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- SmartAir Dry Zone 20l dehumidifier review: What do you get for the money?
- SmartAir Dry Zone 20l dehumidifier review: What features does it have?
- SmartAir Dry Zone 20l dehumidifier review: How well does it work?
- SmartAir Dry Zone 20l dehumidifier review: What could be improved?
- SmartAir Dry Zone 20l dehumidifier review: Should you buy it?
- Slimline design
- High-capacity water tank
- Effective Laundry mode
- High energy consumption
- Too many controls
SmartAir doesn’t have the brand recognition of some dehumidifier manufacturers – such as Meaco – but it’s looking to change that with the Dry Zone 20l. It’s a competitively-priced 20l dehumidifier with a slim body and a decent spec. It’s roughly £50 cheaper than some of the better-known 20l models, yet it still packs in a full range of modes and features, along with a larger-than-average water tank.
But can it do its job quietly and effectively, or would you be better off spending more on one of our best dehumidifiers? I’ve been testing it over the last week to find out.
SmartAir Dry Zone 20l dehumidifier review: What do you get for the money?
A mid-sized dehumidifier with a maximum extraction rate of 20l of water per day. SmartAir doesn’t give any guidance on the size of the space it can work in, but a 20l dehumidifier can usually handle rooms or open-plan areas of 30 to 40m2 in size, and the spec states an air volume of 145m3 per hour. What’s more, with a 5.5l water tank, you shouldn’t need to empty the Dry Zone too frequently. You can just let it get on with its work.
The Dry Zone 20l is fairly tall for a 20l dehumidifier, measuring 607mm from its caster feet to the top-mounted control panel. However, it’s only 211mm deep and almost flat on the back, which makes it easier to stow against a wall when not in use. You’ll need to pull it out while it’s working, though; like most dehumidifiers, it operates most effectively when pulled out into the room by at least 30cm. There’s a large humidity display on the front, plus another on the top, in the centre of the membrane-style button controls.
SmartAir Dry Zone 20l dehumidifier review: What features does it have?
Cheaper dehumidifiers often cut down on modes and features, but the Dry Zone 20l packs in a respectable selection. It has a Normal mode where you select your target humidity and the dehumidifier adjusts its power to reach it, plus a Strong mode for rapid dehumidifying, with the compressor turned up and the fan on full. Its Continuous mode runs constantly with a low-speed fan, while Laundry mode runs with a fixed high-speed fan to dry your clothes rack as it dehumidifies.
There is also a Sleep mode, but this simply runs at the current setting with all indicators and both humidity displays turned off. Finally, the timer allows you to set the dehumidifier to turn on or turn off after a period of one to 24 hours.
SmartAir Dry Zone 20l dehumidifier review: How well does it work?
I set the SmartAir to work in a slightly damp living room which I’d deliberately made worse by drying sheets on the radiators. The temperature was 19°C and the relative humidity 67%. After an hour of the SmartAir working on Strong mode, I had the relative humidity down to a much more reasonable 56%. A further hour only reduced it to 55%, but that still makes for a 12% reduction overall. That’s not quite up there with the Meaco Arete Two or the ProBreeze PB-08 20l dehumidifier, but it’s not far off the pace.
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I was also impressed by the Laundry mode. This doesn’t work on a specific timeframe, so you’ll need to switch it off manually, but between the dehumidification and a vertically oscillating louvre, it did a solid job of drying a rack of clothes. After six hours, all but the heaviest garments on the furthest side of the rack were fairly dry. A quick turn and two hours later, and they were good to go in the cupboard too.
What’s more, the SmartAir is surprisingly quiet. As with all dehumidifiers, there’s some noise when the compressor and the fan are hard at work, with the noise output reaching 44.9dB. But, with the fan at its lowest setting, this slipped to 36.9dB. That’s not quiet enough to sleep through, but it’s a low enough level for conversation or watching TV. You’ll need to look to the Meaco Arete Two or Duux Bora to find anything significantly quieter.
SmartAir Dry Zone 20l dehumidifier review: What could be improved?
Power consumption is higher than average. I measured peak usage at 310.5W during Strong mode, dropping down to around 290W with the SmartAir running on Normal. The Meaco Arete Two uses 224W at maximum, while the 20l Russell Hobbs RHDH2002 uses between 198W and 208W. Still, with the compressor inactive but just the fan running, the SmartAir idled away at just 25.4W.
I also found the controls unnecessarily complicated: there are separate buttons to cycle between the three dehumidification modes, turn on Laundry mode and control the fan speed, and it doesn’t help that these buttons aren’t particularly intuitive in their labelling.
SmartAir Dry Zone 20l dehumidifier review: Should you buy it?
Like the Russell Hobbs RHDH2002, this isn’t a dehumidifier that excels in any area, but it’s consistently good and thoroughly affordable. The Russell Hobbs is easier to use and more energy-efficient, but the SmartAir is slightly cheaper and was more effective in our tests. Splashing out more for the ProBreeze PB-08 or Princess 368120 will net you a better dehumidifier overall, but if you’re on a roughly £150 to £180 budget, the SmartAir Dry Zone 20l makes a lot of sense.
