6 Best Portable Air Conditioners to Help You Get Through the Summer Heat

If you want the ultimate climate-control device for your home, look no further than the Midea Duo. Not only will this portable AC unit cool a room down quickly, but it also does dehumidification and heating, so you’ll have a use for it all year round. The best part is it’s one of the quietest portable units we tried. We love that aspect, but if you need an AC to double as a white-noise machine, you may want to look at other options.

What makes the Midea Duo state of the art is its hose-in-hose design. Typically, a dual-hose unit will cool much quicker than a single-hose unit and have a longer life, too. The Duo has all the advantages of a dual-hose setup without the hassle of running two hoses from the unit to your window. Speaking of hassle-free, the setup process shouldn’t take more than ten minutes. It gets even easier once you connect to the Midea air app, which conveniently reminds you to clean your filters periodically—a reminder we dearly needed.

At seventy-seven pounds, the Duo is on the heavier side, so it’s less portable than some others. Plus, if you have sliding windows, it’s tricky to keep the hose securely fastened. The provided sliding window attachment is definitely a bit finicky.

Another very strong pick is the Whynter ARC-1230WN. This smart and portable AC unit will significantly cool down any room under six hundred square feet in less than an hour. And its dual-hose system allows the ARC-1230WN to cool a room quickly, quietly, and efficiently. Like the Midea Duo’s, its hoses are interlocked with each other, so you have only one large hose to deal with instead of two smaller ones. That means it can bring a room down from 72 to 69 degrees in what feels like minutes. Very nice.

While setup is easy, the Wi-Fi-enabled remote control that comes with this unit can be unreliable even at seemingly short ranges. Thankfully, the Whynter app makes up for it. We find that our phone is the more convenient option anyway. (We never misplace it under the couch cushions at least.)

Overall, the competition was neck and neck between this and the Duo. But the Whynter ARC-1230WN is a few pounds lighter and therefore the more portable of the two dominant smart air conditioners on the market.

Have you tested out other portable units and found your AC doesn’t quite fill the room the way you want it to? Then check out this Frigidaire. It was the best one we tried for open spaces, and it can bring a room down five degrees or more in a couple minutes. It isn’t the most quiet or subtle, but it gets the job done and then some.

If you’re looking to save some money and don’t need all that power, you can opt for similar models with as low as 8000 BTU for less than half the price.

This LG portable AC unit is small but mighty—mighty quiet, too. Of all the portable air conditioners we tested, the LG DUAL Inverter Smart AC with Wi-Fi was one of the least noisy due to LG’s trademarked LoDecibel Quiet Operation. It’s also just a damn good portable AC, especially if you are using it in a small, enclosed space like a bedroom. Admittedly, it does suffer in a larger room, particularly one with an exterior door, due to its lower cooling capacity and BTU output.

As occasionally lazy people, we consider one of our favorite little touches—and there are many we love—to be the built-in hose. This unit spares you the hassle that comes with attaching the hose to your portable AC. In fact, if setup is your biggest hurdle, this may just be the unit to get. It’s pretty compact and easy to store—which is vital, because the device does not have a heater and will need to be stored during the winter months.

Seriously, this thing has such a small footprint it’s hard not to recommend it based on the power for its size alone. The high-tech air conditioner is tiny at thirty-two pounds, making it the most portable you can get by far. It’s an excellent all-in-one device for all types of traveling and camping. The heating is as fast and effective as the cooling, and both are great for tents, cabins, and small rooms. Even if you’re just bringing it from room to room in a house, that type of portability is feasible with the Wave 2.

Unlike the rest of these portable units, EcoFlow’s uses rechargeable batteries and can truly go anywhere. There are lots of charging options, from AC to solar, and it comes with detachable exhaust ducts you can snap on and off based on your needs. All in all, the Wave 2 is an awesome piece of tech and we can’t wait to travel with it.

This Black + Decker portable model is the quintessential AC unit, for better and worse. If you don’t want another goddamn smart device in your home, this affordable model is the one for you. With just a simple remote control and a single-hose setup, plug this sucker in and you now have a fan, an AC, and a dehumidifier ready to go for the summer.

The unit can be loud, and there’s no app telling you when to clean. (Put that shit in your calendar.) Nothing fancy here—just a product that excels at exactly what it says it does.