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

After removing unit from packaging, inspection determined that it only came with 4 of the 5 vertical "swinging" blades. One blade had not been installed at the factory. I checked numerous photos and videos online to verify it was not correctly assembled and incomplete. Very disappointing as I have had very good luck with Honeywell products in the past. I will be returning it for a good unit.Got replacement unit. Rating now 5 stars instead of 1. This unit appears to be complete. After the first one I received, I would recommend that you closely inspect one you purchase. I've never had a bad product from Honeywell before, so I'm assuming it was a one-off, at least that's what I'm hoping. Even on low, this unit has a decent fan for a small room (100-110 square feet) and the air does seem slightly cooler when it has water in it and it's set to cool. It's not a huge difference, but it's comfortable and doesn't produce overwhelming humidity, but I hope you have a set-up like mine where you can put it in an open door and crack an opposite window for cross-flow ventilation to keep the humidity down. Here in Minnesota, the summer humidity is often just barely low enough (under 50-60%) for reasonable effectiveness. I only really use the A/C late at night, and this evaporative cooler should reduce my costs further, given that I only really need to cool a small room in a large house. Also, taking into account that I'm a trim guy who lives alone, if it gets hot, I simply take my shirt off and use only the fan set on low. In a small rom, On low speed the fan isn't objectively noisy and moves more than enough air. I keep odd hours and setting my A/C to barely run from 2AM to 8AM plus the Honeywell fan/cooler seems so far to be saving me a ton on my A/C bills.

This actually works very well. I've had it for maybe a couple weeks now and so far it seems to be doing a good job. However, you really need to understand how to operate it properly to get the best results. Here are some notes to take into consideration:1. It works best in the low humidity, but it's going to gradually increase the humidity in the room as it runs.2. It's not going to cool the room like an air conditioner would, but if you have ice around it will cool similar to an a/c while it's using the ice. It actually gets to the point where you need to shut it down from getting the room too cool, but not when it's running only on water.3. The water basin holds a lot of water. I've been using a 6 gallon plastic water bottle and a battery operated water pump. It makes it super easy to fill. If not, you'll need to have maybe a 2 gallon container to fill it.4. One of the things I don't like is that you can get a slight odor in the air. I don't believe this is from the actual unit, but from the water when it adds humidity to the air. I'm going to try one of those aromatherapy diffusers, but it doesn't arrive until today. Hopefully this will help keep the air smelling fresh.5. The unit will work with or without the window open. I do both because you get the fresh air from outside circulating. However, it will add humidity to the air faster with the window closed, which can sometimes make the room more comfortable if it's typically dry.All-in-all, it works great. There's just a learning curve to understanding what it will and won't do, plus how to set it up. Would recommend for sure. :-)

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.