Does anyone have experience with electronic water conditioners (not salt-based, not ion exchange filter-based)? Product examples are:
Yarna Capacitive electronic water descaler
ISpring ED2000
Eddy Electronic No-Salt Whole-House Water Softener
Yes, they don’t work.
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(Fleck 5800 series owner checking in...)
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is this for your drinking water or becuase your hot water heaters are failing due to calcium etc buildup.
Drinking water here tastes and smells fine, and a home testing kit doesn't show any elevated chemicals or metals...just high levels of magnesium.
I do get scale buildup (leaky "washerless" faucets) and there's visible scale and sediment in the humidifier...and I am sure in the hot water heater (3rd one in ~13 years).
reason i asked is i just put in a new whole house steam humidifier the new honeywell model and that one wants hard water with calcium in it.. you just replace the electrode take every 1-2 years.
From what I saw on the internet, those electronic softeners don't work.
However, there are mechanical (no electricity) salt free water conditioners that may fix your problems. They seem to be somewhat effective for scale, but you don't get the soft water feel like you do with the salt softeners.
I think these are probably made by the same company, there may be other brands that are sold under a different label.
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I know you know this, but because I'm pedantic/OCD 
, I'm compelled to write the following:
You are correct that they do not use electricity. But they are not purely mechanical. They usually work on the principle of chelating calcium/magnesium using citrate (citric acid crystals).
BTW @5fe94872fdbd2dbd06a8 - the kind of system linked to by @neonturbo does work pretty well - as long as your water hardness isn't higher than 5-6 gpg.
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Here are my recommendations:
- Flush your water heater every six months
- Replace the anode rod every 2 years, or install a permanent powered anode.
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... or replace the existing water heater with indirect water heater if your heating system is based on hot water, not hot air. I had one back in my house for 20+ years and there was not any single problem. Plus a life time warranty for the original owner.
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Or get a Heat pump water heater. I have a hybrid from 2018 that is both a normal electric so has the heating elements and has the heat pump on top. I only run it in heat pump mode. In HP mode, it heats the water with a coil wrapped around the tank which holds the refrigerant so it's not IN the water. Bonus, it's 3-4x as efficient.
If I had to replace again, I'd just buy one of the HP only models that just has a 120V plug (which are great for gas retrofits) and free up a breaker in my panel. I don't need 240V for max 450w that my current unit draws.
All that said...there are other benefits to having soft water. If it's hurting your WH it's also hurting other appliances, makes your soaps less efficient, etc.
I'd recommend a Hach 5-B hardness test kit. You can use it determine your exact hardness (even if on city water, they provide an avg or a range in water report) so you can adequately size/configure a unit. It's good to have to periodically test your water (our incoming hardness has apparently dropped from 15 to 12gpg over the years) and also to help troubleshoot/verify.
I did what you're not supposed to do and bought my softener from an internet dealer and installed it myself. As far as I know my whole system is proper, genuine Pentek/Fleck gear and other than not cleaning out my brine tank (like ever), have not had any issues (and now I know I need to drain and get rid of the salt fines at the bottom more often than every 6 years 
). They originally sent me the wrong controller board (SXT instead of the XTR2) I ordered but they quickly shipped me the correct board and I swapped it out in a minute on the head.
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I installed commercial and agricultural water purification systems. Think Rubbermaid, Continental Films, GE and Dairy Operations.
The electric systems are like the “fuel atomizer” for vehicles and the “energy savers” for appliances. The only thing they remove is money from your wallet and add money to whoever you purchased it from. They are like a money exchange device and not an Ion exchange device - which actually removes calcium - iron (harder) water solubles and replaces it with sodium ions.
Every water softener uses the same ion exchange resin developed by Rohms and Hass. It’s just an ion neutral plastic bead. A 1000 unit from HD, Lowe’s or an online system with an Autotrol valve with an on demand regeneration cycle will work 100% as well as a $4000 culligan or ecowater or whatever the local “water specialist” is selling. If still available the sears Kenmore 40,000 or 46,000 grain models are excellent. All units need the resin swapped at about 8-10 years which is a very easy process with a valve wrench and resin funnel. The resins degrade and turn to powder over time. Installation is at most 1 hour labor by a plumber or 2-3 by a homeowner if you have access to your incoming water line, power for a transformer and a drain like a sink, furnace drain, tap a vent pipe or washer drain, some places allow the regeneration water to just flow to the yard. If you’re in a non freeze climate (south Florida for instance) many people put the softener outside where the incoming water line enters the house. It’s very easy to calculate your settings needed by taking 4 PPM of iron = 1 GPG of hardness. So if you have 20 grains of hardness and 1 -4 PPM of iron you would set the softener at 22 GPG and the unit would calculate your daily water usage to keep a 50% reserve capacity. If you ever run out of salt, fill and dump in 5 gal of water and do a manual regeneration to restore the capacity. 1 gal of water dissolves ~7 lbs of salt and can’t dissolve any additional.
Don’t waste your money on the snake oil junk.
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3 lbs of salt per gallon is what is typically used for configuring brine tank fill times.
And I'd add if you have chlorinated water or just want it to last longer, get 10% crosslinked resin instead of "normal" 8%.
Yes the cross linked resin is the way
I was talking about a super regen, if you dump in 5 gal of water it will dissolve about 35 lbs of salt to saturation and won’t dissolve more. If I remember correctly it’s 3 lbs of salt per cu/ft of resin for a regen. Most home units are about 2 cu/ft.
I worked on commercial systems 40 years ago. Those systems had 2-4 inch copper inlets into 8+ resin tanks and 4000 lb capacity brine tanks. We loaded them with 80 lb bags for startup - I think my back still hurts.
And have only done the “friends and family” home installs since, so my exact memory and setting one up needs a jog now and then.
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