Just in time for our first warm day in a while, today's Star Tribune had an ad from the Universal Media Syndicate for something called Mira-Cool.
As it's described in the ad, it sounds indistinguishable from the Cool Surges they were marketing last year, which I wrote about here.
Even better, Consumer Reports did a test in 2009 that concluded, 'Because of its negligible cooling in our tests, we've given the Cool Surge portable air cooler our Don't Buy: Performance Problem judgment.'
What was the test CR put it to? Here are the details:
We controlled conditions around [a 200-square-foot] room to simulate an 85°F dry summer day with a relative humidity of just 57 percent.
...Our string of sensors showed the device failed to appreciably lower the room's overall temperature during a four-hour test.
We also tested the Cool Surge at an even drier, desertlike setting of 25 percent relative humidity, again, at 85°F. Even in these conditions, which are suitable for an evaporative cooler, we measured a mere 2 degrees of cooling during the four-hour test.
- Air cooler/heater. Product Name:Air cooler/heater Model No: NFS-20G(N106) Specification: 1.Thoughened glass, neoteric appearance 2.Negative ion 3.Evaporative pad 4.8 hours timer 5.Deliver wind at wide angle 6.Free m.
- Designer of air pollution handle and evaluation gear including precipitators, fabric filters, scrubbers and gas conditioners. Eventually, these filters are termed furnace filters, or air conditioner filters, simply because they are created to filter the air mira cool portable air conditioner the gear.
- MIRA-COOL - MRCACL (Service Manual) Service Manual MIRA-COOL MRCACL - This Service Manual or Workshop Manual or Repair Manual is the technical document containing instructions on how to keep the product working properly. It covers the servicing, maintenance and repair of the product. Schematics and illustrated parts list can also be included.
Mira-Cool portable evaporative type air cooler/heater. Made to work similar to an air conditioner. Model MRCACL works to cool the air by the addition of frozen cooling packs to the water tank. It can also be used as a space heater and features touch controls with functions for swing, speed, timer and heat or cool.
- Cool Surge 'uses about 96% less electricity than air conditioners.' Mira-Cool 'uses 95% less electricity.'
- Both promote the idea of 'ice cooled air' (no hyphen), courtesy of two reusable ice blocks that are included. (Just like the kind you'd put in a picnic cooler... you have to keep refreezing them in your freezer every four hours, a detail not provided in the ad).
- Both ads have quotes from an Operations Director named Chris Gallo or Christopher Gallow. Huh. What's up with the spelling change?
- It's even the same price -- $298 plus shipping, and you get a second one for free (except the shipping, which I understand from Consumer Reports and other sources runs about $50 per unit).
Amusingly, the four photos across the bottom of the two ads are identical... except they're not the same photos. Instead, the photos have been reshot with the same content:
- An older woman with her cooler, holding up some type of certificate or bill or something. It's even the same document, with a big red triangle in the upper right corner...just not the same woman. (They've given her a dog in the Mira-Cool ad. Nice touch, there.)
- A young girl rolling the cooler from left to right through a doorway.
- A family with mom, dad, two boys, and one girl playing a board game.
- A woman sleeping in a darkened room while the cooler looms over her.
One difference between the two ads: I didn't notice any claims about Mira-Cool being 'eco-friendly,' unlike last year's Cool Surge ad.
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Here's a list of my past posts
about the Universal Media Syndicate, its many products, and its parent company, Arthur Middleton Capital Holdings.
The hot weather is here and people are looking for ways to save on their cooling bills. Buying a new air conditioner seems to be a rite of passage into summer for some people. We take a look at one product that is being heavily advertised.
We have been noticing these ads for MIRA-Cool popping up in newspapers like USA Today and Parade nationwide promising, “Public set to get free air cooling units”… “A new miracle air cooler is actually being given away free to the first 11,337 readers who call to beat the order deadline for their first miracle air cooler to stay cool for just pennies a day”
From their website: “The New MIRA-COOL uses 95% less electricity than a typical window air conditioner, yet blast out ice cooled air to keep you cool for just pennies a day.”
Sound too good to be true?
Way down in the ad copy it says you pay $298 and $98 shipping for a MIRA-Cool, then get a second MIRA-Cool unit free. They will make 11,337 x $396 = $4.4 million from this ad!
Mira Cool Air Cooler/heater Model Mrcacl
Connecticut watchdog has some analysis of this cooler. A MIRA-Cool is a unit with two small ice blocks placed in tap water with a fan blowing over the ice, creating an effect similar to an evaporative cooler. Consumer Reports reviewed the predescessor to the MIRA-Cool, the Cool Surge, and issued a Don’t Buy.
Check out their Better Business Bureau BBB D+ Rating.
This ad reminds me of the Amish built heaters and the Bob Villa Edenpure heater ads run in the winter.
If you want a real evaporative cooler, look at this evaporative cooler article
Check out our Air Conditioner Energy Savings article if you really want to save on air conditioning.
Our article Ways to save Energy, Money, on your Energy Bill has other money saving tips.
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Filed under:Conservation, Easy, Eco Friendly, Effort, Electronics, Energy, Green, Home, Indoor Air Quality, Money, Shopping | Tags:Air conditioner, Mira-Cool
Posted on July 12th, 2010If you enjoyed this post, be sure to subscribe to our