Hard water scale is wrecking appliances in our area. What solutions have actually worked for you?

I’ve been dealing with brutal hard water in my house for years and the mineral scale buildup is ridiculous. Faucets clog, the kettle gets white crust constantly, and my plumber told me the water heater probably has a lot of scale inside too.

I started going down a rabbit hole trying to understand how scale actually forms in pipes and appliances. Most solutions seem to revolve around salt softeners, but I found some interesting research about catalytic crystallization, where minerals stay in the water but don’t stick to surfaces.

Apparently it changes how calcium crystals form so they pass through the plumbing instead of attaching to pipes and heating elements.

I’m curious if anyone here has actually tried systems based on that concept.

Did it reduce buildup on fixtures or appliances over time?

Or is scale basically unavoidable if you have hard water?