The In-Window Air Conditioner Everyone Is Going to Ask You About
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Window air conditioners are nobody’s favorite way to cool their home. They’re ugly, they’re loud, they’re energy-inefficient, and if you’re anything like me, you’ve spent an inordinate amount of time wondering, “Is this going to tumble out of my window and kill someone?”
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Enter July, a direct-to-consumer brand promising to disrupt the staid air conditioner aisle at Home Depot. Earlier this summer, in search of an alternative to the clunky Frigidaire cooling my bedroom with all the elegance of a jet engine, I swapped in July’s medium-sized window unit. Sleek, chic, and powerful as hell, it arrived right on time for Earth’s hottest summer on record—and it’s revolutionized how I cool my apartment. If you use window air conditioning to cool your home, there’s still time to make a savvy and stylish upgrade before the summer ends.
It’s Seriously Powerful
If you don’t have central air conditioning, you know the agonies of window cooling: window units seemingly take ages to cool down a room, and even once the temperature has plunged, the coverage is still drafty at best.
But that’s not the case with July. At its lowest fan speed, the July air conditioner cools my fairly spacious bedroom in ten minutes flat—in fact, sometimes I have to dial up the temperature after ten minutes to avoid getting goosebumps. In the two months I’ve owned it, I’ve only raised the fan speed from low to medium once—that’s how powerful it is. With that much horsepower, there are no stubborn pockets of heat lingering in my space.With all that power, the air conditioner is far from whisper-quiet, but its brand of white noise is no louder than any other window air conditioner I’ve owned.
It’s Smart
Picture this: it’s a sweltering summer night, you’re stumbling home late from a fun night out, and all you want is to do is fall into bed. Then, as you walk through the front door, you remember, “Oh, shit. I’m going to have to turn the air conditioner on and wait for the bedroom to cool down.”
That used to be me—until I met July. Because the July unit is WiFi-controlled, I’m able to turn it on and adjust the settings from afar using the July app. Nowadays, I rev up my air conditioner when I’m fifteen minutes away and come home to a blissfully cool bedroom, all ready for me to bunker down for the night. It's also compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Home, so wherever you fall on the smart home spectrum, your phone is basically a long-distance remote.
It’s hot
No, seriously. Heralded by The Wall Street Journal as “the hot air conditioner,” the July unit has a polished, design-forward look (words that have surely never been used to describe a window air conditioner before). Made of matte white plastic, it ventilates through the top of the unit rather than out the front, meaning that in the place of grimy grates and grills, you’re left looking at a customizable magnetic display plate. Sold in various shades of matte plastic, along with textures like linen, wood, and preserved moss (!), you can mix and match these display plates to suit your space. If you, like me, refuse to go to all the trouble of removing your air conditioner during the colder months, you won’t be unhappy about staring at the streamlined unit while sipping hot chocolate in December.
It’s Eco-Friendly (Sort Of)
Air conditioning may cool down our homes, but it’s heating up our planet. As journalist Eric Dean Wilson explains in After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort, modern refrigerants (the liquids that make our air conditioners work) are potent greenhouse gases with extremely high global warming potential. July air conditioners use R32, a state-of-the-art refrigerant endorsed by Daikin, the world’s largest air conditioner manufacturer, as “the most balanced refrigerant.” R32 has two-thirds less GWP (global warming potential) than other common refrigerants, meaning that it traps two-thirds less heat in our ever-warming atmosphere.
Clearly this means good things for the environment—but what does it mean for you? July claims that its air conditioners consume 10 percent less energy than their competitors. I’m no data scientist, but ever since installing the unit, I’ve clocked a mild (but noticeable!) reduction in my summertime energy bills.
In the age of climate emergency, we’re locked in a dangerous dance with air conditioning: we need it to survive our warming planet, but our dependence on it is ratcheting up global temperatures. Solving that problem will require government action, energy reform, and massive political willpower. But for now, swapping out the appliances in your home for energy-efficient models (that look and feel terrific!) is a stellar way to start doing your part.
Photography by Joe Lingeman. Prop styling by Heather Greene.
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