Gadizmo was fortunate to receive a Mistbox to test for a Hands On Review and the results are truly amazing, as the unit cuts down the cost of a central AC (air conditioning) unit by more than 20% in the summer heat!
And the Mistbox do it yourself, DIY, installation is ten minutes.
Ten minutes.
Mistbox claims you can even install it in five, but we carefully secured it and took our time.
We all know and expect the electric bill to go off the charts in the depths of the summer months, because of our need for air conditioning.
It is a necessary evil, right?
Well now homeowners can reduce their ecological energy consumption footprint and save money thanks to the Mistbox.
My in-laws had the central air to try this out on and the results were definitive: 20+% savings and their unit is in a shadier spot (read more on that later)!
The Mistbox is a magical solar-powered device that was constructed using commercial air conditioning technology to be an independently powered electronic mister that carefully sprays water mists right from a standard garden hose or home faucet to pre-cool the air that gets sucked into the massive fan blades hidden within every AC’s condenser unit.
By making the air less scaldingly hot, the Mistbox greatly decreases the amount of cooling work that the AC unit has to do to make your home cool.
Less work for Mr. AC means less energy consumption.
In fact, there is a green tax credit certificate included in the box to get 30% back from the cost of buying this little guy at Lowes for $399.
It is truly an amazing concept that is now available to any consumer with little to no mechanical experience and can hook up this smart box and download the app and easily control its every move.
Lets walk through the process this reviewer went through to prove these claims (and a claim of users averaging 30% savings AC-related energy consumption seemed rather high in my mind).
The Mistbox comes in a sturdy box of about three feet in length and some weight to it, because the guts inside are actually a lot more than just the central Mistbox unit, which can be held in one hand.
And everything you need is included in the Mistbox package.
Aside from the central box is a misting manifold, 30 feet of supply tubing, zip ties, one extremely vital self-tapping screw, the Wi-Fi antenna, clips, once water filter setup, and even a garden hose adapter, which makes life oh so easy.
Because yes, once installed, you can run the garden hose right to the Mistbox.
First the Mistbox itself needs to go on the sunniest side of the central AC unit, because its battery is only going to run off the sun while it is in place on the air conditioner throughout the hot seasons.
Now if you are in a state of shade, like my in-laws are, pick a spot that sees the most sun poking through the leaves; all the Mistbox needs to run each day is about two hours of sunlight, and she worked just fine.
At this point, you can either remove and reuse one of the screws from the top of the side section of the AC, or you can use the included, and extremely vital, self-tapper to screw the Mistbox into the open hole.
The longer self-tapping screw is better to secure it.
The Wi-Fi antenna clips right onto the top-right of the Mistbox by the solar panel.
A round black cylinder that functions as the water filtration system hooks up to the lower right of the Mistbox, and then the tubing, with the nozzles facing outward, can carefully be hung from the rungs on the wall to wrap around the body of the AC unit.
If you are all about sturdiness, and this writer is, make use of the fifteen zip ties that are included and follow the misting tube all around each side of the AC with those ties. And this tubing can stay out all year, even in the winter.
The hard part is over.
Use the garden hose adaptor and go right into the bottom left of the Mistbox with it and turn the water on and get ready to start carefully sprayed mists to help your wallet and the environment.
At this point, iPhones and Android devices can download the Mistbox App to begin reading, controlling, and measuring the energy savings and the money saved.
The App provides measurements of your savings, the battery life, the filter life, and most importantly, it is a wireless remote control that lets you invoke a water saver option that is greatly needed in places where fresh water shortages are the norm, or if you just want to further limit your ecological footprint.
My in-laws unit has cooler air to being with, being it is surrounded by trees (see the pics), but even with that fact, the brutal July and August still required heavy use of their AC and the Mistbox lowered their bill by reducing their AC energy consumption by more than 20%.
Important things to note: if you live in a temperate place that will see a winter, the central Mistbox unit needs to be detached and brought inside.
Thanks to easy hookups for the tubing and the water hose and only one screw holding this little gal to the AC, this is an easy process.
An electric adaptor is included specifically to keep it charged in the winter, maximizing battery life.
And then each year, you will need a new filter to place within the filtration cylinder. Places with harder water may go through these quicker than others, but the App has a meter that lets you know exactly when you are nearing the need for a new filter.
This Gadizmo Hands On Review concludes that every household with central air get one of these for each of its outdoor units, STAT!
You cannot get a more efficient, cheaper, or easier energy saver that is eco-friendly than the Mistbox.
The Mistbox is elegantly simple, effective, and impressive.
