Best Mid-Market Mobile AC Units 2022

It won’t be too long until the days get unbearably hot again with the year progressing. While you can try to deal with the heat with just a fan, air conditioning gets a much nicer resulting temperature. While central air conditioning is often a huge cost, it’s not the only way. You can save a lot of money by getting a mobile AC unit instead.

Mobile AC units are free-standing and use a reasonably wide hose to extract the hot air out of a window. They’re only really intended and capable of cooling one room at a time. Still, you can move them fairly easily, though be warned they’re pretty heavy and awkward to move between floors. You will need to place them near a window or door to be able to extract the hot air. If you don’t, you’ll just end up heating up another part of your house instead. They’re also not quiet, so it can be challenging to sleep through, though the heat can worsen.

A decent mobile AC unit doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. You can get some solid deals. To help you find some great options to keep you cool, we’ve drawn up our list of the best mid-market mobile AC units in 2022.

The SereneLife SLACHT128 Portable Air Conditioner is a reasonably strong offering to cool rooms of up to 450 square feet, thanks to its 12000 BTU rating. It can also act as a fan, dehumidifier, or heater, making it useful all year round. A remote control means you don’t need to get up from the couch or bed to adjust it.

The lack of an official energy efficiency rating is a little concerning, though some comparisons can be drawn from this and other models’ ASHRAE and DOE BTU ratings. To some degree, the energy efficiency of this model won’t be helped by the use of just a single hose, as this means it draws in air through the rest of the house rather than directly from outside, which can result in the overall heating of the rest of the house.

The Midea 10,000 BTU (5,800 BTU SACC) Portable Air Conditioner can cool rooms of up to 200 square feet thanks to its 10000 ASHRAE and 5800 DOE BTU rating. One of the cool features of this model is that it has connectivity options. Once you connect it to your home Wi-Fi network, you can control it with your voice via its Amazon Alexa integration. You can also control it remotely via the smartphone app, letting you turn it on when you’re on your way home. So your room is nice and cool when you arrive.

The washable air filter makes it easy to keep the filter clean and ensures good airflow. Unfortunately, this model needs to be manually drained, something that needs to happen regularly., or you risk some water leaks. While an energy efficiency rating is published, it’s the EER rather than the more meaningful CEER. It’s also only got an EER rating of 8.9 out of 15, which isn’t great.

The BLACK+DECKER 10,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner with Remote Control is designed to cool up to 150 square feet of rooms thanks to its 10000 ASHRAE and 5500 DOE BTU rating. If you need a more or less powerful model, plenty of options is available in the range. It comes with remote control, allowing you to change the temperature without getting up.

A solid warranty covers labor for a year and compressor parts for five years. The unit features an auto draining function that evaporates condensation in the hot exhaust. Sleep mode limits the noise levels to just 51dB. While this isn’t particularly quiet, it’s suitable for an AC unit. Unfortunately, there’s no advertised energy efficiency rating. There’s also a delay in the compressor activating of up to three minutes, which may mean a delay in it starting to cool your room.

The DeLonghi PACEM360 WH Penguino Portable Air Conditioner offers to cool rooms of up to 400 square feet thanks to its 11000 ASHRAE and 6000 DOE BTU rating. It runs at 53dB, which isn’t precisely silent but is decent for a compressor. It also features a filter that you can rinse clean after removal.

Unfortunately, this model needs to be drained and can’t reliably automatically evaporate condensation. Thankfully, you can set it up to continuously drain, though you should probably closely monitor it. The remote control offers a convenient way to change the temperature without getting up. Despite advertising “CEER efficiency,” it only has a 6.92 rating out of 15, which isn’t particularly strong.

That was our roundup of the best mid-market mobile AC units in 2022. Have you recently bought a mid-market mobile AC unit? What sold you on it, and what has your experience been with it so far? Let us know down below.