Lots of hot air in the air cooler tested by Kassensturz
30.5.2025
Translation: machine translated
Perhaps the manufacturers of air coolers should rename their products. As the current test by Kassensturz and Saldo shows, hardly any device provides real cooling.
«36 degrees, and it's getting even hotter ...», says the summer hit by 2raumwohnung. Well, whoever likes it. In any case, I'm already craving to cool down at 10 degrees below zero. Can a so-called air cooler help? Hardly or not at all, say Kassensturz and Saldo after their test.
On behalf of the two Swiss consumer protection media, the laboratory Applitest in Nuremberg, which specialises in household appliances, tested ten air coolers for their coolness factor. In other words, how well they do what they are supposed to do. The test also analysed how loud these devices are and how easy they are to handle.
Failure to cool down
The experts' damning verdict: Six, and therefore more than half, of the air coolers tested failed due to their lack of cooling performance. Saldo writes that the room temperature in the 28-degree climate chamber remained the same for most of the devices during the three-hour test phase.
Sonnenkönig, Livington, Stylies, Trisa: Abkühlung suchst du unter anderem bei diesen Luftkühlern vergebens.
The test manager puts it a little more nuanced when she says in the Kassensturz article that the cooling of the room was minimal to barely noticeable:
A real cooling only takes place at the beginning and directly in front of the device.
Well, if that's the case, I can give the air cooler a miss, sit in front of the open fridge and watch the (non-alcoholic) canned beer. Or I can put a fan in front of my nose as usual. After all, it also creates a cooling sensation without lowering the room temperature.
A drop in the ocean
So far, so bad. Coldtec comes closest to saving the air cooler's honour. This manufacturer's device won the test and received the overall rating «good». It cooled the air by 1.3 degrees in the meantime - most of the others achieved a maximum of 0.3 to 0.6 degrees. However, after three hours of measurement, the room temperature with the Coldtec air cooler was just as high as it was at the beginning. This makes me wonder why it was rated «good». But what do I know.
And according to Kassensturz and Saldo, the devices from Trotec, Tristar and Ohmex are sufficient.
Mould ahoy
Test winner or not, the air coolers tested are obviously not really convincing. The fact that most devices barely cool the air, if at all, but increase the humidity, makes matters worse. After three hours of operation, the test room had a downright tropical climate, writes Kassensturz. Great, then it's not only hot, but also humid:
This can be a problem, for example for wooden furniture or if a flat is susceptible to mould
Thanks, but no thanks. I'll stick with the fan.
How do you keep a cool head? Write it in the comments!
Header image: Christian Walker
I'm a full-blooded dad and husband, part-time nerd and chicken farmer, cat tamer and animal lover. I would like to know everything and yet I know nothing. I know even less, but I learn something new every day. What I am good at is dealing with words, spoken and written. And I get to prove that here.
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