Frigidaire 12,000 BTU Cool Connect Smart Portable Air Conditioner, Rooms upto 550-Sq. Ft

Kudos to Frigidaire for thinking outside the box... literally.This portable air conditioner is probably the only one on the market that isn't a boxy rectangle of ugliness.Instead, think an R2D2-meets-Dalek cylindrical mashup that, yes, is quite tall but also exudes a sense of thoughtful -- almost whimsical -- design completely lacking in every other portable AC unit I have seen.While its industrial vibe may not be everyone's cup of tea, I find it attractive; from the clever packaging to the materials / design of the unit itself, everything is well-executed. The disc-shaped remote control even stows magnetically on the top of the main unit.These are, admittedly, early impressions. I just received the unit and have only briefly tested it so far, but the amount of cold air it generates is impressive.The proof of the pudding will be how it performs during our hot, humid summer. I bought the unit as a backup to have on hand to use with a generator in the event of power loss during a hurricane, since last year we were without AC for nearly two weeks after my town's electrical grid was damaged. It will also serve backup duty during the hottest part of the summer in a very warm enclosed porch area without a dedicated central air vent.It seems that a lot of people leaving 1-star reviews about this unit have unrealistic expectations about portable AC units in general.By their nature and design, portables are going to be less efficient that window units, since all the heat-generating components sit inside the same physical space you are trying to cool -- not hanging outside window, where the hot air can vent directly to the exterior of your house. There are tradeoffs for everything in life.The upside to portables? Not having to balance/secure a heavy unit in your window, and the ability to quickly roll it to another location with a minimum of fuss. Fortunately, the Frigidaire hose kit is attractive, well-insulated, and easy to fit in most windows.I'm more than satisfied with the tradeoffs and decisions Frigidaire made with this unit.Is it silent? No, of course not. Is the noise it makes reasonable for its cooling performance? Absolutely.It won't rub your shoulders after a long day at work, or make you coffee in the morning, either, but I am more than happy with how it fulfills its intended purpose.

Absolutely horrible. Amazon customer service is horrible. I was shipped a junk piece of crap. I reached out for help before reviewing but amazon was useless. The unit I received was not in original packaging and was ghetto wrapped in untapped boxes that were falling apart. The unit is nearly 100lbs. I don’t even know how I’d to ship this back. I don’t have a box this big and I can’t lift this. Waste of $500. Unit doesn’t cool one room very well and the water pan needs drained almost every 5 hours. There’s no way to hook up drain hose for running ac. Some things you just need to buy in person and this is one of them. Don’t make the same mistake as me. I’m tired of receiving crap from bad cheaply made stuff sold on amazon. No quality control.

I've had this unit for about six months now. It's running in a much smaller space than it's designed for right now (about 180 sq feet), so it has no problem cooling the room it's in. It's in a room with computers and such, and I'm in Florida in a house with lousy central air, so I opted for the extra power to keep the electronics safe and me comfortable. It's certainly done that.The unit has a unique aesthetic, which I like, and with a ceiling fan in the room, having the vent pointed up is no problem - it actually probably circulates the cold air better than channeling the air horizontally from the unit, especially in a room with a lot of furniture that could get in the way. The cloth sleeve for the venting tube looks good, but I don't think it offers much real insulation - the unit would be more efficient with insulation wrapped around the tube.The remote does the job, though it generally takes two pushes of any button to get a change to take - one to turn on the display of the unit, then after that you can push + or - to change the target temperature, change the mode or fan speed, or turn it off. The circular design is another unusual aesthetic, but it's also impractical - you have to look at the remote to tell which way to point it to control the unit.The Alexa skill suffices. I have it working, but it's really only good for adjusting temperature and turning the unit off. It won't change modes.The fan is louder when it's running at a higher speed, of course, but the condenser doesn't add much noise to that when it kicks on. In regular mode it should be fine for a bedroom, but in economy mode the unit switching on and off through the night would make it harder to sleep (economy mode shuts the fan off except for occasional temperature checks, then it turns the fan and condenser on if it needs to cool).Dehumidifying mode seems to work well, but I'm in Florida so it's hard to tell if there's much difference between that and the regular cooling mode. Mostly dehumidifying mode keeps the condenser running more, so it can make the room pretty cold compared to the regular mode.Overall, I like the unit - pricey, but it works for what I need and it's fairly quiet.On to the less positive things to know...First, I mentioned Florida and humidity above. If you're in a humid area, for any indoor unit you're going to want to drain water from the unit regularly. There's a valve for that on the back of the unit, but it's at the very bottom too. You would need to attach a tube and keep the valve open to regularly drain the water into a bucket you can empty. Personally, I elevated the unit with bed risers to make the valve more accessible (looks funny, but they work), and I drain both the A/C valve and the separate valve for draining the dehumidifier into a condensate pump. The pump moves water into a bucket for now, but when I feel less lazy I'll try drilling a hole in the window attachment so the water can pump directly outside instead.In regular A/C mode, in hot weather and high humidity, it feels like it generates about a gallon of water every four hours. So get a big bucket.As other reviews have mentioned, the thermostat isn't very reliable. What I think is going on is that if you shut the unit down or run in economy mode, outside air comes in through the venting tube and affects the thermostat's reading of the temperature. If the unit runs the fan continuously that's less of a problem because it's sucking in inside air and pushing it outside. If you don't want to leave the fan running, then, be prepared to adjust the target temperature to account for the thermostat's readings.The usual issues with portable air conditioners apply, otherwise - it's heavier than you expect, the efficiency will be bad because of the venting tube (the box says the unit is 12k BTU but the DOE rating is 7.2k, a big difference in effective BTU), and water drainage is more involved than a window unit.In conclusion, do your research before buying a portable A/C unit, use a window unit instead if you're allowed to and have a window that will support it, and take humidity into account. If you're going to get a portable A/C unit this is a fine model to get, even if it's more expensive than most. Six months and it hasn't given me any trouble.

