VonHaus 2500955 Air Cooler review: Take the edge off a heatwave for less

During the hottest weeks of the summer it can be hard to find the right way to cool down. Not everyone has cool winds or decent airflow through their home and when it’s really hot, even the best tower or pedestal fans can’t provide more than a warm breeze. Yet portable air conditioners aren’t always practical and can be overkill if you only need them for a handful of weeks each year.

Air coolers can fill in the space in-between, costing you less and taking up less space than a PAC, but giving you more active cooling than a fan. The VonHaus 2500955 is a great example. It’s cheap, easy to use and – with some caveats – effective. It can’t cool a room in the way a proper portable air conditioner (PAC) can, but it can take the edge off the heat

VonHaus 2500955 Air Cooler review: What do you get for the money?

This is a straightforward 80W air cooler with a 6l tank that will set you back £55. An air cooler is basically an absorbent pad or membrane inside a box with a water tank or fan. The sheet absorbs cold water from the tank, while the fan pulls air through the membrane and pushes it out into the room. As it does so, the water in the membrane evaporates, cooling the air.

The cooler the water, the cooler the air, so most water coolers also have space in the tank for two or more ice packs or you can add your own or even just some ice cubes. Here, VonHaus includes four empty ice packs to fill with water and freeze yourself, along with a small, credit-car style remote control.

There’s nothing that really stands out about the physical design, but it’s compact, well-built and relatively light, standing 68.4cm tall on its casters and weighing 6kg with no water in the tank. Some water coolers I’ve seen have felt incredibly cheap with thin and brittle plastics, so you can’t take decent build-quality for granted.

VonHaus 2500955 Air Cooler review: What features and settings does it have?

This cooler keeps things fairly simple with a switchable Cooler mode, three fan speeds and oscillation function, which moves the airflow through 60-degrees from side-to-side. There’s also a one hour, two hour or four hour off timer.

Beyond the Normal mode, you can run the Fan in Nature or Sleep mode. The former alternates between the fan turning off and turning on in one of the three speeds, while the latter does much the same thing. Either way, the effect doesn’t really work like a natural breeze, while the stop/start action and sudden gusts of wind aren’t exactly conducive to sleep. It doesn’t help that this air cooler makes almost constant gurgling sounds. What’s more, the fan can put out between 41.9dBA and 48.7dBA, depending on its current speed.

VonHaus 2500955 Air Cooler review: How well does it perform?

If this were just a fan, performance wouldn’t be all that impressive. Even at its maximum speed, airflow at 1m is just 2.2m/sec, dropping to 1.6m/sec on medium speed and just 1m/sec on low. Nor can you compare it to a PAC on performance. I registered a drop from 25°C to 24°C over one hour, but a decent PAC would do more in 30 minutes.

The point here, though, is the combination of the cooling and the airflow. In the hottest part of the day, the light breeze coming from an ordinary fan is nice, but not all that cooling. The chilled air coming from the air cooler, however, is sweet relief, especially if you can position the unit just a metre or so away. With the ice blocks in place, you can genuinely feel that the air hitting you is slightly colder, particularly when it hits your skin.

VonHaus 2500955 Air Cooler review: Is there anything we didn’t like?

As mentioned earlier, noise levels are too high for sleeping and you won’t want it on more than low speed if you’re trying to watch TV. The push-button controls and LED indicators also feel basic. The same goes for the credit-card style remote, which looks destined to be lost down the back of the sofa and won’t be missed much when it does.

Running costs are much lower than with an air conditioner but you’re still looking at 43.7W when the fan speed is on low and 54.9W on high. And remember that you’ll need to empty and refill the water tank every one to two days while the cooler is in use. The pad will also need to be cleaned before you put it into storage, or sooner if the air starts to smell. This isn’t particularly easy, as the instructions provide no help and the tank can’t be removed from the unit. I find it’s best to empty it over a bath or in the garden.

VonHaus 2500955 Air Cooler review: Should you buy it?

Yes. It doesn’t do anything particular that puts it above other coolers in our best air cooler guide, but it’s a good example of the breed and thoroughly affordable. If you’re finding that your fans can’t quite cut it and you don’t have the need or budget for a proper PAC, the VonHaus 2500955 could be just what you need to keep your cool.