Despite what influencers might say, you don’t need to spend $99.99 on Dyson’s HushJet Mini Cool or $149.99 for the Shark ChillPill to survive the summer whenever you leave the comfort of air-conditioning. My family has gotten all the comfort it needs to survive humid baseball games, hot concerts, and mountain hikes with a few affordable handheld fans from a Chinese company called JisuLife that has spent the last decade honing its hardware.
At the beginning of the summer, I reluctantly bought the JisuLife Life10 S fans at Costco, which at CDN $25 each (or $32.99 via Amazon), are among the company’s basic offerings. JisuLife’s extensive lineup includes some fan models priced around $100 with features like reverse charging to power your phone and 100 different speed settings. I want all those features, but my goal was not to spend several hundred dollars on cooling devices that could easily be lost or damaged during the hustle and bustle of summer activities.
The Life10 S’ functionality is relatively basic, but it’s also easy to use. A sliding power switch on the back prevents it from accidentally turning on while banging inside a backpack, and a single button on the front cycles through five fan speeds. There is also a basic LCD display that shows the remaining charge of the battery when the fan starts to cancel and the current speed setting. It’s simple, but the Life10 S does its single task quietly and for a surprisingly long time.
When Dyson announced its first handheld fan in April, I thought that the company that had developed ventilation technology had created a personal cooling device that would surpass everything else on the market. My partner loves Dyson hair dryers, and I was sure the HushJet Mini Cool would be my secret weapon for surviving hot and humid summers, even if at $99 it was a splurge. But since I’ve used both Dyson’s personal fan and JisuLife’s $25 alternative, I only reach for the latter when I venture out into the world without AC.
Dyson’s HushJet Mini Cool packs amazing engineering into an eye-catching design, and at its peak, it easily blasts JisuLifes even with Life10 S set to full power. But even on the lowest setting, the HushJet is noisy with a high-pitched whine reminiscent of Dyson vacuums. I don’t mind that noise if it’s limited to short, low-level cleaning, but not if it’s coming from a small fan designed for use near your face and ears. The JisuLife fan produces noise at a very low frequency, making it easy to endure for hours, even if it is far from whispering at full power.
What impresses me most about the JisuLife fan is how long its 5,000mAh battery lasts. At half power, which we found strong enough to cool us even on the hottest days, the fan ran for just over 16 hours before needing a charge. That’s a lot longer than my son’s stay at the water park. In comparison, Dyson estimates that the HushJet Mini Cool will run for up to six hours on the lowest setting, and at full power, I had it die in just over an hour.
I haven’t tested the more expensive Shark ChillPill which combines a fan and metal cooling plate that the company claims can lower skin temperature by up to 16 degrees Fahrenheit in seconds. You can cool it by pressing it all over your body, but it only cools as long as the fan is on. SharkNinja estimates that the ChillPill will run for up to 11 hours on the lowest setting, or an hour and a half on maximum power. That method might work better, but I’m not spending $150 to find out.
I also checked out the wearable neck fans that seem to be popular with the cashiers at my local Costco, but I didn’t find them to work as well as I’d hoped. The breeze is spread across the length of the fan and doesn’t feel as intense as a handheld fan, and wearing it puts the motor below your ear at all times, so it’s a consistent flight. I can see why they’re useful, but it’s not something anyone in my family enjoys.
After a successful summer with these fans, I’m already looking at sales of other JisuLife models, including a hands-free version that you wear hanging around your neck. But I also expect that these cheap alternatives will continue to be the first thing we pack when we go out on vacation for the rest of the summer and possibly years to come.
Photo by Andrew Liszewski / The Verge
