Keeping cool in Singapore’s hot and humid weather usually requires leaving the air conditioning on for hours. The portable Close Comfort Cool Focus aims to solve this by creating a personal cool bubble around you instead of cooling the room. It sounds odd, but there’s science behind it and it actually works.
Quick specs
- Up to 300W
- Lowers temperatures around you by around 10 degrees Celsius
- 17kg weight with wheels
Invented by Aussie Professor James Trevelyan, the Cool Focus vents out the hot air into the room while sending a cool blast at you. Unlike other portable aircons, which require a hose to expel hot air, the Cool Focus doesn’t need that. While it does warm the room you are in, you won’t feel it since you’re in a cool bubble. You’ll want to place the Cool Focus right next to you. I found that even on hot 34 degrees Celsius days, I felt pretty cool. My thighs did feel sweaty, but that’s because I aimed the air flow at my head.
One of the advantages the Cool Focus has is the lower power consumption compared to a normal aircon. When in use, it draws around 280W of power according to my power meter, or around 0.28 kWh. My own calculations of a typical aircon puts it at around 2.5x that, or more. This makes it very practical if you’re looking to save on your power bill. The 2m long power cable it comes with means you can easily hook it up almost anywhere. You can store the cable in the water tank when not in use. Speaking of which, a pipe for water condensation is not needed. I’ve been using the Cool Focus for a week and there was no water at all in the 2L tank. The only condensation I noticed was on the vent the cool air was blowing out from.
I found the medium settings to work fine, but the high speed will keep you coolest. It is, however, much noisier than medium, which runs pretty quiet. Temperatures can go as Low as 17 degrees Celcius. There’s also a flap add-on to help direct the air flow better. At the front and back are two washable filters. Close Comfort says you can also use it at the edge of your bed at night to replace your aircon, but it didn’t quite work for me. The cooling just didn’t quite reach up to my head. My feet did feel pretty chilly though.
The Close Comfort Cool Focus is a nifty device to keep you cool. It works just fine and is perfect for our hot and humid weather. At S$649, the aircon is more expensive than portable room air cons, but cools you faster and doesn’t require you to figure out where to pipe out the hot air and water. Get it on Shopee or Lazada.
Note: Review unit provided by Close Comfort.
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