Can You Use A Ryobi Misting Fan Without Water?

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Ryobi sells a small variety of fans and misters to help cool you down on a hot day. Just having improved airflow around you goes a long way toward keeping you from getting sweaty, but the big appeal to Ryobi’s fans in particular is misting fans that use both air and water. The Ryobi Bucket Top Misting Fan is meant to be placed on top of a water source like a filled bucket, drawing from it and spraying the water out as a fine mist. The mist flows in the same direction as the fan, so you get those refreshing little particles blasted into your face while you work.

Of course, if you are using a bucket of water to draw from, it will naturally run out at some point. The good news is that the Ryobi misting fan doesn’t explicitly need water to function as a fan. As long as its ONE+ battery pack still has a charge, it’ll still give you plenty of airflow, just without the mist to accompany it. Though if you’re fine with just a fan without mist, you might want to consider investing in a cheaper fan, Ryobi-branded or otherwise, because you’re not using all the features that get the Ryobi misting fan its $69 price tag.

The Ryobi misting fan’s features, including the fan itself and its mister jets, are controlled via a pair of high/low switches on the fan’s base. Both of these switches can be turned off independently, which means the fan can be used without the misters, and the misters can be used without the fan. With that in mind, it’s possible for you to use the Ryobi misting fan without any water, whether the water source you were using has run dry or you just aren’t in the mood for mist. Just turn the mister switch off and turn the fan switch on, and it’ll run by itself as long as its ONE+ battery pack still has juice.

The Ryobi misting fan works fine as a traditional fan, circulating air and providing a modicum of cooling on a hot day. That said, half the appeal of this particular device is its misting functions, and if you’re not going to use them, it’s kind of a waste of money. Ryobi has cheaper, simpler fans without misters on offer, such as the ONE+ Whisper Series Hybrid fan, which is the same size as the misting fan for $10 less. There are also USB-Lithium and ONE+ Clamp Fans if you don’t mind going a little smaller, which have some clever summer uses devised by TikTok users.