Midea Duo 12,000 BTU (10,000 BTU SACC) High Efficiency Inverter, Ultra Quiet Portable Air Conditioner, Cools up to 450 Sq. Ft., Compatible with Alexa/Google Assistant, Includes Remote

Update - 4 months in--------------Decided to do a follow up since it's getting into the summer time now and I've had this now for the past 4 months.For context I live in the inland empire with dry desert California climate. As we speak right now It's 97 degrees in my room of around 350-400 ft. I bought this to circumvent issues I was having with my central AC that my landlord is being extremely stingy about getting properly fixed that froze on me last summer, and even froze on me this week when I turned it on again for this extremely hot weather.Ive primarily have used it before in hot weather so I knew it would work but I was worried that I was crossing the threshold of efficiency where it would be better to simply use my AC instead of doing my hacky solution. Except for trying to get the ac fixed and this past week I have not turned on my AC a single time during this summer or this week with over 90 degree weather.And this has been not only working, but still working more efficiently than my AC for my space. It's really good at being able to regulate itself at a decent level when your room is at the temperature that you set. For my case however I do run this at 78, which is fine for me. The degrees it shows will be about 2-3 degrees cooler in your room to whatever you set it too, but I know that a lot of people like it way colder than I do in my room. The colder you run this unit, the less efficient it'll be, especially when your trying to work with extreme temperatures.I do suggest getting the warranty when you get this unit as the actual pipe you get with the unit is extremely flimsy and super expensive (around 60-100 dollars last time I looked). I had some damage on mine from setting it up, but found a workaround with drilling in screws instead to keep it in place, but I still got a replacement sitting in my room after sending them pictures from that.There are automations that come with the app that would help to make it more efficient I haven't played around with, but I suggest you do so as the only issue I've had running this consistently is it running when it's cooler outside, but my room retaining a lot of heat naturally due to how it was built. If you do this, I suggest getting an indoor thermostat so you can control when you turn it on conditionally by both your indoor temperatures and the outdoor temperaturees, as I've found in my case especially after dark it'll be cool outside but super hot in the house because of the heat cooling off from the walls.--------------------------------------------------------------------Im basing this on my first couple of days using this unit from a unusual heat wave for the past few days in cali, and not off any long term use from using the productI primarily was looking for a portable unit with the purpose of saving money in my small rental apartment. My AC over time has massively gone up over time and very likely needs to get an inspection but even with it working as intended, it's generally a very costly piece of equipment especially during the summer. I have an all electric unit - so the expense is already going to be higher than if I had gas, but the unit also being broken and older has also increased that cost over time.The unit itself is around 70ish pounds, so if you're looking to move this around upstairs, then I wouldn't get this unit. It is movable but you really want to utilize the wheels whenever possible. In my apartment, the 2 ideal locations that I would place this unit would either be my bedroom or my living room, which can both be accessed easily by wheeling it to where it needs to go.The installation of the unit is fairly straight forward. I actually have not done any permanent fixtures with the foam as I'm trying to avoid doing that as possible, but I haven't had any issues with the unit being semi fixed. The noise from outside seeps a bit more like this, but this also isn't a unit that I need to use all the time - as I really only need it when the weather gets hot.One primary concern that I have so far operating the unit is the hum of the refrigerant as it's going in the unit itself. The first couple of days it was making a very annoying audible sound that was mostly machine like, but it seems to have gone away after operating for the last few days. If you hear this noise, give it a few days to see if it goes away on its own.The other issue with this unit is the flimsiness of the installation itself. It's very easy to break the clips for your mounts, and the replacement cost for those pieces is around $79 dollars on midea's site. You have a limited warranty of 1 year on the unit itself, but I can see this breaking very easily after some time, especially if you move it around a lot.The unit has 4 modes, for mine it has a fan, cooling, and a dehumidifer mode. From using the auto mode it seems to do a fairly good job once the room is set to a certain temperature. Generally speaking though, with any AC, you should turn them on first thing in the morning when it's cool, so it doens't need to work as hard cooling your house. It's easier for it to maintain a cool temperature, then it is to bring down the temperature of your whole house.I've also seen people say "it doesn't carry air that well, but also try to use it in a 1000 ft garage, or some other weird area. This unit is specified to work for around 450-550 feet. My room is around 200-250, with my living room being around 500 ft with obstruction that makes it difficult to carry air if my doors are all open. If you need to carry air, grab a fan that can carry air in your room like a dreo or a vornado, or any kind of fan that can tilt or has the ability to swivel. My room says relatively cool, but my living room right now is at a different temperature without my engaging ingenuity around it, but I am able to circulate air into my living room by setting up my fans properly. It's just a hassle to do that constantly.Otherwise, for energy savings from my wattage hours it's operating at a much lower cost than it would to use my AC. Even if I needed to get more involved with adding more fans to circulate air in my house, that hack is significantly less than the amount of electricity im using right now. I haven't gotten a kill a wat to watch the unit, but from my bills alone, the total operation on a fairly hot day seems to be around 4 watts, vs my AC which would easily take 10 watts minimum even on an average day.

