With barmy nights now evident in the UK, it was high time for us to look at the best ways to lower the temperature in the home. For this review, we tested the newly launched MeacoFan Sefte® 10″ Pedestal Air Circulator.
Over the years, Meaco has never failed to impress us. Our first experience with the company’s products dates back nearly eight years, when we tested the DD8L Zambezi dehumidifier. Since then, we’ve reviewed the MeacoFan 260c mini rechargeable fan and, in 2021, the MeacoFan 1056P Pedestal Air Circulator, all of which are still being used today.
Meaco has built its reputation on excellent design, quiet products, low running costs, and market-leading capabilities. However, another equally impressive and less discussed feature of its products is their fantastic reliability.
In the many years we’ve been using the company’s products, we have never encountered a single problem. My wife has the MeacoFan 260c running bedside overnight, which is incredible considering it is a four-year-old rechargeable product. Other times, when we require a little more cooling, the 1056P is brought into action.
The Sefte 10″ Pedestal Air Circulator we are reviewing contains all of the MeacoFan 1056P’s best features and upgrades and adds to them. However, it is not a direct replacement, as both pedestal fans are available at different price points.
Before we get into the ‘meat’ of this review, we must make it clear that we still love the 1056P. It is a quite brilliant, super-quiet pedestal fan with a whole host of great features, such as remote control operation, temperature sensing, timer functionality, and an oscillating head (vertical and horizontal) that produces a comprehensive spread of cool air.
However, all that aside, the 1056P, in our opinion, wasn’t quite perfect; there were a couple of things we felt could’ve been ‘tweaked’, and our hope was we’d find this done on the Sefte range.
The Sefte 10” Pedestal Air Circulator
Before I discuss Sefte’s capabilities, let me explain why it is called Sefte. Its name comes from the Old English word Sēf-tee, which means “Quiet, Gentle, and Undisturbed.”
The Sefte Pedestal offers three height settings. It utilises a clever column design, where each piece of the column is clicked into each other and held firmly in place with a discrete screw lock collar. This simple-to-use, money-saving design has a big benefit; it eliminates the need to purchase more than one fan.
The height-setting feature was something that went down very well with my wife, who frequently engages in indoor fitness workouts. Being able to adjust the height down to something similar to a tabletop fan, combined with the vertical and horizontal oscillation options, made her workouts significantly more pleasant.
Inside, the Sefte houses Meaco’s most powerful, quietest, and energy-efficient motor yet. Thanks to brushless motors that spin at 1450 RPM, the fan produces 19m³ of air per minute, resulting in less noise and faster and stronger airflow.
With regard to this, we would’ve wanted to tweak the airflow force on the lowest setting with the tried and trusted MeacoFan 1056P: it was a little too strong for our liking. Although we don’t have an airflow measurement device, the lowest of Sefte’s twelve-speed settings seems a tad less strong, which should increase the chance of getting the best night’s sleep.
Another difference between the Sefte and 1056P pedestal fans is that the Sefte has a rather smart-looking digital control panel located below its head.
The placement of the control panel addressed another of our minor issues. With 1056P, we frequently needed to point the remote control at its base to change settings; now, we can make any adjustments from the bed without raising our heads from the pillows.
If you, like us, have a preference for total darkness when you sleep, the good news is that the Sefte has a dedicated night mode. With the press of a button, all lights and bleeps can be turned off. In addition, the provided disc-shaped magnetic remote control glows in the dark, which means there is no need to turn on a light.
Almost everyone will agree that a quiet environment is necessary for a full night of good-quality sleep. Meaco puts a lot of effort into ensuring that what it puts out into the market is as quiet as possible, and as such, it proudly displays the Quiet Mark logo on pretty much all of its air circulators.
As I’ve mentioned, the 1056P is an exceptionally quiet fan (29 dB). However, the Sefte ups the ante with a noise level of just 25dB, and my wife and I did find the difference clearly noticeable.
Quietness aside, perhaps the standout feature of the Sefte 10″ Pedestal Air Circulator is its ability to get cool air into pretty much every part of a room. In response to customer feedback, Meaco has incorporated much greater control of the oscillation.
The system used by the company is called Air Beam Precision, and it provides three different angles (narrow, medium and wide), both horizontally and vertically, for targeted cooling. The horizontal oscillation angles are 30°/75°/120°, and the vertical angles are 20°/30°/65°, and these can be paused at any time.
Thanks to the remote control, directing the airflow is as simple as you would imagine, and achieving a cooling breeze on our faces at night was little more than child’s play.
Something less talked about with air circulators, and fans is how effective they are at lowering the temperature in a room. Having one of the Meaco fans on for many hours during the night can actually make things rather chilly in the bedroom. Meaco understands this, so they’ve incorporated an on/off timer that can be adjusted from one to twelve hours.
If you’re concerned that running a fan for up to twelve hours will be expensive, don’t be. Meaco has added its popular Eco-Mode to the Sefte fans. This feature automatically adjusts the fan’s speed depending on the room’s temperature, reducing energy wastage. In fact, according to Meaco, the Sefte fan costs just 0.1p per hour to run based on 24.5p kWh.
Final Thoughts
If I were on a mission to find fault with the Sefte® 10″ Pedestal Air Circulator, I would draw a blank. It is a lovely-looking, super-quiet fan that will do all you need. It is cheap to run, and the innovative design saves you money, as it is three fans in one. Unlike our much-loved 1056p, there is nothing with Sefte that we feel needs tweaking, and that says it all.
10″ Sefte® – Where and How?
There are currently two models in Meaco’s new Sefte range, a 10″ Table Air Circulator, RRP£119.99 and the 10″ Pedestal Air Circulator, RRP £179.99, that we tested. Each fan has a three-year warranty and can be purchased at www.meaco.com.
Photographs by Jade Alana Photography.
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