The first thing that I want to tell you is that the directions for use are wrong. After a disastrous first start and three calls to customer service before finding one who would actually listen to me, I found out what was wrong with the directions. So let me enlighten you.

The directions say to fill the water chamber TO THE MIN. INDICATOR and not ABOVE THE MAX INDICATOR. That is NOT WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO DO. If you attempt to fill it until the water hits minimum, water will flow from the seam about 3/4 of the way down (about 1/4 way from the floor). The customer service person with whom I spoke read the book with me (the third guy; the first two denied that the directions were wrong). He said, "You are absolutely right. It is not correctly described." We spent about 30 minutes talking about how it could be improved; and he is submitting an edit.

HERE IS WHAT YOU DO:

There is a white float. It is a cylindrical vertically situated float which rises as you fill the water chamber. When its top comes above minimum, you are at the "minimum amount of water". Watch it carefully. When the top hits maximum, you are at the maximum. I recommend you NOT go that far. It's hard to see.

If you over-fill it, water flows from that seam. So be careful.

The first day that I used this, it was 91 degrees outside and 30% humidity. Within 45 minutes, it cooled my house 4 degrees. Now, let me explain: I am cooling a tiny house on wheels. It sits on a trailer which is 8-1/2 by 24 and is 11-1/2 feet high. 8 x 24 is 192 square feet. I bumped up to this bigger model (the online description said up to 300 square feet; the box says up to 278 square feet. No idea why the discrepancy) because of the tall ceilings.

After about an hour that first day, the house had cooled about 6 degrees. I am perfectly fine with that. It went from 80 to 74. I do not like air conditioning. I do not want the house cold. If I had wanted air conditioning, I would have had a split unit installed. This is fine for me. If you want air conditioning, this is not your machine.

Today is the second day I've used it. It is 91 outside and 20% humidity. I turned it on about an hour ago and it's cooled the house down about 3 degrees in an hour. The house had gotten to about 89, and it's now about 86. Now, bear in mind though, that my thermostat is an antique (literally) and a wall about 2/3 of the way up, so it's measuring warm air rising. I don't have an actual thermostat with my house;; and this one is about 100 years old (literally) and actually not intended by me as a gauge for the house; it's a collectible from my original 100 year old house which I sold. I probably should get a modern house thermostat and install it on the functional first floor area of the tiny house. Also bear in mind, I have a ceiling fan. I have a window open about a foot square by the cooler, a window open about a foot square on the same wall above it (loft height) and a window open in the bathroom with a small fan blowing outward for circulation. I need to experiment with this.

Please note: THIS IS NOT AN AIR CONDITIONING UNIT. It is a "cooler". It cools. I don't know if it will be perfect for me. I've kept the box. I have until July 14th to return the item. I'm trying it out whenever it's hot to see if it will suffice.

One other note: It's a lot bigger than I expected!!!! Check the footprint and check your space.

Finally -- let me make mention of why I picked Honeywell. An important consideration in using an evaporative cooler is the humidity level where you are. The lower the humidity, the better you'll like its functioning because they do put water into the air and if it's humid outside, that will make your house worse. I compared humidity charts from several manufacturers. Honeywell's most accurately corresponded with the national weather humidity maps. That suggested a very realistic assessment of whether and where their product would work. I liked that about them. In terms of size and shape, it was not my first choice. But they didn't overplay the humidity issue, by understating average humidity. That suggested that they were a company with which I wanted to do business.

Finally, the customer service people. It's a third-party. The first two people just stated whatever their script said. Ask to talk to a supervisor. They actually know something. This guy actually said he was standing in front of my model. He did stuff at his end and then described what he did. I think he was actually doing it. That impressed me.

UPDATE: i AM DOWNGRADING MY REVIEW. We finally had a day over 100, at about 60% humidity which is the highest in this area. I tried the evaporative cooler since I figured this would be its challenging day. I put ice in the compartment, made sure the water level was on, checked my wall thermometer (which read 90 degrees) and fired it up. It lowered the house about 2 degrees and that's it. I had a window opened right beside it, and one at the far end. It was like an early June day inside the house, somewhat warm and a bit muggy. Total fail as far as I am concerned. I got online today with Amazon tech support and they said, and I quote, it's basically just a fan that uses evaporative cooling. Stand in front of it for maximum cooling effect. Call the manufacturer. I'll do that tomorrow; and if they hold out not much more help, I'm returning it. I can get a fan for a lot less than $200.

I hope this review helps. Nobody asked for, or compensated me for, this review. It's entirely voluntary and intended to be helpful to other buyers.

We live in Santa Fe NM. All reviewers should state their location. Evaporative ("swamp") cooling is made for drier climates. If the climate is humid there will be little or no evaporation and therefore little if any cooling just as sweating doesn't cool you much on "muggy" days but does when it's dry.