I waited a couple of months to see how the experience held up before submitting a review. Before purchase I had wondered about the drainage situation, performance, and overall noise level. I can address these points fully now.The Midea Duo is a wonderful machine -- in a small bedroom (roughly 11x11) setting this to the lowest setting (60 degrees Fahrenheit) will actually take a space this small down into the mid / upper 50s. This is while the machine copes easily with southeastern heat and humidity outside.I watched a Youtube reviewer test the noise level, and yes, that very low decibel rating is accurate with one caveat. The minimum noise level advertised only happens on low fan when the unit is in air circulation mode, no AC active -- the compressor running will easily exceed that level even on the lowest settings.Don't get me wrong -- I work at a desk approximately four feet away from the unit and I have absolutely no issues doing my job. There is a quirk of the unit where when the AC first activates, it briefly will spin everything up to maximum even with the settings configured to low / medium. This will last about thirty seconds before the inverter tech kicks in and the compressor drops into background noise. This is my only pet peeve overall.I am unsure as to why there isn't a "quiet mode" setting where it will run the compressor at a low setting more often for longer periods to maintain temperature versus needing to run full power for a bit. I would absolutely love this as a feature. Sending the compressor all the way to maximum and maximum fans briefly before stepping back and operating quietly is annoying, but I will note that I do not consider this loud enough to interrupt my day. Sitting further away will mitigate the issue completely.The noise is never enough to wake me from sleep and isn't "terrible". On normal low AC settings outside of the initial "start up" where it runs full tilt, I would say it is about as loud as box fan set to medium-low. The full start up level of noise for the compressor is approximately as loud as a window AC running on full. You will definitely notice the different stages as it cycles up and down.This thing will freeze you out of a room and quickly drop the temperature. I have never seen anything like it. Even dealing with Florida heat and humidity it was able to take a heat soaked room that was in the upper 80s down to the low 70s in a span of two hours.I had some concerns about needing to drain this vs a comparable Whynter unit with their exhaust technology. Those concerns were unfounded -- even with Florida humidity I have never needed to drain the unit. I have checked multiple times but I have never had more than a few drops of water in the tank. The AC exhausts the water vapor efficiently out through the window and does not seem to accumulate much at all.I have not needed to use the dehumidifying option, so that option may require more draining. For normal AC use you will probably not need to drain it often at all. If you live in a drier climate than Florida, you will probably never need to give draining it a second thought at all.Installation was not difficult for one person and all needed adapters / panels are provided. Midea supplies extra panels and adapters in case you need extensions. I do recommend reviewing the instructions and using the dampening foam panels to keep outside noise and heat away. You can install it without the instructions (it's that simple) but your life will be much easier if you read the manual. :) Make sure to install the hose flow separator at the end of the vent or your performance will not be as great.Once the foam is installed and the window secured with the included foam liners, outside noise is no worse than what it was before with the window closed. Midea has done very well in thinking of customer comfort.Durability -- it cools just as well as it did on day one. It has, however, developed a very annoying rattle/vibration when the compressor spins up and goes to full power. This sounds like something vibrating loose in the unit and this happened a few weeks into ownership.If I press my hand to the side of the unit this is goes away, so perhaps some piece of sound insulation has let go internally? I do not know if it is a defect since it is cooling perfectly, but I had to take away from the noise level stars because this is annoying and something I notice daily. Before it started doing this vibration-rattle the unit was much quieter.Purely fan mode is wonderfully quiet, so I know this has to be coming from the compressor somehow.Make sure to clean and check the filters, as the mesh is very fine and this unit needs the airflow to operate at best performance. I have not needed to use the heat function since we're still in the upper 80s and 90s, but will update as I use it.The remote control is good for when you don't want to get out of bed to change settings, but I find the app to be easier to use. The remote can do most of the things the buttons on the unit will do minus a few options that require the unit buttons to be held down. The app will let you fine tune most settings on the unit and select fan speeds beyond low, medium, or high. I would like to see full control from the app with all settings that can be adjusted on the unit itself.Our power bill did not increase by much using the AC. Part of this is probably helped by the Midea taking some of the strain off of the old (and inefficient) wall units here. I normally leave it set to low fan circulation and around 72 degrees on the AC. It uses much less power than a comparable window unit and I would absolutely not have anything other than an inverter driven AC at this point. The technology is that good.Would I buy another Midea again? Absolutely. There are improvements they can make to the overall build quality (addressing the various vibrations / rattles that have appeared) and settings (a quiet AC mode would be greatly appreciated), but overall this is very comparable with the best that Whynter has to offer and the thoughtfulness of the app is wonderful.It is not cheap, but the price gives you a tremendous performance and feature combination. I have no doubt that this would cool a large living room or combined space with ease. Thank you to Midea for saving me from Florida Summer!Edit and followup: I attached two decibel measurements. The average for medium fan is 54 and the average for the unit running in AC mode is 61 with spikes up to 68.I finally ran the heat and it works great, though it will collect a lot of humidity as condensation in the trays. The unit is very easy to drain, but you can also switch to dry mode to have the unit evaporate and exhaust the water.Edit #2: Still working great after a year and a half with no issues