I tried the Dreo Smart Fan earlier this year. Among its many features is one called “sleep mode,” which supposedly reduces fan volume without affecting performance. I didn’t think much of it; after all, how loud can a fan really be? And then autumn came.
For those of you unfamiliar with the weather in the southern US, you can experience three seasons in one day. The morning might start as sweater time, and the afternoon might be warm enough for a swim – only to plummet overnight. It is impossible for the thermostat to keep up.
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One night when it got a little warmer than it should have been, I took that smart fan into the bedroom to try and cool things down. As it turns out, the fan was louder than I thought. With nothing to lose, I opened the app and turned on sleep mode.
And then I had to check if the fan was still working. I felt the air flow, but I couldn’t hear it unless I listened carefully.
A pleasant surprise
I can’t sleep with a lot of noise in the background. White noise is fine, but many smart fans need to be cranked up to higher speeds to produce noticeable airflow. Of course, higher settings mean higher volume.
Of the Dreo Smart Fan’s 12 speeds, I usually keep it at nine or so. It is quite quiet during the day, when there are other sounds in the house that drown it out. At night, when I’m lying in bed? That’s all I can hear. When I activated sleep mode there was a slight pause and then the fan started to quiet down without losing that much airflow.
Somehow he found a balance between air output and noise level. It also turned off all the built-in LEDs. Again, they’re useful for checking fan status at a glance, but they can look as bright as the sun in a dark room.
According to the documentation, sleep mode gradually reduces the power output before turning off the fan according to a timer. This also means that the fan can be programmed to come on at a specific time; in fact, mine stays idle almost all the time, but still produces airflow with a lower noise level.
Advantages of smart fans
I’m always looking for ways to sleep better. I’m a bit of a workaholic and I like to take advantage of my sleep time. So many people are chronically sleep deprived that it is important to count those hours of naps, and an uncomfortable sleep does not make for a restful night.
Smart fans can give you that little bit of extra cooling, but with more precise control. You can set it to turn on and off at specific times, meaning no more crawling out of bed to find the perfect spot to turn on the fan. You can even control it with your voice if you don’t want to stare at your phone.
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Some smart fans go beyond just cooling. Take the LG PuriCare AeroTower. While it provides extensive cooling capabilities, it also doubles as an air purifier. It keeps you comfortable and helps you breathe easier—literally.
In the grand scheme of the smart home, fans are a secondary investment. Most of them are still non-functional, which we have talked about a lot in the past. Smart home devices need to serve more than one function or they will go the way of disposable kitchen gadgets.
Then you have products like the AeroTower. Although it is a phenomenal device, the price is high for an air purifier and fan. Right now, smart fans need to drop the price a bit and expand their functionality before they can be immediately recommended to most people, but having genuinely useful features is a step in the right direction.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn