The best time to buy Arcttc Atr is this: the summer season, hot and stuffy like this year, we haven't remembered for a while and the test of the aforementioned product arrived just in time to refresh our home and office by making our days a little more liveable.
Arcttc Atr sounds a bit like “Artic Air” and maybe that's exactly what the company wants to allude to when it talks about its ability to cool the air: it certainly won't give us a polar breeze at home but, compared to a common fan , does not simply move the air from one side to the other but actually manages to cool it thanks to a built-in water tank.
The strengths, in addition to what has just been said, concern consumption and portability: but let's proceed in order and analyze it better.
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Don't expect noble materials when it comes to construction. It is mainly made of medium quality plastic: the impression is that, if it were to fall or take a well-aimed blow, it could actually crack. So the first thing to keep in mind is to handle it with care without forcing its parts during use.
Basically it is a cube of about 16 centimeters per side, which makes it easy to place on a desk, shelf, bedside table or any point of support from which it will then have to shorten the sleeves to lower the temperature of the room in which is found.
On the back there is a microUSB socket through which it will have to be powered. It does not need great power: to make it work you just need any power supply with 2A output or a power bank or the USB socket of the computer.
On the base there are four soft rubber feet that improve its stability and prevent it from sliding or overturning too easily in case you were to hit it by mistake. This is very important because water must be inserted inside a tank that actually has no safety locks or hermetic openings to block the water from flowing out.
The tank is accessed by lifting the long and narrow lid that we find along one of the sides on the upper facade. Inserting water is not mandatory for its operation but it is essential if you want something more than a simple desk fan.
On the upper side there are three buttons: the larger one, in the center, allows you to turn the machine on and off; the key marked by a fan allows you to adjust the speed of the blades and therefore of the power (on three levels: low, medium and high, recognizable through the LED indicators not far away), while the one symbolized by a light allows you to block the internal lamp on one of the different colors available.
The tank is in fact illuminated internally by a pleasant multicolored bulb that illuminates the external surface to create a small and pleasant light point in the room.
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How does it work
To turn on the fan just press the power button while to adjust the speed all you have to do is select it using the relative button. If there is water in the tank, the air moved from Arcttc Atr will be significantly cooler especially on those hot days where even the natural breeze is unbearable as it does nothing but move hot air from one side to the other.
But how does it work? To understand this, just disassemble the small fan. This is actually an operation necessary to carry out some maintenance after a few weeks of use and therefore foreseen by the manufacturer, which has made disassembly as simple as possible.
First you need to remove the front grille by unhooking it from its seat by pulling the small lever at the bottom. At this point it will be possible to extract the air filtration system composed of a cube thickly lined inside with thin sheets of special paper, thin enough to allow the passage of air but strong enough to prevent it from tearing during the fan operation.
Removed the internal cube, on the back it is possible to see more closely the operating fan, aesthetically very similar to those that are normally installed in computer turrets although it is slightly larger. On the base there is a small protrusion, above which there is a lid: removed the latter you access the internal sponge that embraces a small nozzle.
From here, drop by drop, the water present in the tank comes out, which soaks the sponge and thanks to which the sheets of paper fixed to the internal cube are moistened. It is thanks to this system that the rear fan, instead of simply moving the air, cools it by pushing it inside the network of wet sheets.
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How is it going
From this it becomes even clearer that the fresher the water that is inserted into it, the more the cooling effect will be evident. Our tests confirm this: in a first test we used simple fresh tap water while, on the second attempt, we further lowered the temperature of the latter with several ice cubes. After an hour of operation in the latter mode inside our office (dimensions of about 5 x 3 meters), between this room and the one immediately adjacent to it, the temperature difference was almost one and a half degrees (23.2 in the office against 24.4 in the next room).
If the numbers are not surprising, you should know that this small temperature difference is perceived even better by physically moving from one room to another and a cooler room, even by a single degree, in summer really makes all the difference in the world. Working outdoors has not only improved productivity but has allowed us to go home, in the evening, with less stress and with even less fatigue on our shoulders.
The effect, to understand, is very similar to what is obtained by placing a wet towel on top of a traditional fan. Clearly the slight increase in air humidity will be the small price to pay for a perceptibly cooler and more ventilated room.
The noise level is also good, lower than that of a traditional fan, but this is clearly due to the smaller size of the fan. We attach a small video that compares them from an acoustic point of view, just to give you a more precise idea of what has just been said.
Conclusions
Is Arcttc Atr worth buying? The answer is “it depends on a number of factors”. First of all, the price, comparable to that of a traditional fan which, in comparison, is much larger (and moves more air in parallel with a clearly higher noise level). If you aim above all at the movement of air and therefore the feeling that something in the room is moving, then it is better to leave it alone and buy a fan, perhaps a turret fan for the smaller footprint.
If, on the other hand, you want to freshen the air, then buying Arcttc Atr makes sense because thanks to the ice water that you can put in it, it actually manages to lower the air temperature. It should never be directed towards yourself otherwise the risk of colds and sore throats in the middle of summer is more than real. And if you have the possibility of combining it with a traditional fan (perhaps because you already have it) by placing it at the other end of the room, then the combination will be perfect: the room will be well ventilated and cooled in just a few minutes.
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Retail price
At the time of writing, Arcttc Atr is on sale on GearBest for € 22.73.
