Need a powerful smart fan? this $84 one will work

Editor’s Note: We reviewed this fan as the “Falcon S,” but the company later renamed it the CF714S. go figure.

as a fan, Dreo CF714S An impressive part of the kit. As a smart device, it misses some relatively obvious opportunities. All told, if you’re looking to spend a couple hundred bucks (or even less, since it’s on sale now for Prime Day) on a fan and your major concern is moving a ton of air, this is a worthwhile purchase. .

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If you want something that takes app controls and smart features and gives you fine-grained control, you may want to consider alternatives.

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Dreo CF714S

The CF714S is a smart App, Alexa and Google Home-controlled fan capable of moving lots of air. When it is run at low speed, it is very quiet and looks good in office or home.

Dreo’s marketing materials say the Falcon S pushes 1082 cfm of airflow that goes up to 110 feet. My house isn’t nearly that big, so I couldn’t verify their exact claim, but this beast kicks in a lot of wind. Reached its peak, it’s almost so intense standing in front of it, and at the far end of my workshop (the longest room in our house) the wind easily moved 20 feet away.

In terms of sound, I did a preliminary sound check by standing right in front of the unit and using my Apple Watch’s Noise app. Ambient room noise was at 48db and on its lowest settings, the fan didn’t increase ambient room noise at all. At low speed, this is a very quiet fan.

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But if you crank it up, the sound rises to 84db, which Apple Watch says is potentially dangerous for long-term exposure. There’s no way you can stand right in front of the fan when it’s on full throttle. From 10-15 feet away, the sound level is just right.

One feature I really liked was the ability to point the fan straight up. Due to this, air communication was done, but no one could be attacked directly. In combination with the app’s ability to circulate air at different speeds, the fan can create a very nice ambient breeze. I think this might be my favorite feature.

We’ll come back to the app in a minute, but first let’s get down to the physical features of the fan. The fan comes with a fairly rudimentary remote control that lets you increase or decrease the fan speed, set horizontal or vertical oscillation, and change fan modes.

The fan mode and speed are shown via a display located on the fan shank. There’s also a series of touch buttons on the front of the fan that you can use when the remote control isn’t at hand.

app control

The app offers a lot of capabilities. You can control vertical and horizontal oscillation, set a sleep timer, and even set the fan to turn on or off based on the ambient room temperature.

Lastly, you can control the fan with Alexa and Google Home. It has speed, on and off, oscillation on and off, and normal, sleep (which lowers the fan’s intensity over time), natural (which varies the speed), and auto (which sets the fan to run is) responds to voice commands such as at temperature)

opportunities missed

There is so much potential in this fan that I find its missed opportunities astonishing. You can’t use Alexa or Google Home to control vertical and horizontal oscillation independently. You also can’t ask Alexa or Google Home about the temperature measured by the fan, even though it’s constantly measuring the ambient room temperature.

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But by far, the biggest missed opportunity is the app and voice control presets. The app can move the fan left-right and up-down. It can also set the fan speed. So why can’t it respond to the preset that sets the vertical and horizontal position and speed of the fan? A preset can be pointed straight at you at medium speed. Another preset might point the fan upwards, turn on natural mode for ambient air, and set the speed to 2.

I’m disappointed because the company clearly took a lot of time with the app, and put hooks for all that control in both the app and the fan. But the app only serves as a backup remote control, including the ability to run the fan at different speeds depending on the room temperature.

The fan accepts firmware updates, and I hope Dreo updates the fan, smart assistant apps, and main app to allow for presets, temperature reporting, and independent oscillation modes.

Should you buy this item?

As a fan, this is really awesome. Is it worth a hundred bucks as a limited smart fan? This is something you have to decide. I was disappointed to find that I couldn’t use Alexa for finer control while the fan had all the capabilities, but CF714S It’s priced pretty well when compared to other fans with a similar feature set. At the time of writing, it is also 15% off during Amazon’s Prime Day sale.

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Personally speaking, if Dreo were to update the device to support presets, I’d say that absolutely price $100, Even without it, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy it if I needed to carry a lot of air over a long distance.

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