Shark - ChillPill 3-in-1 Personal Cooling System with Fan, InstaChill Cooling Plate & Dry-Touch Mist - Iced Latte

I live in Phoenix, AZ so it’s VERY hot. This little fan works pretty great—better than any other personal fan I’ve purchased. The cooling plate attachment is nice, but it’s too hot here for it to work properly. The fan attachment is nice as well, but the best attachment by far is the mist and fan. The mist runs out kind of quickly—10 to 15 minutes, or so, but I carry a small bottle of distilled water with me for refills. Is that a bit inconvenient? Yes, but so is 107°. I love this little fan and I’m really happy with my purchase.

The Shark Chill Pill enters a personal fan market that is crowded by cheap, plastic fans powered by a couple of AA batteries and featuring hi and low speeds, if you’re lucky. The Chill Pill features an innovative design, rechargeable battery and 3 distinctly different ways to cool yourself when you need it. The design is unlike anything else on the market. Two cylinders are joined together in the middle with a twistable joint, allowing you to position it in whatever way works for you. One of the cylinders holds the rechargeable battery and features a round led screen showing battery level, fan speed and mode icons. The other cylinder holds the fan outlet at one end and a metal mesh filter at the other. The fan features 10 speeds. Shark recommends the first 5 for indoors and the others for outdoor use. Of course, this is entirely dependent on how hot you are, but one reason for suggesting the lower speeds for indoor use is that this little device is rather loud. You might not want to use this next to someone sleeping next to you. The fan is actually bladeless, but it moves a lot of air and is very effective at providing relief from the heat. Keep in mind that this is personal fan, since it’s small size makes it effective only for one, but that’s why you’re interested in this, right? Perhaps the most innovative feature of the Chill Pill is the cooling plate, something I haven’t seen anywhere else. Swap out the fan for the cooling plate and start it up. There are 2 levels of cooling to choose from. A smooth, shiny metal plate cools quickly and you simply press the plate to your skin to experience soothing coolness wherever you need it. This is great for providing instant relief when you need it, especially for things like headaches. This is much more convenient than using ice cubes and dealing with the melting. The third mode of operation is dry-touch mist. This involves a small tank that uses a white wick (4 are included) to absorb water that put into the tiny tank. This then produces a mist that, together with the 10 speeds of cool air, cools you down even more. Shark calls it a “dry mist”, but you wouldn’t want to point this at your face while wearing glasses, unless you don’t mind them getting wet. However, it really is a very fine mist that seems to evaporate before it falls. I tested this by sitting the Chill Pill on a flat surface, with a dry paper towel under the area where the mist fell. Neither the towel nor the surface exhibited any moisture at all. This mode is especially useful on a hot day outside. The tank will last about 8-10 minutes of continuous use, but if you take a bottle of water with you, it’s easy to refill. The Chill Pill is designed to be a personal cooling device, and it does a great job at that. Shark offers accessories like a clip, cross-body strap, and bike clamp, but none of these is included. In the box you get the Chill Pill, 3 caps for the different operational modes, charging cable, and drawstring bag for holding the caps. The Chill Pill allows you to get some relief from the heat without the need to carry a bulky fan or search for power. While I haven’t done enough testing to really know how long the battery lasts, I’m impressed with how much I’ve been able to use it while hardly impacting the battery. This is truly a personal device that you can take anywhere. I’m looking forward to seeing how well it can do at a hot football game in August. I think it’ll be up to the task. The Chill Pill retails for $149. It’s very well built, just like everything Shark makes. It does what it promises to do, but this is a pretty expensive item. You do get what you pay for, and you won’t be disappointed with the Chill Pill, but you’ll need to be able to swallow the price to do so.

