Samsung air conditioners

About Samsung air conditioners

Samsung's home air conditioning is built around one idea that separates it from most of the market: cooling a room without blowing cold air at anybody in it. The technology is called WindFree, and it is the reason to consider a Samsung unit over a cheaper one rather than the styling or the app.

The line covers wall mounted indoor units in single room and multi room configurations, sold under names including WindFree Avant and WindFree Comfort. In the United Kingdom and much of Europe these are not bought off a shelf. They are specified and fitted by an installer, and Samsung routes buyers to its climate solutions arm rather than selling them alongside fridges and washing machines on its main consumer site.

What WindFree actually does

A conventional air conditioner throws chilled air across a room through a set of louvres. It cools quickly and it is often unpleasant to sit under, which is why so many office arguments are about the thermostat.

WindFree takes a second step. The unit first cools the room the ordinary way, then switches to pushing air out through a panel perforated with a very large number of small holes. Heatable counts 23,000 of them on the Avant S2. Air leaves at low velocity and spreads rather than blows, so the room stays at temperature without a detectable draught.

The cost of that is speed. Both reviews consulted make the same point: WindFree mode brings a room down more gradually than a fast cooling mode does. Clever Energy Boilers puts it plainly, calling the system well suited to people who value comfort over speed. If the requirement is to drop a hot room fast on the worst afternoon of the year, the fast mode is still there, and the WindFree behaviour is what maintains it afterwards.

How quiet and how efficient it is

Quiet is where this line has the clearest measured advantage. Heatable reports the indoor unit at 21 dB in WindFree mode and under 40 dB at higher fan speeds, with the outdoor unit at around 46 dB. Clever Energy Boilers gives a similar 21 to 23 dB figure. A bedroom unit at that level is close to inaudible, which matters more than most specification sheets suggest.

On efficiency the two sources agree closely without agreeing exactly. Heatable puts the Avant S2 at an A+++ rating with a SEER up to 8.7. Clever Energy Boilers reports up to A+++ with a SEER up to 8.5 and an SCOP up to 4.60 for heating. Both figures are at the strong end of the domestic market. The heating number is the one buyers overlook: these are heat pumps, and a unit bought for two hot months can carry some of the heating load for far longer than that.

Clever Energy Boilers also reports the unit drawing up to 77 percent less energy holding a temperature in WindFree mode than running at full output continuously, which is the mechanism behind the running cost figures below.

What it costs to install and to run

This is not an appliance purchase, it is an installation, and the fitting is a large share of the total. Heatable puts the hardware from about 840 GBP before installation, with realistic all in costs of 3,000 to 3,500 GBP once fitting and a higher capacity unit are included. Clever Energy Boilers gives 1,700 to 2,500 GBP fully installed for a single room, rising to 2,800 to 5,200 GBP and above for a multi room system.

Those two ranges overlap rather than match, which is what you would expect when the variable is a contractor rather than a product. Treat them as the shape of the answer and get a quote for the actual house.

Running cost is more consistent. Clever Energy Boilers reports 20 to 32 pence per hour. Cooling capacity across the line spans roughly 2.0 kW to 7.0 kW depending on model, which is the figure that has to be matched to the room rather than chosen by preference.

Why it is not sold on Samsung's main site

Anyone searching Samsung's consumer site for an air conditioner in the United States or the United Kingdom will not find one next to the refrigerators. Samsung handles residential cooling through a separate climate solutions operation, which publishes brochures and points buyers at an installer network rather than a checkout.

That is worth knowing before starting, because it changes how the purchase works. There is no cart, there is a site survey. The unit that gets fitted depends on the room, the wall, where the outdoor unit can go and what the building will allow, and the price only becomes real after somebody has looked at the property. SmartThings control is part of the proposition, but the app is the last thing to think about here and the survey is the first.

Who should buy something else

Anyone on a tight budget should buy something else. Both sources say so directly. A portable or a budget wall unit will cool the same room for a fraction of the installed cost, and it will do it faster. What it will not do is be quiet or draught free, and whether that is worth several thousand pounds is a question only the buyer can answer.

Anyone who needs a room cold quickly and does not care how should skip the premium. The WindFree behaviour is the product. Paying for it and then running the fast mode all summer is paying for something not being used.

Anyone unwilling to clean the unit regularly should think again. Heatable flags that the perforated panel needs cleaning every three to six months, more attention than a conventional louvred unit asks for. A panel with that many small holes rewards maintenance and punishes neglect.

Anyone cooling a large open plan space should get the sizing checked carefully rather than assuming. Heatable notes WindFree cooling can underperform in humid or open plan rooms, and Clever Energy Boilers reaches a different conclusion on open plan suitability. Where two reviewers disagree, the installer survey is the thing that settles it, not the brochure.

Anyone renting should not start here at all. This is fixed plant with an outdoor unit and a hole through the wall, and it is not a purchase that moves house.