Having used an older MeacoFan air circulator (review) for the past four years, I’ve become dependent on its quiet and persistent ways of keeping the room cool. It’s especially during the hot highveld summer nights that the Maeco proved its worth.

However, during the dark days of load shedding the Meaco fan suffered like the rest of us. It was for this reason that I was eager to try out the MeacoFan Sefte 10" Pro table air circulator, a new model that now comes with an optional battery. 

While load shedding is, at least for now, a thing of the past, a fan with a battery still provides a big benefit. For one, if you need to move the MeacoFan to somewhere else, say outside during a braai, it will keep powering on without the need to have a power source. Also, with a few power outages in our suburb due to other reasons than load shedding, the MeacoFan kept going.

Getting into the mode

Why is it called an air circulator, instead of simply a fan? The MeacoFan can move vertically, horizontally or combine both, which means it stirs the air in all kinds of directions, keeping a room clear of hot pockets. Also, there are three angles for vertical and horizontal oscillation, ranging from narrow, medium and wide, depending on your specific requirements.

The MeacoFan includes two extra innovative modes. The first, and arguably the most important, being night mode, which turns off all lights on the unit and stops any beeping when pressing buttons or using the remote. Here the fan speed also decreases every half hour to keep up with the regular drop in temperature during the night. It’s also worth noting that the MeacoFan is quiet enough to comfortably fall asleep to (as low as 25 dB), which if you’ve ever used other fans, is a big benefit.

The second is Eco mode which is not a type of power saving mode as this might indicate on other appliances. Rather, the fan speed adjusts according to the room temperature, with the strongest reserved for 30 degrees and up. (The MeacoFan always displays the room temperature, a nice to have.)

Leading the charge

Now for the battery, of which the advantages have been mentioned already, and it’s a big boy, a 9200 mAh Li-ion rechargeable that slots in on top of the base. Depending on oscillation and fan speed, you can get anything between 5.5 hours and 40 hours of usage, with the battery taking in the region of 3.5 hours to recharge. This performance is impressive and certainly a blessing when you need a fan in a different part of the house or outdoors.

The bad news is that the battery is not included, and you would need to add another R1 360 for the privilege. It makes the Sefte 10" Pro quite an investment, since it’s a R3 500 product to start with.

Seeing that the MeacoFan is such a handy product to have around the house, it’s strange that the company did not include a handle for easy pick up. If you want to move it you need to awkwardly pick it up at the back.

Finally, in the instruction manual it’s mentioned the MeacoFan can be controlled via an app on your smartphone, and with Wi-Fi required to do so. This, however, proved a difficult process, and the app simply did not find the unit.

These are but a few drawbacks to what really is an excellent product. Yes, the R3 500 price is expensive, and especially so with the additional R1 360 battery, but the MeacoFan Sefte 10" Pro table air circulator will definitely prove its worth during the course of its lifetime.