Balmuda NatureWind Studio Review: A Better Breeze
Balmuda NatureWind Studio Review: A Better Breeze
Balmuda NatureWind Studio 评测：更舒适的微风
WIRED Rating: 7/10 WIRED 评分：7/10
THE GOOD: Interesting style and refined build quality. Inaudible at its lowest speeds. Air movement is effective yet gentle. Has a generous 10-foot-long cord. 优点： 风格独特，做工精致。最低档运行时几乎静音。送风效果既有效又柔和。配有 10 英尺（约 3 米）长的电源线。
THE BAD: The assembly process is involved. Tripod design has a large footprint. Has no remote and few features. 缺点： 组装过程繁琐。三脚架设计占地面积大。没有遥控器，功能较少。
A Dyson fan costs around $400, which is to be expected from a brand known for status-symbol appliances. But what if I told you there was a fan that costs even more? 戴森（Dyson）风扇的价格通常在 400 美元左右，对于这样一个以“身份象征”类家电闻名的品牌来说，这并不意外。但如果我告诉你，还有一款风扇的价格比这更高呢？
Though the brand may not be a household name in the US, Tokyo-based Balmuda is well known in Japan for its high-end, minimalist appliances like The Brew and The Toaster (there’s also The Clock, The Speaker, and … The Teppanyaki). Its latest release, a pedestal-style fan, is not called “The Fan” but rather the NatureWind Studio. It retails for $429 and is available in black or white. 虽然 Balmuda 这个品牌在美国可能不是家喻户晓，但这家总部位于东京的公司在日本因其高端、极简主义的家电而闻名，例如 The Brew 咖啡机和 The Toaster 烤面包机（此外还有 The Clock 时钟、The Speaker 音箱以及……铁板烧烤盘）。其最新发布的一款落地式风扇不叫“The Fan”，而是命名为 NatureWind Studio。它的零售价为 429 美元，有黑色和白色可选。
The NatureWind Studio looks a little like a caged windmill on a wide tripod. It doesn’t include a remote, have any smart features, or correspond with any app. It has but a single objective: mimicking a natural outdoor breeze. One could argue that most fans can achieve this simply by operating at a low speed. But the patented dual-blade design of the NatureWind Studio results in an output that is gentle, fairly wide-ranging, and effectively silent. NatureWind Studio 看起来有点像安装在宽大三脚架上的笼式风车。它不包含遥控器，没有任何智能功能，也不支持任何应用程序。它的目标只有一个：模拟自然的户外微风。有人可能会说，大多数风扇只需调到低速档就能达到这种效果。但 NatureWind Studio 采用的专利双叶片设计，使其送风既柔和、覆盖范围广，又几乎完全静音。
Balmuda rates the NatureWind Studio at just 9 decibels on its lowest setting. I couldn’t independently verify this, as my home’s ambient noise floor is higher, but I can say that, in an otherwise silent room, the fan was completely inaudible. This is impressive, but after using the NatureWind Studio in the middle of my living room for three weeks, I’m just not confident its features justify the premium price tag—especially without a remote. Balmuda 称 NatureWind Studio 在最低档位时的噪音仅为 9 分贝。我无法独立验证这一点，因为我家的环境噪音基准较高，但我可以肯定的是，在安静的房间里，这款风扇确实完全听不到声音。这令人印象深刻，但在我的客厅中央使用了三周后，我并不认为它的功能足以支撑其高昂的价格——尤其是它还没有遥控器。
Built to Last
经久耐用
Unlike most pedestal fans I test, which typically only include a base and a stalk, the NatureWind Studio arrives in multiple pieces. I had to attach blades to the motor, assemble the guard housing, and slide on the sturdy tripod legs. This process wasn’t tricky, but it did take me about 20 minutes to ensure I connected everything correctly. The bonus of the setup, though, is that I know how to easily disassemble the parts for cleaning—a miss on many pedestal fans. Several of the NatureWind Studio’s components, including the blade and motor housing, are metal and feel precision-built, which is to be expected at this price point but still nice to see. 与我测试过的大多数通常只包含底座和支柱的落地扇不同，NatureWind Studio 到货时是拆解成多个部件的。我必须将叶片安装到电机上，组装防护罩，并装上坚固的三脚架腿。这个过程并不复杂，但我花了大约 20 分钟才确保所有部件连接正确。不过，这种安装方式的好处是，我知道如何轻松拆卸部件进行清洁——这是许多落地扇所欠缺的。NatureWind Studio 的几个组件（包括叶片和电机外壳）都是金属材质，感觉做工精密，这在这一价位是意料之中的，但依然令人欣喜。
