Midea Duo 14,000 BTU Ultra Quiet Portable Air Conditioner

I waited a couple of months to see how the experience held up before submitting a review. Before purchase I had wondered about the drainage situation, performance, and overall noise level. I can address these points fully now.

The Midea Duo is a wonderful machine — in a small bedroom (roughly 11×11) setting this to the lowest setting (60 degrees Fahrenheit) will actually take a space this small down into the mid / upper 50s. This is while the machine copes easily with southeastern heat and humidity outside.

I watched a Youtube reviewer test the noise level, and yes, that very low decibel rating is accurate with one caveat. The minimum noise level advertised only happens on low fan when the unit is in air circulation mode, no AC active — the compressor running will easily exceed that level even on the lowest settings.

Don’t get me wrong — I work at a desk approximately four feet away from the unit and I have absolutely no issues doing my job. There is a quirk of the unit where when the AC first activates, it briefly will spin everything up to maximum even with the settings configured to low / medium. This will last about thirty seconds before the inverter tech kicks in and the compressor drops into background noise. This is my only pet peeve overall.

I am unsure as to why there isn’t a “quiet mode” setting where it will run the compressor at a low setting more often for longer periods to maintain temperature versus needing to run full power for a bit. I would absolutely love this as a feature. Sending the compressor all the way to maximum and maximum fans briefly before stepping back and operating quietly is annoying, but I will note that I do not consider this loud enough to interrupt my day. Sitting further away will mitigate the issue completely.

The noise is never enough to wake me from sleep and isn’t “terrible”. On normal low AC settings outside of the initial “start up” where it runs full tilt, I would say it is about as loud as box fan set to medium-low. The full start up level of noise for the compressor is approximately as loud as a window AC running on full. You will definitely notice the different stages as it cycles up and down.

This thing will freeze you out of a room and quickly drop the temperature. I have never seen anything like it. Even dealing with Florida heat and humidity it was able to take a heat soaked room that was in the upper 80s down to the low 70s in a span of two hours.

I had some concerns about needing to drain this vs a comparable Whynter unit with their exhaust technology. Those concerns were unfounded — even with Florida humidity I have never needed to drain the unit. I have checked multiple times but I have never had more than a few drops of water in the tank. The AC exhausts the water vapor efficiently out through the window and does not seem to accumulate much at all.

I have not needed to use the dehumidifying option, so that option may require more draining. For normal AC use you will probably not need to drain it often at all. If you live in a drier climate than Florida, you will probably never need to give draining it a second thought at all.

Installation was not difficult for one person and all needed adapters / panels are provided. Midea supplies extra panels and adapters in case you need extensions. I do recommend reviewing the instructions and using the dampening foam panels to keep outside noise and heat away. You can install it without the instructions (it’s that simple) but your life will be much easier if you read the manual. 🙂 Make sure to install the hose flow separator at the end of the vent or your performance will not be as great.

Once the foam is installed and the window secured with the included foam liners, outside noise is no worse than what it was before with the window closed. Midea has done very well in thinking of customer comfort.

Durability — it cools just as well as it did on day one. It has, however, developed a very annoying rattle/vibration when the compressor spins up and goes to full power. This sounds like something vibrating loose in the unit and this happened a few weeks into ownership.

If I press my hand to the side of the unit this is goes away, so perhaps some piece of sound insulation has let go internally? I do not know if it is a defect since it is cooling perfectly, but I had to take away from the noise level stars because this is annoying and something I notice daily. Before it started doing this vibration-rattle the unit was much quieter.

Purely fan mode is wonderfully quiet, so I know this has to be coming from the compressor somehow.

Make sure to clean and check the filters, as the mesh is very fine and this unit needs the airflow to operate at best performance. I have not needed to use the heat function since we’re still in the upper 80s and 90s, but will update as I use it.

The remote control is good for when you don’t want to get out of bed to change settings, but I find the app to be easier to use. The remote can do most of the things the buttons on the unit will do minus a few options that require the unit buttons to be held down. The app will let you fine tune most settings on the unit and select fan speeds beyond low, medium, or high. I would like to see full control from the app with all settings that can be adjusted on the unit itself.

Our power bill did not increase by much using the AC. Part of this is probably helped by the Midea taking some of the strain off of the old (and inefficient) wall units here. I normally leave it set to low fan circulation and around 72 degrees on the AC. It uses much less power than a comparable window unit and I would absolutely not have anything other than an inverter driven AC at this point. The technology is that good.

Would I buy another Midea again? Absolutely. There are improvements they can make to the overall build quality (addressing the various vibrations / rattles that have appeared) and settings (a quiet AC mode would be greatly appreciated), but overall this is very comparable with the best that Whynter has to offer and the thoughtfulness of the app is wonderful.

It is not cheap, but the price gives you a tremendous performance and feature combination. I have no doubt that this would cool a large living room or combined space with ease. Thank you to Midea for saving me from Florida Summer!

Edit and followup: I attached two decibel measurements. The average for medium fan is 54 and the average for the unit running in AC mode is 61 with spikes up to 68.

I finally ran the heat and it works great, though it will collect a lot of humidity as condensation in the trays. The unit is very easy to drain, but you can also switch to dry mode to have the unit evaporate and exhaust the water.

Edit #2: Still working great after a year and a half with no issues

Good unit. Powerful, efficient.
The “fan” mode is NOT like a window fan, so it won’t blow in outside air, only recirculate inside air. This may be good if you have allergies, but when the unit is installed in a window, it precludes a window fan, so on pleasant days, you can’t open the window or push through fresh outside air without removing the unit from the window altogether (which is a pain). So this unit works well with outside temps from 40F to 60F (heating) and from 75F upwards (cooling), but from 60-75 I would prefer a window fan, which costs less to run. Below 40F, the heat function doesn’t work either. Still, its much better than my old single-duct unit.

Noise level is definitely subjective though objectively, it is definitely a quiet system. It does its job well and keeps the room cool. It is also very heavy so don’t expect to move it up and down the stairs though it is easy enough to roll between spaces since it is one wheels.

I bought this air conditioner for my mom’s studio apartment. She lives in a senior’s residence and her room is pretty warm. I’d say the room would be around 400 square feet. I was concerned it would not cool the room adequately. I was wrong. It easily cools her space. It’s fairly quiet as air conditioners go. I like it having a remote. It’s easy to use. About the only issue I have with it is the part that empties the water produced by it. There are two options to choose from. One midway and one at the bottom. While the unit does beep when the unit has to be drained the instructions are bad. They reference the bottom drain. If you open up that one they state you need to elevate the unit for the water to flow, To me that’s not suitable. Also you only have seconds to get a bucket other wise the water escapes on the floor. The middle drain does not do that. I’ve left the bottom drain closed and am only using the upper one. The instructions that come with the unit are generic to all the units they sell and are difficult to follow in some areas. The air flow tube is easy to install in your window. As the unit also acts as a heat pump in the winter I am concerned that cold air will enter through it. I’d recommend using some insulation to avoid this. Having said all this I do recommend the unit despite my issues with it. I like it so much I bought a high btu model to cool my condo.