Honeywell 300 CFM Indoor Portable Evaporative Cooler, Fan & Humidifier with Detachable Tank, Carbon Dust Filter & Remote Control, Silver/Gray

We got this for pop up trailer camping. This is just great, we can put it at one end of the camper and it blows cool air across the room. You can't really air condition a popup so this was the next best in our opinion. Noise level is minimal, you do hear water trickling. It actually sort of nice, like you're by a creek. We live in Southern state where the humidity is pretty high, yet it still works just fine for us. We don't expect this to be an air conditioner but my observation (and thermometer gauge) clocks about 10 degree difference from air coming in and out of the unit. The closer you sit to it the better it cools you. Again, inside a popup camper, this works great just about everywhere. You need to open all the windows for best air flow. Very easy on power, I use Kill-a-watt meter and at low speed it pulls 70 watts and on high it will pull 90 Watts, this is perfect to use when you're on camper deep cycle battery power and still would like some cooling inside the pop up camper. We use it as a regular fan as well, but evaporative cooling is definitely great on it. You can put ice inside the water tub for better cooling (just be careful with the water pump and water level gauge as they drop inside the water tank and you don't want anything obstructing them). Water pump swings on a hinge and you have to be careful not to damage it when you open the water holding tank compartment. I wish the water compartment was insulated like a cooler, so the ice would stay there for longer, but alas it's still a great little swamp cooler.

I honestly wasn’t expecting much from this evaporative cooler beyond a fan that blows some moisture, but I was instantly convinced it was a great purchase the first time I turned it on. I’m cool and comfortable again, and I like that it blows just enough moisture to not dry my sinuses out the way a regular fan or a/c does.I’m in Southern California, which is an ideal climate for this cooler, but the room I use it in has about 50% humidity on average and it still works GREAT.Just understand its capabilities when making your decision. It won’t cool an entire room the same way a/c does, but it still has significant cooling power with much more comfort than a/c. The main difference, as I said before, is that instead of drying you out with a flow of dry air like a/c or regular fans, it moisturizes just enough to feel comfortable.The main downside is that it is bulky. There are a few convenience features that mitigate this downside, but just be aware that it has some heft.I would also like if the “low” speed setting didn’t blow quite as hard. I find that it blows hard enough to not need the medium and high fan speeds, but if I had this situated further away, I can see it being useful.Overall it is great and well worth the money. It is a quality product and I look forward to years of use. If you’re looking for an alternative to a/c, I can’t recommend this highly enough.

I recently moved into a new apartment. Although it did not face the sun, it still got unbearably warm in the afternoon and retained that heat throughout the evening. Fans did surprisingly little to make my nights tolerable and my only other choice – unless I cared to break the building’s rules by sneaking in a portable air conditioner – was to have a window-mounted AC unit installed. For this slice of civility, I would need to pay more than $1,500 over the duration of my lease.For some people, that might be a worthwhile expense. However, it just made me feel like the money in my wallet would evaporate along with the heat. Since a third fan would not likely accomplish what the first two could not, I looked around for swamp coolers. The fact that they function less well in high humidity was dispiriting, but I decided to take the risk and buy this unit. After using it for a month – and because I did not see many reviews from others using it in humid environments like Hawaii – I feel confident writing a review.PROS- Makes temperatures bearable (in certain conditions)- Significantly cheaper than air conditioningTo make sure I could properly assess how well the unit functioned, I bought a humidity and temperature monitor. I used this model (ThermoPro TP55 Digital Hygrometer Indoor Thermometer Humidity Gauge with Jumbo Touchscreen and Backlight Temperature Humidity Monitor) and strongly suggest that anyone considering a swamp cooler buy a humidity monitor for reasons I will discuss below. For the week before my unit arrived, my bedroom’s average temperature was in the upper 80s with humidity hovering around 50%.When I first used the cooler, I placed the thermometer in front of the air outlet and the temperature dropped to 80 ºF and the humidity rose to around 60%. This was more than enough to be able to sleep comfortably and even get under a blanket because it got too cold. Great! What a change from sleeping in the buff.The instructions recommend keeping a window AND door open to let the humidity escape, but I prefer to keep the door semi-closed for a bit of privacy. This traps the moist air and increases the humidity to around 65%. When I wake up in the morning, the air coming from the unit feels only slightly cooler than air blown by a fan. This has been further corroborated by my experience when the ambient humidity (i.e. without the swamp cooler running) is around that figure. In such conditions, the cooler functions as little more than a fan.For this reason, I think it is critical to have realistic expectations of what this unit will do. If your room’s humidity is significantly more than 50%, I would not recommend this product. This also means that you must be okay with not getting value from the unit on days that are unusually humid, which may be the very days you would most want to cool yourself down. Furthermore, it is important to remember that this will NOT cool an entire room. It must face a person or a bed.Of course, this unit has benefits that might outweigh its drawbacks. Hawaii has the nation’s highest electricity prices, which makes operating an AC unit – even sparingly – a painful experience for those on tight budgets. The more you pay for electricity, the more attractive this unit becomes. Since it only requires tap water and does not draw more power than a 100-watt lightbulb, it is also a much more environmentally friendly option than air conditioning.CONS- Loud- Bright lightsEven on the lowest setting, the unit’s fan is both strong and loud. When I run it on low during the day with my windows open, I can just barely make it out over the sound of the nearby freeway. On high, it competes with the loudness of the nighttime freeway itself. At night, this does not particularly bother me since I sleep with ear plugs, but it might bother someone who is a light sleeper or has trouble getting to sleep in anything other than total silence. I wish the unit were a bit quieter, but I feel like I would have to spend twice as much to get a product that does that.The unit’s front has a series of intense blue lights to indicate fan speed, cooling, whether it is on a timer, and oscillation. Unfortunately, this only adds to the swarm of other things in my room the emit light when I am trying to sleep. I wish the manufacturer had included an opaque slide I could put over the lights to block them at night or had positioned there somewhere else so it would not face me while I am in bed.CONSIDERATIONS- Requires daily refilling- Heavy- MaintenanceUsing the unit on its highest setting overnight depletes the water tank. I could get two days of use on medium or low. In either case, however, I end up refilling the unit daily. This does not bother me since my bedroom is only a few steps away from my bathroom, but it is an extra minute or two that one must add to their routine.I separate the tank from the top half containing the fan when I refill the unit. However, filling it up all the way makes the entire thing surprisingly heavy. This may not make the swamp cooler a good fit for the elderly or those with disabilities. Moreover, it is impossible to tilt the unit and wheel it around. The tray that you are supposed to use to fill the unit opens and lets water escape. Whose bright idea was it to not include a latch or something?The instructions recommend performing monthly maintenance on the unit. I have not gotten around to doing that, but when I pour out the old water I do sometimes notice that it is slightly dirty – almost like lightly used mop water. This is because it is pushing air through a curtain of water that captures a lot of dust and other particulates that are floating around. Gross, but if it were not in the water, I would be breathing it in just the same. At any rate, I will update this review when I get around to cleaning the unit, but people considering buying it should be aware that it requires more maintenance than a traditional air conditioner.