I began using the cooler as soon as I received it. I filled the water reservoir and turned on the evaporative cooling feature. It worked nicely to cool down the office space at home. I later froze the ice packs and used those to really cool down on a hot day. It was chilly. :-)
The only two things I do not like are that the water will leak down from the tube that collects the water for the fan to use as soon as you take the reservoir out. It is not a lot of water, but it does need to be wiped up. Secondly, the beep when you push any button or use the remote is very loud. I have not found the instructions to turn the volume down. When I do find that I will be very happy with this fan.
This review is for the Frigidaire Portable Evaporative Air Fan Cooler and Humidifier with 1.5 Gallon Tank, Remote Included, 2-in-1 Compact Design, EC100WF, White currently found at https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QPC3SYF
The unit works pretty much as described noting that this is a small unit intended for smaller areas (product description is 175 square feet). I live in an area where many or most do not have air conditioning so something of this nature might turn the trick in late summer.
To change any of the settings/controls the user will have to cycle through the various control options for that setting. Not a problem, just something to be aware of as some people often ask.
Standard two-prong electrical plug.
This came with a remote control and battery plus two ice packs. The icepacks can be put in the icebox to freeze and then dropped into the water tank to cool the water further which should increase the cooling effect that is felt.
There are a couple of timers:
1. There is a simple on-off where the unit is turned off after 1, 2, 4 or eight hours of operation. Tested quickly and seems to work on my unit.
2. There is a mode control where the fan decreases in speed every 30 minutes until it turns itself off. If fan speed set to medium it will run at medium speed for 30 minutes then slow for another 30 minutes and finally off. Also working on my unit.
3. The evaporative cooler (water pump) turns itself off after 10 hours of operation if none of the timing controls are set. Haven’t tested as the temperature came down about 20 degrees the day before this was delivered.
You can also set a mode where fan cycles between speeds.
The water bucket/tank has the rubbery type of snapping into and out of place with simple tabs to secure. There probably will be a little sloshing depending upon how hard you have to push to get the tank in position which would be more likely when inserting a filled tank. The water tank is on the bottom so you will have to bend over. My plan is to only partially pull out the tank and fill rather than to fully remove and bring the tank to the sink.
Has a removable dust filter that should be periodically removed and either vacuumed or hand washed with soap and water. There is a combination of buttons to press to put enter into a drying mode after cleaning the filter which forces high speed airflow for 20 minutes or so to help in drying.
After first use I have decided to take the casters off. Personal preference as this is pretty light to start with and gives more solid foundation when removing or inserting the water tank.
Reasonably quiet but selected fan speed also makes a difference.
There is an option to oscillate the vertical louvers (on-off) which makes the breeze swing back and forth left to right. The horizontal louvers have to be adjusted manually and direct the airflow from downwards to upwards.
Overall this product does have the rubbery plastic feel but this is designed to be a portable, lightweight unit that may be frequently moved around.
Not sure what is going on with the Frigidaire brand name. The user guide and box also say Intertek and Newair.
I will update this review after it gets hot enough for this thing to work. I'm in zone B and I know exactly the kind of heat I am looking forward to using this thing in. It has an interesting design. It drips water though multiple holes evenly on top of a vertically positioned, 1" thick, honeycomb fabric filter that covers most of the back of the unit and is where the air intake flows through before the fan. This should cool the air as it passes through. Initially I though it used metal tubing to carry heat away. Sounds to me like a plan that will work, especially since you can cool the water by placing ice packs in the water compartment (or, I don't see why not just adding ice?). There have been plenty of summer nights I have suffered due to lack of air conditioning in my living room and a fan just doesn't cut it. This thing appears to be a fan on steroids. As of right now, though, in late spring, the temps are just right and there's no need for a cooling device.
My first impression was that it is pretty light and doesn't seem heavy duty. But, there really isn't much to it. It is basically a vertical fan with super powers. As a fan, it works fine. I've had vertical fans before and they never last long. Something always breaks and it stops going back and forth. Or, they make a clicking sound. This design, however, only moves directional louvers back and forth, not the entire fan, so the design is much simpler. Most vertical fans are also too loud. This fan, however, is very quite on low and not bad at all on higher speeds. Your TV will drown it out. Air volume seems pretty good. Seems to work very smoothly and effectively. As a fan alone it is a good one. I should be able to place it 8 feet away and get good room coverage. Has all the modern controls, with remote, as well. But, for the price, it is an expensive vertical fan, so the water cooling feature better work good.
I WILL update after real world testing in real hot weather.
This Frigidaire portable evaporative cooler is very convenient to use to help cool a room. It has a full function remove & even comes with 2 freezer packs to make the water & cooling even colder. The only assembly needed is to push the casters into the bottom of the cooler. There is also a holder on the back of the cooler to hold your remote.
