Midea Duo 14,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner Review
About
The Midea Duo 14,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner is available as just an AC or also with a Heat Pump. It comes with a dual hose and window attachment piece
Purchase Date: 2023-04-23
Review Date: 2024-03-01
Review
Installation
While this looks similar to many portable AC units, there are a few important differences that make installation trickier:
- The unit weighs about 75 lbs so you won't want to be moving it around a lot, even with its tiny wheels
- The hose is a custom shape so you won't be able to extend it without buying custom hose from Midea. The hose it does come with is quite short.
- The window attachment is flimsy and easily broken. It fits better in vertically closing windows than in horizontal ones.
In my personal experience, the window hose attachment came with a broken clip and never fit correctly. It took 10 Months of hounding Midea support to get them to send a new window attachment.
If your window is not close to the floor, you will need to raise the unit up for the hose to reach the window. I purchased a small table for this purpose.
Unless you have drain nearby for some strange reason, you will need a container for it to drain into. Depending on many factor these can fill very quickly or slowly. I recommend a large water jug.
Usage
The unit itself is quite good and efficient at providing both cooling and heat. Unlike a traditional AC unit it can run at different strengths, meaning it does not need to constantly click on and off to keep temperature. It can run at a low and quiet setting keeping the room at a more consistent temperature and only runs high and loud when extra cooling is needed (like right when it first turns on).
The app and wifi control are pretty good. One of my favorite features is the ability to set a nighttime "Sleep Curve" where you can schedule the desired temperature throughout the night. The physical remote is also very good and can be used as a remote room thermometer for the unit to get a better temperature reading across the room than what the unit measures itself.
I do wish that this unit had better integration with other smart home ecosystems. You're limited to turning the device on and off through Google/Amazon, but I'm unable to perform anything more intelligent like you would be able to do with a smart thermostat. This may be asking a lot for a portable unit, but it feels held back by it's decent app and lack of integrations outside the Midea ecosystem.
Issues
Midea customer support is atrocious in my experience. I got the runaround for 10 months with promises they would send me the piece that arrived broken. I finally got lucky and got a hold of someone who spent the time to get me the proper replacement part. If you have something more fundamental broken than just a plastic clip, have fun with the return process of a 75lb AC unit.
If you cannot put your Midea unit within two feet of a window, it won't work. You'll likely find yourself fighting with the window attachment and needing to raise your unit off the ground. Both of these issues make the unit not really portable.
Drainage is a real issue with this device. If you only use it for cooling, you can use a single drain, but if you use other feature like heating or dehumidifying, there are separate drains for each! Apparently they want you to move the single provide drain tube around every time you use a different feature. I am not able to comprehend why everything cannot drain to the same place and you may find yourself needing to buy extra drain tubes to use all the features. It is not practical to cap the drain and move the unit to drain as needed. The unit will fill with water much too quickly at times.
The heating functionality uses a heat-pump that could be a lot more efficient. It apparently cannot run if the temperature falls below the low 40s Fahrenheit. This may make the heating functionality useless for most people.
Decision 👎
I'm truly mixed on my final recommendation here. The unit itself performs well and is almost great, but the downsides make this less practical than expected. For the price, I would expect better drainage, better window attachments, and better company support.
If you have a drain situation setup, and your unit can be within two feet of a window, this may work great for you. Don't call it portable though.
This is a good first step at an inverter heat-pump style portable AC unit. Hopefully the next generation will resolve the quality of life issues and improve the heating capabilities.
The Rest
My Purchase Price (including tax and shipping): $719.39
Main Website: Midea