Duux Whisper Flex Smart Review
The Duux Whisper Flex Smart is a relatively compact, quiet and powerful fan with a neat remote control. As if that wasn’t enough to recommend it, it also connects to your home Wi-Fi network, letting you control it via the app, or with help from assistants such as Amazon Alexa. There’s clever design elsewhere, too […]
Verdict
The Duux Whisper Flex Smart is a relatively compact, quiet and powerful fan with a neat remote control. As if that wasn’t enough to recommend it, it also connects to your home Wi-Fi network, letting you control it via the app, or with help from assistants such as Amazon Alexa.
There’s clever design elsewhere, too – we like how you can quickly convert between a desk and stand mount whenever you want. However, some of the details let it down, and the build quality seems slightly disappointing at this price.
Pros
- Quiet and powerful
- Easy control via remote or an app
- Low power consumption
Cons
- A little expensive
- Doesn’t look or feel it
Availability
- UKRRP: £149.99
- EuropeRRP: €159.99
Key Features
- Fan typeThis is a pedestal fan, although it can be converted into a desktop model covering both bases.
Introduction
If you love the idea of a near-silent pedestal fan, Duux’s Whisper Flex might be for you. A 12-inch (30cm) diameter device, it comes with a base and a pole that you can add or remove, letting you quickly convert from a desk to floor-standing fan. This flexibility accounts for part of the name, but we’re reviewing the Whisper Flex Smart which, as you’ve probably guessed, adds smart capabilities to the mix.
Connect this fan to your wireless network, install the Duux app, and you gain control over all its functions from a smartphone. That’s handy if you lose the supplied remote. It also comes with support for smart assistants such as Alexa, meaning you can control the fan by voice from anywhere in the world. Add in options such as Google Assistant routines, and this is a fan you can truly integrate with your other smart home equipment.
It’s an interesting proposition, but there’s no point adding smart features if the underlying fan isn’t up to it. We were keen to put it through its paces.
Design & Features
- Oodles of useful features
- Some neat design touches
- Let down by some of the details
This isn’t a cheap fan, so you’d expect it to offer a reasonable set of features. It doesn’t disappoint, even before you get to the ‘smart’ bits. The Whisper Flex Smart arrives with a 37cm long extender pole that fits optionally between the fan and base. Adding or removing this lets you switch quickly between desk and floor-standing modes, making it versatile from the off. We’d prefer a slightly taller pole, though – in floor mode the fan only barely reaches the height of a desk.
The fan head requires simple assembly, with the front cover secured by a single screw. Inside the plastic cage there’s a unique blade design with distinct inner and outer zones. The outer ring contains nine stubby blades, whereas the inner circle has seven, so long that they almost overlap.
To provide the necessary stability for the floor-standing configuration, this fan’s base seems a bit large in desk fan mode. Its most notable feature is the big, round control panel and display near the front. This is clearly reminiscent of Nest thermostats, working in a similar way: turning the ring scrolls between menu items, and pressing selects one. It works well once you’re used to it, but the ring doesn’t feel particularly happy about turning. My sample had a mis-aligned and poorly fitted glass top, too.
Happily, there’s also a svelte remote control covering all the features – and there are a lot.
For a start, the Whisper Flex Smart has no fewer than 26 different speeds, and the sleep timer works in one-hour increments up to 12 hours. There’s about 90 degrees each of horizontal and vertical oscillation, too – you can switch them on independently or together.
Like many fans, there’s a ‘natural wind’ mode designed to mimic a real breeze. This is usually a less-than-convincing cycle through three clearly discernible speeds, but with unusually fine speed control, the Whisper Flex actually pulls it off. There’s also a Night mode that switches off the display and hushes the command beep. Infuriatingly, you can’t switch the latter off altogether.
Wonky control panel glass aside, the Whisper Flex feels solid and well made, but it doesn’t feel expensive or particularly special. It’s made from a drab textured plastic, available in pure white or black. We found ourselves longing for the gloss finish of the Meacofan 1056 pedestal. We appreciated the substantial handle at the back of the motor housing, however, which proved useful for moving the fan between rooms.
With 2.1m of flex, this fan doesn’t tie you too closely to the nearest power socket, but you can add a battery pack that lets you ditch mains power altogether. There are two capacities available, costing €50 or €60, or you can get a small discount if you buy the fan in a bundle – which contains the larger battery.