Highlights: * Long-life rechargeable battery * Can swap out the cooling method between a fan only, a misting fan or a skin-contact cooling plate * Includes a carrying bag for the two output accessories that aren’t being used * Unique twisting twin-barrel design allows for multiple angles to prop it up * Easy to use controls; sliding power lock switch and twist display to set speeds * Includes 4 wicks for the dry mister attachment; 1 preinstalled and 3 spares Considerations: * Battery life varies between Great (11 hours at Fan-only on level 1) to Not So Great (1 hour for Mist on level 10 or Cooling Plate on level 2) * Display is hard to see in direct sunlight * Water reservoir for the misting attachment is small and difficult to fill * Cannot operate while plugged in * Battery status display is not suitable for color-blind people * Misting function can be on with the misting door closed * Combined weight of device and all 3 attachments is not very light * Lowest fan speed is not exactly quiet and it gets much louder from there * Always turns on at low speed instead of the last-used speed This uniquely-design portable fan has 3 separate modalities to help keep you feeling cooler. Sure, it can just be a portable fan to direct a breeze at your face (or elsewhere) with 10 fan speeds. With a quick twist, you can swap out the fan cap for the misting attachment and now it’s a misting fan! Or swap that out for the cooling plate and now you have a chilled metal cooling pad to hold to your neck, forehead, wrist or elsewhere. Each method has its benefits and considerations, but each can be equally effective. From empty, this fan needs about 3.5 hours to charge via USB-C and cannot be used while charging. While I appreciate the portability factor, it would have been nice to be able to plug it in to an external USB battery for extended runtimes while at home or during longer outdoor sessions - especially when used with higher fan speeds or with the Mist or Cooling Plate options which both consume the battery much faster than the lower speeds in fan-only mode. Swapping out the various accessories is fast and easy. A pouch is provided to store the 2 that aren’t in use so you have options available, but this means that the pack weight for the unit plus all 3 is 326g or about 11.5oz if you want to bring your options with you. Battery life on the low fan speed as just a fan is great at 11 hours. If you’re using the Misting head, that drops to 4 hours max and using the Cooling plate on level 1 drops it to just 2 hours of use on a full charge. Keep in mind that you can’t sue this fan while its charging and it may need over 3 hours to recharge between uses. I appreciate the slide switch on the side to lock the unit off or enable it to work. This prevents it from accidentally turning on in a pocket or purse. I found that sometimes it would get confused if that switch was on when swapping the accessories so best practices might be to lock the unit off before swapping modes. Once enabled (switch on), pressing in on the screen at the top of the smaller of the two tubes will turn on the unit to the lowest speed/setting for that mode. It would have been nice to return to that last-used setting for the installed accessory, but it doesn’t. Not a huge deal but something that would have been appreciated. Depending on the accessory/mode, rotating the screen will adjust the fan speed as indicated by a single digit shown on the display from 1-10. The mode is represented by an icon for Water, Cool plate or a lack of icon for Fan-only and is determined by which accessory is installed. The screen isn’t the easiest to see outdoors in full sun but a bit shade with your hand helps, if needed. Battery life is indicated by a solid battery icon and the battery level is represented by the color of this icon from Green (at least 70%), through Orange and Red. Those with forms of color blindness may have difficulty determining the battery level by icon color, but a blinking red icon is your sign to recharge the battery so even if you can’t tell the difference in color, you can at least notice a blinking battery icon for time to charge. The unique two-barrel twisting design looks like a pair of binoculars. It isn’t very useful while being held but is super helpful when propping it up on a desk or clipped to something during non-held use. You can twist the two parts such that the fan is aimed where you want. There are even accessories to clip the unit onto handlebars of bikes, strollers, etc. The fan itself is deep in the base of the larger tube and not part of the Fan accessory. This means that the blades are not anywhere near where the air comes out. There’s a removable and replaceable inlet filter grille on the bottom, though. If something does get caught in there, you can pop off the grille and clean things out. Otherwise you won’t need to worry much about fan blades. The misting attachment is interesting. It is basically the guts of a humidifier in the space of the cap. With the accessory removed, you flip over the cap and open what was the bottom of the cap to fill it with up to 14ml of water. That isn’t much and it isn’t very easy to fill, but there are no moving parts so it should be safe to get the whole thing wet during filling as long as you dry it off before using in the fan. There is no indication of when the water tank is empty other than the lack of a visible mist during operation. Estimates are about 15 minutes of water life on a full tank before a refill. To prevent any water from leaking out while in a bag, there is a cover that twists to open or close the outlet like the lens cover of a fancy older camera. Just be aware that this cover is fully manual and you can turn on the Misting function with the cover closed which will make a bit of a mess when you open it again. That said, the misting function works quite well. The mist travels far enough to hold the unit in your hand and feel the effects on your face provided there’s not a stiff wind. You can choose between intermittent or continuous misting but as mentioned above, you’ll get no more than about 15 minutes of use between water tank fills, and a max of 4 hours of fan time on a charge at low fan speed. The cooling plate is surprisingly effective, too. It requires skin contact to work and is very noticeable when placed on your neck or wrist. This mode recedes the battery life the most down to as little as 1 hour of use in 8 minute timed cycles. Overall, this product is remarkably effective for making you feel more comfortable when the temperature rises. Battery life is a concern and the weight is to be considered, but it definitely gets the job done when the heat rises.

