Summer is here and with that comes trying to find affordable ways to stay cool inside and out. Not everyone can afford to crank a home AC unit all hours of the day (see my $500 a month electric bill last summer as an example) or buy one of the $200 Coolify portable neck AC units (reach out to us Coolify to review it). For the rest of us we need a respite from the heat without breaking the bank. With that comes the Tech Solutions Whirlwind Handheld Personal Cooling Fan from discount retailer Five Below.
This little handheld cooling fan is unique in that it uses no blades to cool you off. I have a number of portable fans for the family that all include blades of some sort. There are those neck fans with a cage over the blades, a few handheld one with no shield and soft plastic blades, and others that are almost completely enclosed in a plastic shell. These all work fine and come at varying price ranges (from $10 to $30) but they all come with a major flaw.
You see, when you have blades for a fan that you are supposed to hold close to your face and neck, you are going to run into the issue of getting your hair or necklace tangled into the blades and fan mechanism. This might sound like a rare event, but I’ve seen those with long hair face this issue on most of these fans. If you have long hair or wear a dangling necklace there is a good chance at one time or another it’ll get stuck in the blades, this is especially so with young kids.
Thankfully, the more expensive units have soft blades and all feature weak power so it’s not going to pull your hair out, but it is an issue even with a possible out shutoff function. At worst you’ll need to cut a chunk of your hair off to get free and at best it’ll jam the mechanism and bend the blades, making the fan useless after. So, when I started to see a number of bladeless fan options pop up in stores this summer season, I jumped at the chance to pick one up.
Amazon has a number of options for what are essentially the same unit in different colors and generic company logo. It’s clear that they all come from the same factory only in different packaging by what amount to fly-by-night companies. Still, I wanted one to test out, but wasn’t keen on dropping $15 to $20 on one online or in store. So, color me surprised when I found the very same models in store at discount retailer Five Below.
Five Below is known for selling everything for $5 and under, although they do have a $5 over section with products going all the way up to $25 bucks. I assumed their Tech Solutions Whirlwind Handheld Personal Cooling Fan would be in this section to align itself with Amazon, but I was wrong! Their Tech Solutions Whirlwind Handheld Personal Cooling Fan was in the normal $5 section, making it the cheapest bladeless fan on the market when compared to Amazon and one of the cheapest fan option anywhere.
The Tech Solutions Whirlwind Handheld Personal Cooling Fan stands out from other cheap fans as it does not rely on traditional AA or AAA batteries. Instead, it’s USB powered and comes with a micro USB cable to power it. The device itself features three fan speed level – low, medium, and high. Low is a gentle breeze and good for a quick cool, but chances are you are going to always stick to medium or high. High provides a surprisingly strong breeze that managed to cover my entire face.
It’s not very loud either, even on the max setting. People around you probably won’t even notice the low setting and the high setting sounds a little lower than a PS4 when maxing its fans out. These fans are great for me and my family as we love going to baseball games and when its 90+ degrees out they are almost essential. The packaging states that a full charge will last six hours, but I’d cut that in half as you probably won’t ever really be using the low setting.
The fact that its USB is great as you can easily plug a power bank to it to give it a quick charge while on the go. But the really nice thing is that the Tech Solutions Whirlwind Handheld Personal Cooling Fan is always charged for me as it comes with a base station for storage. Having this thing at my desk is great and it looks awesome to boot! It also means I can keep it plugged in and reach for a nice cooling session at any time. You can even simply keep it on while you work.
But maybe you don’t need a fan to cool you down all the time. Well, then, you can use it for a number of other options. There are lots of comments of people using this Tech Solutions Whirlwind Handheld Personal Cooling Fan to help dry any skincare product you use and even works great to dry your lashes. I was actually surprised all the options for a little fan like this and with its slick styling and color options, the Tech Solutions Whirlwind Handheld Personal Cooling Fan is a steal for only $5!
Final Verdict:
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