Hi, this is D, I’m back! This time, with something that caught my attention.
This fan.
It looks like a typical fan, nothing special, except maybe for the fact that it comes with a controller, which according to GJH, is useless because his apartment is so tiny, he can reach the fan easily wherever it is placed in the living area, lol.
Anyway.
The peculiar thing about this fan is that it mysteriously turns itself off after 6 hours. Initially, I had thought it was some timer setting that GJH just never got to figuring out, hence the auto-off. However, if you look carefully…
It truly states ‘6時間自動切’ which means ‘auto off in 6 hours’.
To me, a Singaporean, I found it baffling because why would I want a fan that forcefully automatically stops working after 6 hours? If I am using it at night while I’m sleeping, I’d be pissed if I woke up hot and sticky without the fan (obviously I sleep more than 6 hours).
So I did a bit of research and interestingly, there’s actually such a thing called fan death.
Koreans actually believe that using the fan in an enclosed area for more than 6 hours can result in death caused by hyperthermia, hypothermia, as well as asphyxiation. The general concept is that fans just circulate the same air in the room, hence either over heating the room, or over dropping the temperature, or simply causing an excessive concentration of carbon dioxide in the room. This is of course, not backed by science and according to Wiki, it states it as a Korean superstition, though it also stated the possibility that this is a myth perpetuated by the government to curb energy consumption back in the 1970s.
This is pretty much the only explanation I could find for such an odd setting on the fan but my doubt remains because, well, GJH bought his fan in Japan. It is meant for Japanese so how did a Korean superstition lead to this decision in the manufacturing process?
I did some further digging on Amazon (to see how they promote the fan features) and I realised that it isn’t really an ‘odd’ feature because several other brands also sell fans with auto-off setting. The best explanation I can come up with is that Japanese has this setting not out of fear of fan death but rather, out of fear of energy wastage. Should owners leave the fan on while they are out, at least the fans will off by itself.
Still, though, isn’t 6-hours-auto-off inconvenient for sleeping overnight with the fan?
Would you buy such a fan and appreciate such a feature?
Till then,
D.
I knew that i read this before, but couldn’t quite recall the site. So, I did a search and
here’s the link: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2009/01/fan-death-is-real.html
Do remove this link if its not appropriate. 🙂
Since its a Japan-based site, after all.
haha definitely related! I know the logic but still, I find it a bit tough for it to actually really happen because usually for fan users, we don’t sleep in ‘air tight’ spaces. Seems pretty hard to have fan death unless we are in a super tiny space and the fan is blowing within centimetres from us.
I still prefer a fan that doesn’t shut off automatically in 6 hrs! lol.
i remember my ah ma house got this high tech fan, can press some preset buttons to make it turn off in 1, 3, 6 hours (or something like that) 😀 this is super good for lazy people like me waha!
The fan shown in the picture like a bit too low leh, are you it can blow the person on the bed?! haha
The fan is extendable (height), lol.