Do floating shelves actually work?

We have a couple. They are full of books. No problems. Ours have ends which have mounting screws. I've also put up others (for daughter) which have a plate with rods which stick out. The shelf has holes the rods fit into. Also used for books.

I confess I've been surprised how well they work.

I think ours came from Ikea. I suspect daughters' did as well but I don't recall.

The Ikea ones are really easy to put up as they provide a long metal strip, which you screw to the wall, and off this strip come the two long metal rods that go into holes in the shelf.

This arrangement makes it easy to hang as the rods are perfectly aligned with the holes in the shelf by being attached to the metal strip.

I came across another type of floating shelf that had rather clever fittings that had to be fitted into the wall in the right place but had an eccentric rod coming out of them so that you could adjust the position a bit by twisting them, also the holes in the shelf were actually narrow slots, allowing for a bit of error.

The worst sort are where you have two fittings that go into the wall and you have to position them with total accuracy and at exactly 90 degrees to the wall which is hard to achieve in practice.