We have a house evaporative cooler on our roof that does good at keeping the main level of our house cool. The vents don't reach to our lower level where our bedroom is, so hot summer night stay hot and a fan in the window really doesn't keep us cool.
This portable cooler is seeming to do the trick. It has several features where you can use strictly as a fan or a cooler. There are 4 fan speed settings. You can have this in 1 direction or oscillating back and forth. There are also manually directed vents on the front for up / down.
There are 3 options for the blower, constant, slightly variable (outdoors mode) or more pulsing (night mode) where is slowly slows down until the timer runs out.
You can have this run constant or on a timer of 1, 2, 4 or 8 hours.
When removing the water container to fill up or top off, there is a little resistance. This is to push the pump up & out of the way. When you insert the tank back in the pump is released to back in the tank.
This does not work all of the time when removing the tank as the pump didn't snap in place & hangs there in the way. It is easy to simply push this back up to where it latches in place (see my 3rd & 4th pictures), so if the tank does not want to go all the way back in, this is why.
As you can see the water tank from the front, it is easy to see your current water level. On the back are 2 prongs that rotate to hold the water tank in place and do double duty as a cord holder when not in use.
When running this at bedtime I prefer the Tree / nature mode over the night mode as it does not vary nearly as much. As the vents are plastic, use one of the middle ones when adjusting the up / down as doing this from the top or bottom does not work as easily. So far this is working well in our bedroom for our dry Colorado summer.
So far, there's only one other review for this product. It's so incredibly detailed and thorough, that I can't imagine any other reviewer being able to offer anything more helpful to others interested in buying this evaporative cooler. It's a really terrific review by TwinMom, so I can only speak to our own experience with it (we live in a different region).
For starters, we live in the Gulf South. A typical Spring day here is about 90 degrees, 70% humidity. By August, it's usually around 100 degrees. We don't get dry heat here, it's generally like an outdoor steam room, with nothing resembling a breeze. Supposedly, evaporative coolers aren't ideal for this type of climate. But in our experience, this particular cooler worked fine in our bedroom.
Setup was incredibly easy. Just put the battery in the remote, slap the wheels on the unit, remove the water reservoir and keep it filled under the max fill line. It does come with two small freezable containers that you can add to the water reservoir, but we initially tested it without them. The buttons on the unit and the remove are fairly self-explanatory, and the instructions were detailed. We used it in our bedroom with the evaporative cooler feature on, fan at full blast, and the oscillator turned on. The room seemed much cooler than with a traditional tower fan.
So even in an area with high humidity, it seemed to work just fine at night. We've been using it during the day, with the ice packs. It does seem to help, although we're not testing the ambient temperature in our bedroom. So it does feel cooler, though I can't speak with certainty as to how many degrees cooler it feels. We're also going to test this on one of our patios, to see how it works indoors.
As a teenager, when I still lived below sea level, I used to work in a massive warehouse. It was already 100+ degrees outside, and the warehouse had virtually no ventilation or air circulation. My boss would wheel out this giant industrial fan, that had a water hose attachment. I'd ask why we never used the water feature, he said with the humidity levels, we'd just make our work area hot and muggy. I suppose the distinction is that we're using the evaporative cooler indoors, in an area of the house where we aren't really getting much air from outdoors. So at least in the bedroom, it works well for us, particularly at night. But if you live in the Southern or Southeastern United States, you really need to do your homework on evaporative coolers and humid regions. Just because it works well for us, I wouldn't want someone to drop $120 on one of these and find it doesn't work as well for them.
I don't really have any cons about this particular unit. The only thing I will say is that the water reservoir (the removable fill tank) gets a little tricky putting it back in the unit after you fill it with water. It slides in, just not as easily as I'd like. Which makes me a bit paranoid, because I'm basically holding a tray with a gallon and a half of water, and being careful not to drop or spill it. That aside, we haven't had any problems. Works well for us, though I could see how this would definitely be great for anyone in hot yet arid climates.
Update: the fill tank takes me about ten minutes to put back in each time I refill it now. I had to drop the rating from five stars to three, simply because it's a headache to add water now. And I end up spilling water on the floor each time, without fail. Did they not test this?
Update #2: Sometimes I can get the fill tank in after just a few seconds. Sometimes it still takes minutes. So I'm moving the rating back to four stars lol. One thing I do know, if I put those freezable containers in the water reservoir, getting the tank in and out is definitely a pain.
