Last year, I tried out the Meaco Sefte 10” table fan, which is fantastic. However, it’s a tad big and like me, you may struggle to fit this on your desk or bedside table. Well, fear not as Meaco has released a new, smaller version, with their Sefte 8″ portable fan, or air circulator, I should say.
Out of the box, it’s identical to the 10″ version, although the specification does differ slightly, as does the price tag. I love the look, it’s been engineered, thought has been put into its appearance and function, which can be rare nowadays. It’s well constructed, it certainly has a premium feel to it and is miles better from your basic fan you pick up from the middle isle at Lidl.
The base includes rubber feet, helping to provide grip against the surface it’s sitting on when in use. There are three blades to the fan and they can be accessed; you can take the front cover off to clean and dust them when needed. To do this, there is a small screw at the bottom of the fan, unscrew that and twist to unlock and then lock again when done.
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There is a display to the front of the base, which shows various settings such as modes, speeds and so forth, as well as the temperature reading of the area around the fan itself, which is handy to know and needed for one of the modes, which I’ll touch on later.
The buttons are touch sensitive and include an on/off button, a plus and minus button which controls the fan speed between 1 and 12, 12 being the fastest. There is also a left and right button, which controls the horizontal oscillation of the fan, and purely turns this feature on and off. Total oscillation is 70degrees. There is no automatic vertical oscillation, like there is with the 10″ version, but you can manually tilt the fan up and down in 6 positions with your hands and it’ll stay like that just fine.
The last button, the three dots, cycles through the modes available. Check the display to see which mode you’re in, and as you cycle through, you’ll see the symbol change. The fan symbol means normal mode, just pick your fan speed and off you go. Next is the night mode, which is the moon symbol, and in this mode, the display and battery status light will turn off, the buttons won’t beep, and the fan speed will reduce by 1 step every hour until it reaches 1. For example, it’s a hot night, set it to speed 6 at 10 pm and then it will go down to speed 5 at 11, speed 4 and 12, with the idea that during the late night or early hours of the day being the coolest and less need for the fan to be working, making it more efficient. The last mode, which I touched on earlier, is ECO mode, with a thermometer symbol. In this mode, the fan speed will automatically change depending on the ambient temperature of the room the fan is in. Therefore, if it’s really warm, greater than 30degrees celsius, it’ll run on speed 12 but as that temperature decreases, so will the speed, so get down to a more enjoyable 24degrees and the fan speed will drop down to 6. If the temperature is 19 or lower, the fan will run on speed 1 and remain running; it won’t turn itself off.
So those are the controls and buttons on the fan itself, but you do also get a handy little remote too and again, like the 10”, the remote is magnetic and sits right in the middle of the fan, so you shouldn’t really ever need to worry about losing it. Going back to that point of engineering, it just works. The remote will do what the buttons do, but also offers a timer setting, and this allows you to either set a time for the fan to turn on, when it’s in standby mode, or turn the fan off, when it’s already running. For example, it’s 10pm and the fan is on, you can set the timer to 4 hours and when that time passes, the fan will automatically turn off. All these options are very straight forward once you know how, and they are detailed in the instructions for ease.
Going back to the product title, Sefte 8 inch portable air circular. Portable, it’s in the title and that is one of the key benefits with this new model; it is battery powered, so you can charge it up and move it around or take it anywhere with you, without the need to worry about taking the cable and finding a plug socket. It’s a 2500mAh lithium battery and will charge to 100% within 3 hours.
Now, battery performance will depend greatly on how the fan is being used. For example, Meaco are stating if the fan is on speed 1 and static, it could last upto 17 hours, but if you turn oscillation on, it drops down to 5 hours. In the worst possible scenario, speed 12 and full officialisation, it will last for around 2 and a half hours. So, how long the battery will last will depend on how you use it. Generally, for me, I would leave the fan on speed 2 and oscillation, which got me about 5 hours of usage, which wouldn’t last the duration of my sleep and when i woke up the battery was dead. The battery is replaceable, there is a button on the side of the fan which opens a lid to the base of the fan, where the battery is located. The battery pops straight out, no wires or disconnection needed. I cannot find any spare batteries available on the Meaco website yet, so unsure how much one would cost but hopefully it’s not too much.
Noise, something that can really get on people’s nerves with fans and air conditioning, especially when trying to sleep. I’m happy to say that, like Meacos other fans, this is a very quiet fan. Noise is very subjective and it’s hard to quantify, but Meaco state a noise level starting at 27dB, which is very good.
Other notable features, air flow is stated at 12.6m3 and minute, air volume at 9.4m3 and hour. Power consumption is tiny, 18 watts maximum, which is something like 6p for a 10 hour period, dirt cheap. There is also a cutout at the back of the fan, perfect shape, size and position for picking the fan up and moving it around.
In terms of negatives, there isn’t really any. At first, I had the fan positioned perfectly inline with my face when on my bed and left the display on, and the battery indicator light would every so often be perfectly in my line of sight and annoy me when my eyes were closed. I then went on to turn the display off and it was fine.
The retail price on this is £79.99, £20 cheaper than the 10” version, and I guess you need to decide how you’re going to use the fan, whether you want the portability or the extra output and oscillation. I think that’s a great price, it’s a serious piece of kit that will deliver. I’ve been seeing adverts for the new Shark Flexbreeze fan, which is similar in size, it’s battery powered again and that retails at £129.
For more info, head over to the official Meaco Sefte 8 webpage.