EF ECOFLOW WAVE 3 Portable Air Conditioner with Drain Pipe

Why it's worth it

The WAVE 3 is a compressor air conditioner with a 1024Wh battery built in, so it cools a tent or van without a separate power station. It's the one product here that lowers the actual temperature instead of just moving warm air around.

This is the only kind of gear that lowers the temperature inside a tent. Mesh and shade slow heat gain. A compressor pulls heat out. EcoFlow rates the WAVE 3 for spaces of 120 to 180 square feet, which covers most six-person tents and a lot of van builds. GearJunkie's field reporting on the previous Wave 2 recorded a sealed six-person tent dropping from 98°F to 72°F in roughly 25 minutes under direct sun. That's a different category of relief than a fan.

The built-in battery is what makes it practical. Earlier camping ACs needed a separate power station, another 30-odd pounds of gear and a cable run across your campsite. Here the 1024Wh pack is part of the unit, rated for about eight hours cordless, and it recharges in around 75 minutes on AC. You can also feed it from a car outlet, an alternator charger, or solar — useful on a multi-night trip where you're not near a plug.

From our review of 7 cooling tents and hot-weather camping gear, by Genevieve Dubois, Home & Living Expert

What we like

• +This is the only kind of gear that lowers the temperature inside a tent
• +The built-in battery is what makes it practical
• +It's built for people who arrive by vehicle
• +You do need to plan around it

What to know

• –Owner feedback on this unit is genuinely mixed, and that's worth taking seriously
• –Runtime claims depend heavily on how hard you push it
• –It's the heaviest and most expensive way to solve this problem