Technology
Torras COOLiFY Cyber Neck Air Conditioner Review
Plus points
- Hands-free neck fan
- Cools the neck area quickly and well from the inside
- Simple app control
- Comfortable
Cons
- Noisy at full power
- Less usable outside
- Pricey
Our verdict
The Torras Coolify Cyber is a portable, cordless, single-person cooler that can blow cooled or heated air around your neck, upper shoulders, and lower head. It’s comfortable and performs well in indoor use, although we were less impressed with it during testing on a warm day outside.
Price upon review
$279
Best Prices Today: Torras Coolify Cyber Neck Air Conditioner
$279
Not everyone has air conditioning at home or in the office, and no one has it outdoors. Unless you carry an old-fashioned paper fan or a miniature motorized fan, you’ll need to sit in front of a desk or room fan that is firmly rooted.
Even the best fans cannot match a good air conditioning system, but they are more affordable and flexible. But that flexibility usually depends heavily on the flex: the power cable between the fan and the socket.
The Torras Coolify Cyber Neck Air Conditioner is slightly different. It is a portable, cordless, wearable neck fan that can blow cold or warm air through the three vents on the back and sides.
Because it simply wraps around the back of your neck, it leaves your hands free and should not hinder your freedom of movement in any way.
Cooling your neck is a quick way to lower your body temperature, or at least feel less hot and bothered. The large blood vessels and nerves at the back of the neck have the closest connection to the brain.
Doctors recommend applying cold water or ice to strategic points on the body where the veins are close to the surface, such as the wrists, neck, chest and temples, to quickly lower the temperature of the blood flowing through these veins . The Coolify Cyber does this by blowing cooled and fanned air.
It is a personal rather than ambient cooler. Put it on at home when the room gets too warm, or as soon as you arrive at the office after a hot trip, hoping the sweat will dry up before anyone notices.
Design
If it looks heavy, it isn’t. It weighs only 495 grams. You quickly forget its size and it is comfortable to wear during the day. It is certainly not a device to keep you cool while sleeping, as it would be too cumbersome, uncomfortable and noisy to wear while lying in bed.
Unlike most basic fans, there are no blades, so long-haired users don’t have to worry about their hair getting stuck in the cooling collar.
It looks like something out of the movie Dune, and someone may have unkindly described it to me as a collar from Planet Of The Apes. But it doesn’t make the wearer look stupid. The Dyson Zone is not.
To risk a pun, you might even look pretty cool packing this gadget. It’s like having a pair of sci-fi headphones hanging around your neck.
It has an adjustable fit for different neck sizes, and comes in two basic colors of black and silver, although Torras calls them Cascade Black and Natural Titanium. There is a special edition stainless steel version available via Amazon.
Other than the giveaway sound, onlookers may not even notice you’re wearing it, but if they do, everyone will be eager to try it out.
How Coolify works and performs
The Coolify Cyber has dual exhaust vents, the top six and bottom two airways forming a convection system that Torras claims creates a “3D cold air environment all over the body.” While wearing it, I didn’t notice my hands, legs or feet being cooled by the flowing air, but it certainly had a pleasant cooling effect on my neck and shoulders. After a while, the device itself becomes quite cold on your neck, which enhances the cooling experience.
The neck cooler is powered by four aerodynamic motors that rotate at 7,200 rotations per minute to create the flow around your upper shoulders. It does more than just blow air around your neck like other portable fans. It features a graphene cooling plate – an upgrade from the previous model’s ceramic cooling plate – on the back that cools quickly and can deliver a temperature drop of 10 degrees Celsius with 366 cooling particles, according to Torras.
Coolify blows cold or warm air to your neck, upper back and, to some extent, around the back and sides of your head. The cooling zone is around 65 degrees F, which is about 18 degrees C.
There are three modes – Fan, Cool and Heat Therapy – and multiple fan speeds, with adjustments from 0 to 100 via the app. An automatic mode adjusts based on ambient and body temperature, and there is also a timer function.
The airflow and temperature can be controlled from the device itself or via a straightforward, straightforward app.
