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 feel compelled to leave a review for this machine, simply because the reviews are so mixed. This unit does exactly what it says. It allowed me to cool down a small office that wasn't being properly handled by my a/c. The room is a small corner office with two large windows facing south and west. The office gets considerable sunlight throughout the day, and heats up about five to ten degrees warmer than the rest of my unit on average.Eventually, I plan on doing things right and running a/c ducting into the office, but for the time being, I needed a cheap and portable solution that would make working in my office a little more bearable. This little unit easily brings the temperature down about five degrees and makes the room much more pleasant to work in. I'm watching humidity and temp in the room, and the unit will quickly up the humidity, by design, but all you need to do is crack a window to vent a bit, close the door to the office, and let this little unit rip, and it stays nice and comfortable. I couldn't be happier.Yes, its loud, even on the lowest setting. It's considerably louder than the tower fan I had in my office previously (also a Honeywell), but that tower didn't do anything but move warm air around. The air cooler measurably reduces the temperature, and the hum it produces is lower in frequency and less shrill than the tower, so although it is loud, it sort of fades into the background a lot easier. It also adds a nice tinkling of water as the cooler is running that isn't unlike the sound of a small fountain.The oscillation, or swing as they call it on this model, is great and will sweep my room efficiently. Even without the unit cooling, it moves considerably more air than a normal tower fan.That being said, it's not without drawbacks. For one, it's cheaply made. Right out of the box one of my grill slats was missing a tiny chunk of plastic. A quick hunt in the bottom of the box found it, and a little dab of superglue fixed it back up. Definitely not the best reassurance of quality when the item is coming out of the box slightly broken. The grill itself is very cheap feeling and if this unit isn't properly cared for I can see it breaking more of these slats and looking pretty rough fast.Filling it with water is also a gigantic pain. There is no removable water canister like one of Honeywell's humidifiers. Instead, there is a pull out tray where you have to lug water over to the unit. It took me way longer than I would have liked, trekking back and forth to the kitchen to refill a water pitcher, to fill the cooler's 2.5 gallon tank. A removable canister or some better method of filling this thing would have been preferred. Luckily, the 2.5 gallons should last me four to five hours which should get me through the hot part of the day, and the fan on its own will be great if I just need to move some air around at night.So, as long as you temper your expectation and know what you're getting out of this unit, I can't see being disappointed by it. It's important that you check your humidity levels in the room you are looking to cool with an air cooler before you even consider purchasing. If you're sitting at 40-50% humidity or above most days when its the hottest in the room, this unit is going to be an expensive tower fan at best and a sauna maker at worst. If your room is like mine, and you are somewhere in the high 20s to low 30s relative humidity when the air cooler is needed, this thing is going to work amazingly well.For those of you in Southern California wondering if this will work for you, this room is located in Downtown Los Angeles and is aprx 80 sqft. Relative humidity in the room ranges from high 20% to high 30% depending on time of day, and on hot summer days can hit 90F near the hottest point of the day, but normally is around 84-86F at its hottest point. The air cooler effectively lowers the temperature in the room by 5F to 10F and runs humidity up to 45%, making it much more comfortable. The hotter it is for me, the dryer my air is, and the more effective the air cooler will run. This unit works perfectly as a temporary air cooling solution, and in the right environment is going make you much more comfortable.