List Price: $165.00
Sale Price: $102.99
Today's Bonus: 38% Off
Note: I've only tested this product for 36 hours so far.
Reason for purchase: I'm currently without air conditioning at the beginning of July in Arizona and looking for something to survive the heat. I've spent a good deal of time researching products to suit my current situation as a normal fan is not cutting it. I looked at many evaporative products but most require a nearby window to attach a hose to vent the hot exhaust. Unfortunately the room I'm in has none and the nearest window is simply to far away.
Opening the box: The front of the main body is white with black at the top. For some reason to me it looked silver in the pictures. Any how it is attractive but I have to agree with the other posts that the display with the moving LED lights reminds me of 1980's. Like it's just there to look cool but no longer does. It features 8 buttons, 4 on each side of the LED display, 7 of which have a function and one is for aesthetics. They are clearly labeled On, Off, Speed, Mist, Swing, Wind & Timer. The product is lightweight for it's size and inexpensively built but to be expected for the price and seems solid enough.
Water Tank: Make sure you have a Phillips screwdriver on hand to remove a single screw that secures the access panel to the water tank in the back of unit. Not sure why they don't mention the screw in the instructions or why they even use one as the back panel is already secured by two plastic clips you press down on to open it. Anyhow once removed I left the screw off for easier future access. Removing and filling the small water tank (under a half gallon) is simple and of course the colder the water used the better. A full tank of water seems to last about 10 hours or so if you have the Mist setting turned on the entire time and again refilling with cold water from the fridge only takes a minute.
Operation of the Unit and Features:
Fan operates well and shifts smoothly through it's 3 speeds... Low, Med & High. Fan is also pretty quiet compared to many I've used over the years so you can sleep peacefully undisturbed with misting on and fan speed set on med or low. In the past I've found it difficult sleeping with a fan directly on me as you wake up with an extremely dry mouth but set on low and with the misting feature turned on this seems to help.
Mist (ultrasonic humidifier) flows out in front of the fan at a constant rate when turned on and works independently of the fan's Speed setting. So turning the fan off doesn't turn the mist off if it's on. To do that you would simply press the Mist button again. And of course you can run the fan without the mist on. When you run out of water the Mist light stays on and nothing changes at all except no mist comes out of course. Mist is definitely cooler then the air in my room moving through the fan so this is an advantage over a standard fan. Also the air evaporates the mist reducing overall heat.
The Swing option is interesting and when turned on rotates the front plastic grill as a way of spreading the air flow around by deflecting it in different directions giving you a slight oscillating effect. This is a unique way of making up for the fact that this product doesn't have a swiveling head like a standard fan.
Wind has 3 modes... Normal, Natural and Sleeping (which has nothing to do with the Timer). Normal mode is controlled by whatever Speed you have set. Natural is suppose to mimic actual wind and cycles through the 3 different Speeds including Off and never stays on any Speed for more than a few seconds. The directions say Sleeping mode will run on High for 30 mins, Med for 30 mins and finally Low until mode is exited, unit is turned off, or timer expires if set. This would be a usable feature if this were the case but it is simply not true. Sleeping mode as far as my testing goes is exactly the same as Natural mode and simply cycles thru each speed. The fact that this feature is advertised in the directions but doesn't work is my biggest gripe.
Timer can be set in one hour increments upto 9 hours.
Tidbits: The Mist and Swing buttons simply toggle on and off, while Speed, Wind and Timer buttons cycle through their choices and On & Off are separate buttons that do not toggle. Bottom front of unit has a see thru water tank viewer that glows blue when Mist is turned on. Unit beeps when any button is pressed. Remote control requires 2 AAA batteries not included. It is simple to use and buttons are labeled.
In Closing: I do like it even though I was hoping this product would reduce the temperature of my Entire room down to a more comfortable level. But in the middle of summer, with my computer running all day, which produces considerable heat in my small room, this product doesn't really pull that off. However it does pretty well over time when not competing with the added heat from my computer and definitely provides a cool comfortable space around you even with the computer on.
As a unique Misting Fan this product works well as a personal cooling device so for the price and that purpose I give it 4 stars. As a way to evacuate all the heat out of your room on a hot summer day it is simply not that product. I hope this was helpful enough to help you decide either way whether or not this product is right for you. Thanks for reading.
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When I purchased this product my expectations where much greater than those advertised by the manufacturer. In some ways this misting fan is really more than a room humidifier. Having worked with misting systems it was my HOPE that this unit would cool a room by several degrees. While I was disappointed that it did not cool a whole room, it did function very wellas an individual cooler. I ran a few tests on this unit and here is what I found:
a) This unit will reduce ambient temperature by an average of 4 to 5 degrees
when measured 6 inches from the exhaust side of the fan. The humidity in
the room at the time of the measurement was 42%.
b) A subject placed 6' from the unit with the fan set a #2 and the water vaporizer working
felt cooler and very comfortable in a room whose ambient temperature was 80 degrees. The same
subject placed 9 feet from the unit in an open room 10' x 12' did not notice any significant
change in temperature. The room temperature did not drop at all.
c) Humidity readings in a 10'x12' room steadily increased over time. After 9 hours of
operation the humidity rose from 42% to 63%.
d) The fan is very quiet at the lowest speed setting. The rotating grill also provided adequate directional
changes for the air flow.
e) The instrument panel at the top of unit provides reasonable control of the unit but without adequate
documentation it was troublesome to learn how to change the setting or what each setting provided.
f) There is only one MAJOR complaint. In the middle of the instrument panel is a graphic which cycles
continuously from left to right changing the lines from green to red. According to the manufacturer's
representative this meter illustrates "...how much humidity the unit is putting out." Since the
unit is always delivering water vapor unless there is no water in the tank or the vaporizer is not
working it is useless and very annoying.
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