On the device, briefly press the power button to cycle through Low, Medium and High in Fan (green light) or Cool (blue). Long press the power button to enter heating mode (orange).
The app allows you to control fan speeds more precisely than with the physical buttons and makes it easier to select the different fan zones.
Inside or outside
Torras has many photos of people wearing the Coolify, walking, gardening and working outside. This may work in moderately warm environments, but in my experience the device worked best indoors.
Coolify can be your sweat-inducing friend in a non-air-conditioned room, whether you’re working from home, away from the office air-conditioning, or returning from time spent in the outside heat. Gamers who do a marathon session surrounded by their heat-producing equipment may find that this increases their reaction times to stay cool in the heat of a virtual battle.
I road tested the Coolify Cyber on a 20-minute walk in 33°C, and under these conditions I didn’t feel much benefit, even with the device set to maximum fan cooling.
When I returned from the walk and was fortunately back inside, the Coolify was much better appreciated.
While sitting in a warm outdoor bar watching the football, the neck fan provided some relief and lasted 90 minutes on a medium setting.
You can also set Coolify to blow uncooled or heated air if you want to warm up quickly. These work in the same way as cooling. As for Heat, it works like an electronically heated scarf. I feel less comfortable holding something warm on my neck for a long time, but the increased temperature is noticeable.
Fan volume
Back to that sound… When you have all the vents on the maximum setting, the Coolify sounds like a small hairdryer. It’s not on the level of a hand dryer in a laundry room, but it’s certainly noticeable to people nearby. It is not whisper quiet, unless the whisperer is hearing impaired.
Nearby passengers in a bus or train carriage may not appreciate the noise or the fact that you feel cooler than them. When it’s running at full speed, it’s not that easy to hear people talking to you.
At lower levels the noise is not too bad and acceptable to people sitting nearby.
Cool power
As you might imagine, all that blowing and heat buildup takes its toll on battery life. Torras claims the 6,000mAh battery will last up to 15 hours, but that depends a lot on how hard you press it and in what modes. The maximum of 15 hours is in wind mode on a low setting.
In full cooling mode you can count on approximately two hours of operation. At maximum heat it should continue for three hours. That’s probably as long as we want it to cool or warm our neck anyway.
It has 20W fast charging and can be recharged to full capacity in about two hours.
Thanks to the included right-angled USB-C charging cable, you can charge it comfortably while still wearing the device around your neck. When you’re on the go, you can connect a power bank battery pack for extra hours of use.
Price
The Torras Coolify Cyber costs $279 / £225, which is a notable investment in anyone’s book. Amazon also has a special stainless steel color version for $329.
You can buy cheaper electronic portable fans, but these by definition reduce your ability to do much else while fanning yourself. There are also cheaper (and more expensive) desk and room fans you could consider: check out our recommended best fans for a varied range of less portable cooling solutions.
The Coolify Cyber is quite different from those types of standard fans, so it may be unfair to judge it by comparing prices.
Torras has cheaper neck fan options, such as the $150/£120 Coolify Air. This has a slower motor (5000rpm vs the Cyber’s 7200rpm) and a smaller battery (5000mAh vs 6000mAh), which may be why is why the Air is 100 grams lighter than the Cyber. The Cyber’s simple app controls aren’t available on the Air, so you get less precise gradations of cooling power.
It comes with a luxurious-looking protective case with a pocket where you can store the rectangular USB-C charging cable
Pronunciation
The Torras Coolify Cyber is a portable, cordless, single-person neck fan that can blow cooled or heated air around your neck, upper shoulders, and lower head. It is comfortable and works well when used indoors; we were less impressed with it during testing on a warm day outside.
The cooling collar ensures you cool down quickly when you need it, and the graphene backplate feels great against a hot neck.
It is cheaper than turning on the air conditioning in your home if you only need cooling. It’s not cheap per se, but if this device can keep you cool in uncomfortably hot situations, you can thank yourself for the initial outlay every time you put it on and feel the cool relief wafting down your neck.
