Unlock Summer’s Secret Weapon: The 4 Portable Air Conditioners That’ll Keep You Cool and Crushing Goals

Ever find yourself sweating through your workouts or chilling in one spot just to escape the sweltering heat? Yeah, portable air conditioners might just be your new best friend—but hold on a sec. Before you rush out and grab any old unit, have you really thought about what “portable” means for you? Is it about lugging it from your tiny studio to the gym, or just keeping one room ice-cold while you hustle through your day? Trust me, nailing down your use case first changes the entire game. And once you know that, the real heroes step in: BTU power, decibel levels (because no one wants a jet engine humming in their sanctuary), and actual mobility—not just a fancy name on the box. So if you’re pondering whether your portable AC should be a beast or a breeze, noisy or whisper-quiet, bulky or a breeze to cart around, I’ve got you covered with the lowdown that’ll keep you chill without the headache. Ready to beat the heat smartly? LEARN MORE

When choosing a portable air conditioner, you have to look at a few things. The first is use case. You’ve already determined you need a portable unit as opposed to a window unit, but why is that? Are you trying to take it with you, or is it meant for one room in particular? By answering these questions, you’ll figure out where your focus should be in regard to the following categories.

BTU: British Thermal Units are a measure of how much energy an AC is using—basically how powerful it is. On average, it must have 20 BTUs for each square foot of space a unit is cooling in order to work properly. You can multiply the amount of space you need by this number to roughly determine how powerful an air conditioner you require. The current high end of portable units is 14,000 BTU, which many of these selections hit.

Decibel Level: A disadvantage of portable AC units is that they can often be loud. Like jet-engine-in-your-backyard loud. This is why noise level is something we paid careful attention to while choosing which portable units to recommend. The closer a decibel number is to zero, the closer it is to complete silence. While absolute zero is out of the question, we loved the LG portable air conditioner for its lower decibel levels, which clocked in at just under 50.

Mobility: The upside of a portable air conditioner is that it’s mobile. Unfortunately, many on the market are not. The conceit of air-conditioning makes it difficult for one to work when it’s not hooked up to a window. If you need to move your AC from room to room on a daily basis, the hose-in-hose design of the Whynter and the Midea makes them easy to move. But if you need something truly portable, go with the EcoFlow Wave 2 and never look back.