If there’s one thing that is solving a real-world problem, I would say, the air conditioners. Being in India, I can’t imagine my life without an AC at home or at workplace, considering the weather conditions here.
LG has recently been into the mobile space, and other consumer technology space off late. But then, they are still doing something really innovative in the consumer technology space.
We (Me and my parents) have been using LG’s air conditioners for over a decade now, and we’ve never had a really huge problem with them. Recently, we thought it was high-time we upgrade our Air Conditioner, since the old LG Air Conditioners we had were not suiting the ambience of the room. Without a second thought, my dad wanted to pick another LG AC, instead of going and experimenting with another brand.
While we were in search, we never really had a complete smartphone-like review for the Air Conditioners and other Consumer Electronics. And I thought, it would make sense to publish one.
How I tested?
There were some really important factors which I considered before we picked up the AC for our living room:
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The build quality
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Indoor Noise
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Pricing
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Energy Efficiency
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In-Built Voltage Stabilizer
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The Jet Cool time
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Customer Care Response Times
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Customer Follow-up
The Review:
The first thing which comes in my mind when it comes to choosing the Air Conditioners, are the time it takes to cool a room. The previous LG AC which we had, took more than 15 minutes to just cool a 400 sq ft. room. But then the new BS-Q186C8R2 AC took exactly 6 minutes to cool a 400 sq ft room.
Note: The measurement was made between the time the AC was put on the Jet Cool mode to the time it took to bring the room temperature to 16* Celsius.
Next thing I wanted to test, was the ability to handle the new LG’s Inverter V technology. Interestingly, this new technology is tied up with the time it takes to cool the room. The new Inverter V technology helps the compressor to run at the maximum speed when the AC is turned on, saving the power that actually goes into the unit.
This is not all. The Inverter V technology, also keeps doing this constantly throughout the running period to maintain the desired room temperature, and also ensuring that minimum amount of power is being used by the system. Now I understand why the AC cools the room really faster than the other companies’ air conditioners do.
Next up I would like to talk about is the Swing capabilities. The room in which the AC is currently fit is pretty huge. So I wanted the AC to have a 4-way swing, so that I could direct the AC to blow air to whatever direction and angle I want, throughout the room. Thankfully, the new AC has got the 4-way swing, which in-turn affects the cooling time of the room. Yet another advantage which I saw with these 4-way swing ACs are the ability to spread the air flow across the room without the user having to manually keep adjusting the direction.
Until now, the AC has been doing really well with the performance. Now, let me talk about the design and build quality. The BS-Q186C8R2’s design is good. Thankfully, LG has been adopting the bar-shaped AC designs off late with pretty sharp edges, instead of the regular blunt edges they used to produce previously. While the design part of an air conditioner will not be a factor for many, this is yet another factor the companies put a lot of effort in. On the other hand, I felt that the companies like Hitachi and Samsung had better designs than this, but for some reason, they were not appealing to me on the performance front. I kind of liked the Hitachi’s brushed-metal finished ACs. But LG has decided to stick on to these plain white designs for a lot of its popular ACs. May be because its generic and they wanted to get these ACs to as many hands as possible.
Now, let’s talk about the most important part. The power consumption. ACs are known for consuming hell a lot of power. The ACs’ average power consumption reduced to more than half after we started using the new BS-Q186C8R2 at home. Thanks to the LG’s Inverter V technology for reducing the power consumption. I was digging around the reason for this particular AC consuming really less power, and it turns out that it was not only the Inverter V technology which is helping the unit consume less power, but also the brushless DC motor, which sits comfortably in the unit, that’s helping achieve this. It is also necessary to remember that you should look for the BEE ratings while looking for an AC. And adding to the advantages of this AC, LG was recently awarded the First Prize for building a energy conserving at the National Energy Conservations Awards 2010.
The Brushless DC motor has got nothing but magnets in them, which in-turn has a torque much higher than the regular motors that are fit into these systems. In any Air Conditioner, the motor plays a really major role than anything else. In-fact, it is the actual unit that performs all the operations of an AC. The Brushless DC motor helps the unit run really smooth, without making noise. Of all the ACs I’ve seen (the split ACs) this is much quieter than the other units.
Ultimately, this AC is turning out to be one of our favorite, giving us a peaceful sleep and less things to worry about. The new Auto-Cleaning feature is a boon for people living in cities. A really complex technology is put to work to perform the auto-cleaning functionality in the AC, killing all the bacterias and other things which settle in the filters, producing a clean air.
This is not all. The AC also has a Body Adaptation Time Algorithm technology built into it, a technology that LG is offering for its customers, which would dynamically allocate power based on the room temperature.
Verdict:
I’ve been spending about a month with this new AC, and I will have to admit, it just works. The glowing remote helps me find it with ease during the dark, and the super silent unit, never wakes me up in the middle of my sleep. The only thing which I would change in this unit is the design. And I also had the crazy thought of having the ability to change the panels for the AC.
Ultimately, the BS-Q186C8R2 is just great, and I truly think its worth the price. The AC is being offered at Rs. 50,500. And the price is worth since the company has improved their customer response and feedback mechanisms to a great extent.
P.S.: I’m going to be adding some more pointers to this post as I get to spend some more time with the machine. There are a lot of new technologies used in this unit which I would personally like to explore and share it with you. I’ll keep this post updated.