Crompton Ozone 75-Litre Inverter Compatible Desert Air Cooler with Honeycomb Pads for Home and Commercial (White and Teal)

This air-cooler can be filled up with 70 litres of water, has a ice tray, the 2 regulating knobs are “speed control” and “louver + water control”; the “speed control” knob starts with the fast, medium and slow settings; “the louver + water control” knob starts with water, water + louver, louver. The equipment comes with the absolutely necessary castor wheels needed to move this 14+70 kg beast across the floor.

I bought this in May-2022 for ~₹9.5K, writing this review as of Aug-2022.

The wet dog smell for the first few weeks is normal for the usage, it’ll go away. This is due to the Honeycomb pads. I recommend pouring in a cap of lavender Dettol to mask that wet dog smell for a while.

What all was good:
• During the hot and humid season in Chennai, this equipment was able to reduce the temperature in the flow direction to 5°C lesser than the actual temperature of 35°C; (I was able to verify this using a industrial grade infrared thermometer).
• The filled water lasts up to 2.5 days with normal usage as you use ceiling fan.
• For best performance, I found that having it placed near open windows with a foot of space clearance around the equipment (if you are placing by a wall). Otherwise we are circulating the same-already humidified air to even more saturated air.
• The castor wheels have a easy flip-lock, so that the beast doesn’t move on its own while operating.
• Dismantling the honeycomb pads for cleaning is easy with just hand-tight-able screws at the back.
• The power consumption is almost the same as running a ceiling fan.
• The Air throw and air delivery of this is very good for a large room or even the hall.

What could have been better:
• The 4 foot length power cable is the most annoying, it is too short to be practical, you have to buy a extension box (rated 16amps) to operate this thing in a room with just one socket far away.
• The ice tray is useless, upon disassembly of this equipment I found out that the ice tray is just a drip line to the bottom water tank, this makes the ice tray not even worth the attempt putting the ice cubes in. If the ice tray were to drip over the honeycomb pads that would make it worthwhile.
• Noise: Yeah, it’s loud! I mean it would take some time to get adjusted to the noise it makes. My measurements are as follows: Slow=80dB, Medium=83dB, Fast=85dB; Slow+Water+Louver=82dB, Medium+Water+Louver=84dB, High+Water+Louver=86dB. For fiducial comparison, your ceiling fan would generate around 55dB on full speed. Get ready to sleep in a rain forest with that water dripping sound 😀
• I never used the auto-fill feature, can’t say much about it, although it seems to have a float valve to cut off the water when there is enough level, I think this can fail and go pretty bad in a household environment.
• On receiving first, always verify if the motor and water pump work, the pump particularly didn’t work for 2 of my first purchases, the only last one I bought worked. We shouldn’t buy an air cooler with a defective pump, then that is just a glorified table fan.

Comparing to the noise, maintenance and power, if you do have money to spend on an actual AC (Air Conditioner) go for it, these days the AC doesn’t even consume that much power;
If AC feels like a costly investment, I recommend this budget AC (Air Cooler).

High water capacity big size easy to use quality wise not satisfied not value for money 💰

Summer and air cooler goes synonymously, especially when you do not want AC and are trying to avoid it.

Upon subsequent analysis wrt price point, features and utility wrt room size this model emerged on top, from among similar range products from other companies.

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🎁 INSIDE BOX
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▶ Cooler
▶ Manual
▶ Warranty Card

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➕ PROS
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1. Good looking, lightweight & portable
2. 4 castor wheels to make it portable (wheels are actually smooth)
3. Effective cooling for room size of 20x15ft.
4. Honeycomb type cooling pads on three sides for effective cooling.
5. Good capacity (75l) water tank. Single fill lasts for full 14-18 hours of continuous usage.
6. Auto swing (R-L) ensures uniform cooling of room
7. Full plastic body means no issue like in all metal desert coolers, which rust after a while and start leaking at times.
8. Direct transparent zone to act as water level indicator to let you know when tank is empty. No mechanical components here.
9. Sufficiently long cable, approx. 1.5 metre. For more you require extension cord.

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➖ CONS
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1. Installed honeycomb type pads are difficult to find. You need to settle for normal grass pads later on when these are clogged.
2. Water inlet lid is difficult to open (mostly a manufacturing defect in this piece). Initially we thought that we would break it while opening, it was that hard to pull
3. Gimmicy ice chamber and you would better use lower water inlet to put in ice to cool water instantly. If you use ice chamber, icethe process of cooling water is very slow- ice melts and cold water flows down the pipe to the tank.
4. Noise levels are higher but that is due to higher air flow to cover bigger spaces and sadly you can’t avoid it. If you go for bigger coolers, you would have slightly higher noise levels.

For the cons, I am deducting 1 star. 4 stars as the product fulfils its purpose in best possible way with some scope for improvement in other domains.

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🎛️ KNOB CONTROLS
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Knob 1:Controls speed, 3 speeds to have
Knob 2: Controls autoswing and water pump- water pump on and swing off, water pump on and swing on, pump off and swing on, both off

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🎛️ AIR DIRECTION CONTROL
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Horizontal Blades: No auto swing, manual adjustment (hard to adjust)
Vertical Blades: Auto swing, knob control, all blades move simultaneously

So in practice you can have air directed either up or down or front, with auto swing of vertical blades covering all zones as per manually set horizontal blades.

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⚙️ TIPS
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1. Install cooler near window or door so that it can pump in some of fresh air from outside to have a control over humidity.
2. Better if you can install it in balcony, facing window such that its 3 sides are able to suck in fresh air. Cover rest of window with cardboard or thermocole sheets for better insulation. It helps control humidity in room, as if it’s inside a closed room, it continuously adds moisture.
3. Cross ventilation doubles the cooling effect. So if cooler on one corner, provide air escape route on other corner.
3. Use ice cool water for faster cooling. You can manually add ice to it.
4. Clean cooler once or twice a week. It ensures long life of cooler and hygiene too. Or it may soon become prominent breeding place for mosquitoes.
5. Do have an eye on air quality. If theres lot of water droplets along with air, get it checked or it may cost you coolers motor in long run, as it may burn.

6. END OF SEASON TIP: To ensure long life of cooler, completely clean and dry it before storage. Then add few drops of oil to shaft of motor and store it. This way your cooler will be ready to cool upon unpack from last season or else you may end up your cooler in repair shop.

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🏆 FINAL VERDICT
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Not a bad deal for the price and performance. You don’t find many coolers with such water capacity.