Smart setup routines can be a pain, but the Duux app makes it easy. Curiously, it wanted location access ‘to retrieve your Wi-Fi details’, but you can opt out and manually enter a password. This worked perfectly, and the fan was up and running in no time. The app duplicates the controls found on the fan and remote, in a simple interface.
While the app itself doesn’t add features, the Whisper Flex Smart can integrate with other smart systems, bringing new possibilities. There’s support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, allowing you to control the speed -– but not features such as oscillation – by voice. You can integrate the fan into Google Assistant routines; for example, configuring a bedtime routine that dims the lights and turns the fan to a minimum speed with ‘Hey Google, goodnight’. The Duux app also supports Homey, providing further ways to link up multiple smart devices or systems.
Performance
- A powerful fan for its size
- Very quiet and efficient
- Easy control from the app
We’re used to product names that bear little relation to reality, but the Whisper Flex Smart really is very quiet indeed. At its lowest speed setting, you can just about make it out in a quiet room. It wouldn’t disturb even the lightest sleeper. There’s considerably more noise once the speed setting enters double digits, but even flat-out it’s quieter than most other fans we’ve tested.
Our measurements confirm the lack of fuss. At Whisper Flex Smart’s lowest speed, we measured just 43dB from 15cm in front, and 35dB from a metre away. From a right angle, completely out of the air flow, we recorded just 26dB and 21dB respectively – that’s even less than the near-silent Meacofan 650 Air Circulator. With the speed cranked up full, we measured 69dB from the front at 15cm, and 65dB one metre away. At a right angle, we recorded just 44dB and 34dB.
Like the Meacofan 1056, the Whisper Flex Smart produces a consistent and reasonably focused column of air. At the minimum speed, we measured this at 1.9 metres per second (m/s) from 15cm, falling to 1.5m/s at one metre. At full speed, this rose to a mighty 5.8m/s at 15cm and 4.4m/s one metre away. Even at two metres, we still recorded a blowy 3.3m/s – even more than we measured from the Meacofan.
Duux says that the Whisper Flex Smart can circulate 710 cubic metres (m3) of air per hour. For the outright volume of air moved, this places it more in line with the Meacofan 650 Air Circulator (which circulates 650m3), rather than the Meacofan 1056. In theory, this means the larger Meacofan is more effective than the Whisper Flex Smart, but you’d probably only notice it in the largest rooms. This fan’s powerful output, combined with its ability to point almost straight upwards, means you can point it at a ceiling for effective, draft-free air circulation.
Happily, the Whisper Flex Smart fan’s impressive ability to move air about doesn’t come at the cost of a high power consumption. We measured a peak of 19W, falling to just 2W at the lowest speed. It’s worth noting that you’ll be limited to a maximum speed setting of 15 when on battery power, and that Duux says the bigger 6,300mAh battery pack will last up to 12 hours.
Conclusion
The Duux Whisper Flex Smart is a quiet, powerful and reasonably good-looking fan. It’s quite compact, with the advantage that you can convert it between floor-standing and desk modes. Its support for horizontal and vertical oscillation – including the ability to point almost vertically up – helps make it suitable for almost any application, from overnight bedroom use to cooling a big room on hot days.
We like this fan’s smart capabilities. Duux’s app is easy to use, and the fan is easy to control by voice or integrate into your smart home routines. However, unlike an air conditioner or heater, there’s little point running a fan when nobody’s in the room. This makes us question just how much value the capability adds, fun though it is.
No matter how you feel about its smart features, this is a quiet, effective and flexible fan. While it can’t shift as much air as the Meacofan 1056 Air Circulator, it produced an even faster output speed, with slightly less racket. If you want to feel a powerful breeze without being overpowered by noise, it’s a great choice. If you’re after something else, check out the guide to the best fans.
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Should you buy it?
Few fans offer smart features, and on the Whisper Flex Smart they’re easy to use. Even if you don’t need them, it remains a great fan – quiet, powerful, efficient and flexible.
The Whisper Flex Smart doesn’t shift the same outright air volume as some competitors, so it may not perform as well in the very biggest rooms.
Verdict
The Duux Whisper Flex Smart is a relatively compact, quiet and powerful fan with a neat remote control. As if that wasn’t enough to recommend it, it also connects to your home Wi-Fi network, letting you control it via the app, or with help from assistants such as Amazon Alexa.
There’s clever design elsewhere, too – we like how you can quickly convert between a desk and stand mount whenever you want. However, some of the details let it down, and the build quality seems slightly disappointing at this price.
FAQs
Once you’ve hooked up the fan to your home network, you can control it with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, plus the provided app.
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Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