The Shark Chill Pill is a nice addition to any leisure outdoor activities, or a great way to stay cool indoors. The attachments make it flexible enough to use in different situations. Though the size, and possibly the fan noise, may be a bit much for some. I think the Chill Pill excels indoors. It's a great way to cool off. It's portable enough to strap to your backpack, or maybe your purse strap to help keep you cool while walking or traveling. If sound from the fan is too much for your situation, you can use the cooling plate. And lounging outside, the misting pod was excellent. Battery life has been pretty decent in my experience. You can get close to 2 hours out of it. Depending on fan speed, of course. I found the cooling plate to be only subtle relief when outside, but still nice. The fan is more powerful than I expected. Depending on how hot it is though, you may want the misting pod instead though. I think there are a few improvements that could be made. It would be a nice touch to allow charging from the Chill Pill too. Having the added benefit of a USB power bank seems like it would make this even more useful. That would help justify having it always with you. There's also not an included, easy way to clamp it to your backpack, or anywhere else. An included clamp would have been nice. The pouch to carry the add-ons is helpful. But a way to carry/mount the Chill Pill itself would be nice. Pros: Works well. Especially the misting pod. Pretty good fan speed and power. Nicely designed. Twisting it to set on a flat surface is great. Good battery life. Cons: A little bulky, no easy way to attach or carry it, added ability of being a USB power bank would be nice

To be honest, this product caught my attention because of the name alone. It’s great. And looking at the description, the Chill Pill has a lot of potential. A portable fan is a lovely thing to have on hot days, and the misting and cooling plate sound like fantastic additions. I was skeptical that it would be worth the price, but I’ve had good experience with this brand in the past. Now, there are other portable personal fans, even from designer brands, at much lower price points. My experience with Shark is that they can usually stand up to the designer brands on quality at a lower price point. Since this one is more expensive, I expected a lot more functionality. I’m not sure if it delivers. While the mister and cooling plate are features I have not seen in other personal portable fans, as a cohesive product I feel like it falls short. Each of the three features (fan, mister, cooling plate) are nice by themselves. The problem is that they each require a separate attachment that is swapped out from the base unit. There’s a little storage bag to hold the attachments that are not installed, but the bag isn’t big enough to also store the base unit. So I always have to carry around multiple items, which is awkward at best. While I like the feel and design of the base unit, it’s hard to imagine carrying around all these pieces when I go out on a hot day. More likely I’d just stick with the fan and leave the other attachments at home. And in that case, this is probably the most expensive fan available. Chill Pill: The main unit is a pair of cylindrical pieces connected together with a pivot joint. The control knob is on the end of one cylinder, and the fan attachment is on the end of the other. The control is really easy to operate, and it has an illuminated display that clearly identifies the current settings. The design is such that it can either be held in the hand, or it can be set on a table or desk. Changing the angle between the two cylinders adjusts the angle that the fan faces. Definitely a slick design. The battery life is great: I’ve been using it for a few hours a day for the past week and I still haven’t had to charge it. Switching attachments is fairly straightforward, but a couple times I did have to disconnect and reconnect the attachment to get the base to recognize it. Fan: The high speed fan is really nice. They suggest speeds 1-5 indoors and 6-10 outdoors. Even on the lowest setting it provides a robust cooling breeze that I can really feel. On the highest setting it’s almost like a hair dryer in terms of the airflow. It’s relatively quiet considering how much air it moves, but there is a high-pitched whine to the electronic motor that’s noticeable in a quiet room, especially with the fan at lower speeds. Cooling Plate: This metal plate attachment operates, I believe, with a solid state thermoelectric heat transfer mechanism. The front of the plate gets quite cool, while the fan blows heat away to the sides. I found that this provides a lot of heat relief to targeted areas, like the temples, forehead, or neck. One day I got a bit of a sunburn and this cooling plate was quite soothing. I can also see this being a little bit of a comfort any time an ice pack might be appropriate (although it’s a lot smaller than an ice pack). The only issue I had with this is that while it cools down very quickly, it doesn’t always stay cool if I keep it against my hot skin for a while. It can only handle a certain amount of cooling before it needs a rest to cool down again. Mist Attachment: This is probably my favorite attachment to use, but for the fact that the built-in water reservoir is so small that it can only provide about 10 minutes of mist. If I were using this outdoors, I’d have to carry a water bottle around with me to refill it. But on a hot day it might still be worth it! A little ultrasonic pad shoots out a stream of super fine mist while the fan blows the mist toward me. The result is a refreshingly cool breeze, basically blowing chilled air at me. This is a fantastic way to stay cool, plus the water helps keep my skin from drying out so much at the same time. Summary: I like it, but carrying around a bunch of attachments limits how portable it really is. And the battery is great, but other limitations make it harder to use for an extended period of time. I’d definitely recommend this at 1/3 the price, but as it is I’m not sure if it’s worth the money.