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IMJMAC, I design water treatment systems for a living. Those gadgets don't work. Softeners don't "remove" minerals, they just "exchange" some dissolved elements (calcium and magnesium "hardness", and limited amounts of iron and manganese) for others (sodium), using common salt in the process. Soft water can reduce mineral scaling, spotting, etc. It can deliver high flow at relatively low cost. But, if your water is very hard, and you soften it, it will have a lot of sodium in it afterward. Too much sodium can be bad for people if you drink it. In that case, you may want to have a separate unsoftened faucet for drinking water. Reverse osmosis (RO) reduces the levels of all dissolved minerals instead of exchanging them. It also reduces levels of bacteria, organics and particles. The downside is that it is expensive to purchase and to operate. It also produces low flow, enough to drink, but not enough for other uses such as washing clothes, dishes, and bathing. By the way, if you have both softening and RO, it is better to feed the RO unit soft water.
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