Excellent air conditioner

Works well cooling down our dining room, kitchen and living room. It's way overkill for a bedroom, but great for large living areas. On ECO mode it's pretty quite and still blows cold enough to keep us comfortable. When it's cranked up to HIGH everything it does get kind of loud, especially if you are sitting close to it. It's a big heavy unit, but I'm not a little girl so it doesn't bother me. Rolls easily on laminate flooring, on carpet it takes a bit of muscle but still no issues. The handles have some flex to them. I read that some people said the handles hurt their hands but I found them to be fine.No complaints about the app so far. As long as you follow the instructions in the app it seems to work well. The app is needed to change from Fahrenheit to Celsius, and to turn on the "clean air" function, so it's kind of a must have. I Have not tried it with the google assistant yet so no comments there. The included remote is very basic but works well.The window extension bracket is pretty easy to use, no tools required. However it does still require some creativity with the provided foam, especially because the base of the bracket where the hose connects is wider than the top part that extends, leaving a gap between the extension part of the bracket and the window. This can be easily filled with the provided foam, but is a drawback when moving the unit to a different room/window as you may need to mess around with the foam each time.There was a bunch of tape on the unit from shipping to hold the filters in place. When I peeled the tape off it removed some of the silver paint! Now this brand new $700, beautiful AC unit has an eyesore on it for everyone to see. Pretty mad about that.

Sadly this unit does not seem to cool our space.The thermostat doesn’t appears to be working.Nice aesthetically I suppose .Very disappointed in this unit.

If I add some sticks and a flashing light, I can make a great Dalek. It's more attractive than most units although I am curious how white it will be in a couple of months.Packing was great. Once you cut the straps on the box, the top and sides of the box lift right off the bottom. There is a fair amount of foam packaging, but based on how the box and foam got dinged up travelling across the continent, it was the right amount. Zero detectable damage to the unit.This is a beast for a portable unit at 77lbs. For me, that is a big plus. For someone else who may wish to roll this around on a shag carpet several times a day, that will be a problem. The box label says 88 lbs including the box and I believe it.It is quieter than most hotel room A/C units, so that's a plus. You can even default the fan to keep it on 'low'. The unit should cool 500-600 sq feet, so it is rocking the primary bedroom when the door is closed and definitely cooling half the upstairs when the bedroom door is open.The duct and window adaptor were super easy to install. Zero tools required for any part of the process except cutting the package straps. I did not use the foam strips yet around the window adaptor because I have a dream of moving it to different rooms. Also a very small gap isn't going to let in that much outside air anyhow. I could even leave the outside bug screen in the window. I think I could move this room to room in under 5 minutes.When you first unpack this, you MUST let it sit upright for a couple of hours so all the oil ends up at the bottom inside the pump BEFORE you plug it in. You only need to wait once, as long as you do not knock it over and leave it on its side. The labels all say 'this side up' for shipping, but trusting that everyone did it right all the way from the factory is a bad bet.The display temperature is a big size, bright white and easy to read. It turns off after a few seconds so you can sleep without a searchlight in the room. The control buttons are bigger than my finger tip, so I don't hit two of them. The printing is dark gray on silver. I would have preferred black for better contrast or blue = cold, red = hot.I only got as far as the basic on/off, fan and temperature controls on the main unit. I will hook up the app and Google Home voice control later. I haven't even tried the remote control yet. Voice control will also completely remove the need to read the button labels. It seems to read 2C high for the temperature. Set at 20C, the room becomes 18C by 2 other independent thermometers and my body feel.

Bought this to cool our bedroom but it is quite loud. Also it was heavier than I expected making it very difficult to move on carpets. Cooling is very effective though.App has some issues where the timer function does not work currently.