writes with a tilde to mean roughly. GEME gives a range. The rest are ceilings, which promise a limit and say nothing about how far below it the machine runs.
For a sense of where 27 dB and 45 dB sit against a fridge or a conversation, see the decibel chart.
Why are Reencle and GEME ranked apart from Mill and Lomi?
Reencle and GEME are ranked apart from Mill and Lomi because they work differently: microbes ferment scraps continuously in one, and a heater and grinder dry them in timed cycles in the other.
Reencle says its machines make "real, usable compost", not the "dried, ground-up scraps" of other countertop machines, and that finished compost takes about 30 days. GEME calls its Terra 2 "Not Dehydration" and describes airflow and gentle turning rather than grinding.
A dry and grind recycler works in bursts. Lomi 3's Express mode runs 3 to 6 hours, and Mill dries and grinds on a schedule that Mill says runs while you sleep. A microbial composter is never fully off.
A figure that describes a machine murmuring all day is not the same thing as one that describes a grinding cycle, so each group is ranked only within itself.
Which microbial composter is quietest?
The Reencle Gravity and Gravity Pro are the quietest microbial composters on their maker's figures, with "less than 26 dB" on their product pages and 24 dB in Reencle's comparison chart.
Below them sit the Essential at 27 dB and the Prime at under 28, with 28 dB in the chart. The Essential's 27 dB is the only one of the three that Reencle writes as a plain number on the product page itself, and it is the one we would weigh most.
GEME's Terra 2 lists 30-40 dB. Even the bottom of that range sits above every Reencle figure, so on paper the Reencle range is the quieter choice.
Reencle's own numbers do not agree
Reencle prints its figures differently from page to page. The Gravity page says less than 26 dB and the chart says 24. The Prime page says under 28 and the chart says 28.
The Essential page gives 27 dB three times, then says "quiet under 26 dB" in another block. The same chart also lists weights that differ from the product pages. Reencle offers no reason for the mismatch, so each Reencle number is quoted on the page where it sits.
How loud is the Mill composter?
The Mill composter runs at about 42 dB during a Dry & Grind cycle, according to Mill's support article, which gives that figure for both the Mill Essential and the Mill Plus.
Mill likens it to "the soft hum of a quiet library". The same article puts the first generation Mill at about 44 dB, "about as loud as a dishwasher", and says the fans of every Mill run at a low speed through the day to keep the bin smelling fresh.
Of every composter source we read, only Mill's article ties its figure to a named cycle. Mill still leaves out the distance and whether its figure is weighted.
The Essential and the Plus share the 6.5L bin and the figure. The Plus adds a foot pedal and a child and pet lock and stands 27 in. tall, against 23 for the Essential, for $150 more.
Is Lomi quieter than Mill?
No, Lomi's figure cannot show that Lomi 3 is quieter than Mill. Lomi 3's "under 45 dB" is a ceiling with no mode named, while Mill's about 42 dB describes a Dry & Grind cycle.
A ceiling of 45 dB allows a machine that runs at 40 or at 44. Mill's figure is approximate, but it describes the fans during one named cycle. The two cannot be put in order.
What the figures do show is the step from Lomi's last model. Lomi gave the Lomi 2, also sold as Lomi Bloom, a ceiling of 60 dB, so Lomi 3's ceiling is 15 dB lower. Lomi 3 also sits on the counter, at about 11 in. each way, where a Mill bin stands on the floor.
Airthereal's R800 Lite gives a ceiling of 50 dB in its page title and says "as low as 50dB" elsewhere on the same page, which reads as a floor. At $249.99 it is the cheapest machine with any figure.
No, Vitamix publishes no decibel figure for its FoodCycler FC-50 or Eco 5, and we could reach no maker page for Tero or iDOO.
Vitamix's US pages describe "quieter cycles" for the FC-50 and "quiet cycles" for the Eco 5 and stop there. The Eco 5 page links an owner's manual, but the link pointed to a localhost address when we checked, so the manual could not be opened.
The Tero store we reached, teroproducts.com, said the store is unavailable. We found no iDOO site of its own, only resellers, and a reseller's figure is not a maker's figure. None of the three is ranked.
What do kitchen composter noise figures leave out?
Kitchen composter noise figures leave out the sudden sounds, the clunk of a pit or the creak of dry scraps shifting, which makers describe in their support pages but never measure.
Mill's note on its first generation bin says pits or bones can bring "a quick, loud snap or clunk". Lomi's FAQ lists cracking, grinding and creaking with coffee grounds, eggshells and fibrous scraps, and suggests chopping scraps to about 1 inch and cleaning the bucket every 3 cycles.
Placement matters as well. A Reencle or a Mill stands on the floor and a Lomi on the counter, often within a few feet of a dining table. Our open plan kitchen page covers the other machines sharing that room, and the garbage disposal guide ranks the alternative at the sink.