We've bought Honeywell smart fans before and have been happy with them so we decided to try this cooler. We're living with family while we build a home. The central A/C doesn't work well on the second floor and is really expensive to get it to do anything. We adjusted all the registers, nothing really worked.

A portable cooler seemed to make sense. We've used this cooler for about two weeks now. It does what we expected, having lived with a whole house swamp cooler before. This cooler works well.

"¢ It cools well with room temperature water. If you're really into it, you can add ice. But if you're in the right climate, it's going to cool no matter what. Sweat is not ice water but it cools you when the air is not overly humid.

"¢ Consider this a cooling fan. It will not ice down a room. It is a fan that blows cool air, not room temperature air. But positioned well, it can make things quite comfortable.

"¢ The "swing" feature is like an oscillating fan, side to side. Two separate up/down guides can be set manually.

"¢ We're in maybe 100-150 sq ft rooms and run the fan on Low. There are two higher speeds so I suspect the cooler would be fine in larger rooms as well. And that has as much to do with airflow through the room as with the cooler. Remember you need a draft. If you don't have a draft, all that will happen is that the humidity will increase so now it's both hot and humid.

Pros/cons are likely similar to other portable swamp coolers:
Pros:
"¢ Way less expensive than portable A/C to buy and to run.
"¢ Doesn't have to be hooked up to a window to drain and exhaust like a portable A/C, in fact it should be across the room from slightly open window.
"¢ Fairly light weight. Here our office is next to bedroom - very easy to lift or roll it from one to the other.

Cons:
"¢ It'd be nice if Honeywell would illuminate the unit and control buttons. The display is bright enough to read by but in the dark you'll need to remember the button layouts of the unit and the remote - they're not at all the same and have no tactile distinction.

"¢ Moderately loud, on the other hand a good, powerful fan. Probably slightly quieter than a window A/C unit. I do not consider this really a con as with tinnitus most of my life, I find it soothing.

The pros outweigh the cons. Overall, we're happy with this machine.

We live in southern NV. Very dry and hot. We thought about getting solar to get our electric bill lower. In the summer AC can be costly to stay comfortable. The worst part is you are cooling an entire house when you really just want a certain area where you are relaxing or sleeping to be cool. Then my husband was watching an infomercial on a table top evaporative cooler. I didn't even know they made them. I found an assortment of Honeywell Evaporative coolers on Amazon warehouse for only $50. more than the little tabletop variety. I have purchased two 470's, one 500 and one 525 (a little smaller, to use in our RV) . We have one in the family room, one in the BR and one in my husbands den. They have allowed us to slash our energy use. They keep us cool and add moisture to the air. I spent $425.00 and skipped the 67K $$$ for solar. They work so well in our dry climate. I only wish I had known they made portable evaporative coolers years ago. My husband and I no longer argue about the temp setting for the AC. It's set on 80 or 81 now. Before we had to put it on 77 for him to be comfortable. These units are energy efficient and if you go by the guide to your region for use, you will be thrilled on how cool it keeps you.

I'm just going to short hand what I like about this cooler since, there's no use into going into depth about a swamp cooler

pros: hugggge water tank
Easy access to said huge water tank
Hurricane wind speed fan
Awesome vintagey but spacey look
Industrial plastics. The plastic is thick
The top piece is amazing to look at, it's nearly a perfect huge plastic piece, sorry engineering nerd so I admire that work.

You can control the flow of water (huge plus)

Cons
The wheels suck (in the future account for the weight of water in the tank for your future products, more weight = larger wheels to make it easier for disabled consumers or the elderly to move the unit around)

This thing is perfect for a medium to large room. My room is small so it can be loud but I kind of zen out to the sound and my room is more like a lab instead of a room anyways. Nice job HONEYWELL. You changed my basis views I once had and completely changed my out look on your company.

I was nervous to purchase this because of all of the negative reviews. I rent and cannot install a portable a/c unit in the window so I dediced to give this a try. I am glad I did. I can finally sleep peacefully and comfortably. I have no regrets about buying this at all. My bedroom gets to be 80 degrees in the morning and is stuffy and hot. Even at night the temperature isn't comfortable and I was constantly waking up in the middle of the night because it was so hot. I had five fans going at once and they still wouldn't make a difference in the temperature. To fill the evaporative cooler I add water to the tank and a large amount of ice cubes. I live in the DC area so there's often high humidity and I didn't want to open the window instead I put this by the door and put a box fan in the door as well to pull any humid air out and to cross ventilate the room. I also added another fan in the corner across from the evaporative cooler for more cross ventilation. It worked like a dream. Now I can enjoy my room without feeling like I am going to pass out. Amazing!

It is a bit noisy (it sounds like a fan) but I can't sleep without some kind of white noise so it doesn't bother me. I'll take slightly noisy over being too hot and not being able to sleep any day.

I think a lot of folks that are reviewing this product are expecting an air conditioning unit but it doesn't operate in the same way.