Water temperature
Varieties of water types that the device can produce. Most models have several options for different situations.
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Hot. Water is heated to a high temperature — usually about 90 – 95 °C. This temperature is considered optimal for brewing most types of tea, and for instant drinks and other products (for example, instant soups), it is more than enough. However water from the cooler is not suitable for ground coffee — effective brewing of such a drink occurs at higher temperatures, about 100 °C. On the other hand, there are specialized household appliances for brewed coffee.
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Cold. Water cooled to a temperature noticeably lower than room temperature — about 8 – 10 °C, and sometimes even lower. Such water can be useful for diluting other drinks (juices, tea, etc.) and lowering their temperature, as well as an independent drink in hot weather.
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Ambient. In this case, it usually means the supply of water directly, without any cooling or heating. Thus, the temperature of the water at the outlet will be the same as in the bottle or water pipe. In addition to the fact that this option allows you to save energy, it often turns out to be convenient from a purely practical point of view — for example, it is more comfortable for many people to drink clean water not chilled, namely at room temperature, and for preparing some instant drinks, diluting med
...icines, etc. this is the best option. Note that some models may provide the ability of heating or cooling the incoming water to ambient temperature if its initial temperature is very different from this indicator.Cooling type
The type of cooling provided in the design of the device with the possibility of supplying cold water (see above).
— Compressor. Such cooling systems are similar in principle to refrigerators: they use a closed circuit with a refrigerant (usually freon) and a compressor to circulate the refrigerant. The circuit consists of an evaporator, a radiator and connecting pipes. This system works as follows: freon, evaporating, takes heat from the walls of the evaporator and the water in contact with them, cooling it; then it enters the radiator, condenses and gives off excess heat, which is quickly dissipated in the surrounding air due to the special design of the radiator.
Compressor systems are somewhat more complex and expensive than electronic (
thermoelectric) systems. Intricate repairs with refrigerant replacement may be required if the circuit is damaged. On the other hand, such cooling has high efficiency and productivity; and it is practically independent of the ambient temperature: in hot weather, energy consumption may increase slightly, but the outlet water temperature will remain unchanged. Note that the compressor allows you to add a real refrigerator to the device (see "Locker").
— Thermoelectric (Peltier). In this case, electronic cooling systems are built on Peltier elements — a special kind of converters that look like plates. When current is passed through such a converter,
...one side of the plate is cooled, and the other side is heated. Usually, water does not directly contact such a converter; cooling is carried out due to the flow of cold air created by a fan. Compared to compressor refrigerators, electronic systems are much simpler, more reliable, smaller and cheaper. On the other hand, with higher power consumption, they have lower performance. And the efficiency of Peltier elements is not very high — in particular, they cool water not to a certain temperature, but to a certain number of degrees relative to the ambient temperature (usually 10 – 15 °C). It makes it difficult to get cold water in hot weather.Cooling performance
The performance of the cooling system installed in the device, in other words, is the amount of water that can be cooled per hour. In coolers, it is usually indicated for water at room temperature — about 20 °C, in models with a connection to the water mains (see "Water loading") — for 15 °C (this is the average temperature of cold water). Accordingly, when deviating from these indicators, the actual performance may be slightly more or less (however, such deviations must be very significant for this to become noticeable).
This parameter determines two main points. First of all, it characterizes the maximum flow of cold water that the device can handle and the recommended breaks between use. For example, if a user needs to collect 2 standard 200-gram cups and the cooler specifications state a cooling capacity of 2 L/h, this means that the cooler will cool 400 g (0.4 L) of water that has entered the tank, for 0,4/2 = 0.2 h, that is about 12 minutes. However, the need for such calculations arises mainly with high water consumption, which is very close to the claimed performance.
Also, knowing the cooling rate and the volume of the cold water tank (see above), you can determine how long it will take to cool the tank filled with water at room temperature. Such situations arise during the first use of the device, as well as when draining the entire volume of the reservoir. So, if in the above example, the volume of the tank is 3 litres, then 3/2 = 1.5 hours...will be spent on cooling it. However, you can use water earlier, if a slightly elevated temperature is not critical.
Cooling power
It is the power consumed by the device in water cooling mode. In other words, this is the power required for the operation of all elements of the cooling system — a compressor or a converter with a fan (depending on the type of cooling, see above).
This parameter is directly related to the cooling performance (see above): a high cooling rate inevitably requires appropriate power. However, with the same power, compressor systems are more performant than electronic ones. Only models with coolers of the same type can be compared in terms of power.
Also note that the cooling system does not consume this power constantly, but only when necessary. So, at room temperature of the water in the "cold" tank, it turns on at full capacity, and when the desired temperature is reached, it switches to its maintenance mode, which requires much less energy.
In cooling-only models, this figure describes the maximum power consumption of the entire device. And, if there are two modes (heating and cooling), the total maximum power consumption corresponds to the sum of the powers of both modes.