Feature Product
- 2-in-1 tower fan and evaporative cooler offers two ways to cool your room
- Powerful fan provides up to 175 square feet of cooling coverage
- Removable, washable honeycomb pad purifies air as it cools
- Three fan speeds, three cooling modes, and a four-setting timer combine to make a list of useful features
Description
The Frigidaire Compact 2-in-1 Evaporative Cooler and Fan offers a compact but powerful cooling alternative from a trusted name in home appliances. The dual-function allows you to add water to the 1. 5-gallon tank for evaporative cooling in arid climates, or you can use the 250 CFM tower fan alone to refresh your personal space. Either way, you'll enjoy cool breezes across 175 square feet of living space and plenty of great features in a small package.
I want to say, first off this is not a portable air conditioner, nor does it perform as an air conditioner. So, my review is solely based on the capabilities of what the product was designed for. I will make some comparisons to ac units, but this is only to draw a clearer picture of the units’ capabilities.
I used this in a small room that gets hot because there are no windows or ventilation in the room and it's roughly 350 square feet. The unit comes with a remote control, 2 blue ice container packs, 4 casters, instruction manual and a water container that holds up to 1.5 gallons of water.
You can use ice and/or water in the unit but be warned. There is an arm that comes down from the right side inside the water tank. As you push the tray in place the arm will come down as it approaches full insertion of the tray. That compartment needs to be clear of any solid obstruction, So, if you do plan on putting ice in the unit only put ice in the left side from the handle of the water tank. Same for the blue ice containers. They should be placed on the left side as not to obstruct the arm that comes down.
The unit is extremely easy to set up. The icons that are on both the remote and the unit are very clear and simple. It does extremely well as an advanced fan cooling system. What it does is simply evaporate the water in the container and blows that into the air, (that’s if you press the tear drop icon on the remote or the unit). In the room that I used the fan in, it didn’t cool the room as an air conditioner would. However, when situated by the unit it, (within approximately 4-5 feet from it) it did cool you down more than a conventional fan. Also, this is not a rotary fan, but the louvers do move when the swing button is pressed. So, the air flow will cover a decent amount of area rotating the direction of the air 80 degrees. I do have a Dyson fan, which is very fancy looking and pretty high tech, but it doesn’t work as well as this does.
I have an ac that’s in the wall about 6 feet from the ground in my living room. I will use this fan to enhance the coverage of that air while using the evaporative properties of this fan.
It is a very clean and a light unit with little clutter. The remote is very user friendly. The remote receiver on the unit will also require no obstructions for operation. The handle works solidly and carrying it around is easy. It looks heavier than it really is. The casters are a very a welcome addition to its mobility allowing it to glide across a room floor with ease. I have wood floors in my home, so I couldn’t test it on a carpeted surface.
So, in summary, if you need a fan that can possibly increase the airflow of your air conditioner, I strongly recommend this unit. If you are looking for a portable air conditioner, this is not what you should purchase. Lastly, if you need an enhanced fan that can push some cool air out, this is an excellent choice.
I have used this cooler for a few weeks now and it works fine. It is easy to use, easy to set up and so far I have had no problems with putting water inside of the unit to cool the air around me. Out of the box, you can be using this cooler in about 10 minutes.
Funny story about me using this fan for the first day. I was testing kids and my room was pretty hot. They asked if I had a fan and I had this in my car. I got it out, turned it on and my room cooled down noticeably. This began my hardcore use of this fan. I have run it for 8 hours a day for a while now and have had no issues. It keeps my room cooler and it is pretty easy to move around. I use the cooler until the water runs out and than just use the fan. You can tell when you are getting low on water as the pump begins making a sucking noise. At this point, you need to add more water or turn off the evaporative cooler.
I like this fan/humidifier. I am in a pretty arid place so it works really well for me. My room is just under 400 square feet and the fan does circulate air around my room. I am about 15 feet from where the fan sits and can feel it. I can feel the cooler when it is on as well. I really don't have anything negative to say about this fan.
This fan does what it says it is going to do and it does it well. I like how it is built and the ease of use. All in all, if you are looking for a portable, evaporative cooler this might be the one for you.
This is an excellent cooler. I am using it in a garage-gym to stay cool, and it has a nice amount of cool airflow. IT is easy to operate, easy to fill, and provided it is not muggy outside it makes the air far colder than a fan could.
This cooler is another item I chose from the Vine queue for a particular perceived need. We tend to frequently visit relatives on the Navajo Reservation in Northern Arizona. The location is susceptible to extremely dry weather conditions, and on summer afternoons, the small dwellings can get extremely hot with negligible humidity. Although the really hot weather has not yet set in, we are hoping that this small, easily portable unit will be quite useful. The one concern we have so far is that the 1-1/2 gallon reservoir capacity might be inadequate, but we're hopeful that we can manage. One advantage, of course, is that though afternoons are hot, the temperature tends to drop dramatically when darkness falls, so the unit might in fact contain enough water to last until just air circulation without evaporation will be adequate.
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