The NatureWind Studio isn’t a new model for Balmuda; it’s been available in Japan since 2010 (where it is called the “GreenFan Studio”), but it is new in the US as of early June. Its marquee feature is dual-blade technology, where a slow-moving inner blade and a faster-moving outer blade create a combined airflow that aims to feel more like—as the marketing materials put it—“wind through an open window than a mechanical fan.” NatureWind Studio 对 Balmuda 来说并非新款；它自 2010 年起就在日本上市（在日本被称为“GreenFan Studio”），但直到今年 6 月初才在美国推出。其主打功能是双叶片技术，通过转速较慢的内叶片和转速较快的外部叶片产生组合气流，旨在营造出一种——正如营销材料所言——“比起机械风扇，更像是穿过开着窗户的自然风”的感觉。
While the fan’s height does not adjust, and the NatureWind Studio does not have an onboard rechargeable battery to operate cordlessly, it does have an impressively long, 10-foot fabric-wrapped cord, for which there’s a little hook on the back of the fan’s stalk for looping excess length. 虽然这款风扇的高度不可调节，且 NatureWind Studio 没有内置可充电电池以实现无线操作，但它配有一根令人印象深刻的 10 英尺（约 3 米）长织物包裹电源线，风扇支柱背面有一个小挂钩，可以用来缠绕多余的线缆。
You may need more of this cord length than you’d think, due to the wide tripod design, which is effective for keeping the fan totally still but requires about 3 square feet of floor real estate. Because of this, I had more trouble than I expected in finding a place for it. 你可能比想象中更需要这根长电源线，因为其宽大的三脚架设计虽然能有效保持风扇绝对稳定，但需要约 3 平方英尺（约 0.28 平方米）的地面空间。正因如此，我在为它寻找摆放位置时遇到的麻烦比预想的要多。
I usually have no problem slipping a pedestal or tower fan between pieces of furniture, but the NatureWind Studio, with its splayed legs, had to sit right in the middle of my living room, forcing my family to walk around it for the duration of the testing period. No one ended up minding too much, however, because the fan’s presence made sitting on the couch heavenly; given its light output and lack of perceptible sound, the breeze did indeed feel oddly natural. 我通常可以轻松地将落地扇或塔扇塞进家具之间的缝隙里，但 NatureWind Studio 由于其外扩的支腿，必须摆在客厅中央，导致在测试期间我的家人不得不绕着它走。不过，最终大家并没有太介意，因为这款风扇的存在让坐在沙发上变得非常舒适；考虑到它柔和的送风和几乎察觉不到的声音，这种微风确实感觉非常自然。
However, not having a remote control proved incredibly inconvenient. If the air is hot enough to need a fan, it’s hot enough for you to not want to get up and walk across the room to change the speed or activate the side-to-side oscillation (unlike many other pedestal fans, the NatureWind Studio does not oscillate vertically). 然而，没有遥控器确实非常不便。如果天气热到需要开风扇，那么你肯定也不想起身走到房间另一头去调节风速或开启左右摆头功能（与其他许多落地扇不同，NatureWind Studio 不支持上下摆头）。
Worth the Wind?
值得入手吗？
When I first read the NatureWind Studio’s description, I was a little concerned that its “natural, outdoor breeze” would essentially be the same as the “nature mode” setting on a lot of new-release fans. Nature mode typically works by increasing and decreasing the fan’s speed at random intervals. It’s supposed to be refreshing, but it’s actually (to me) intolerably distracting. Perhaps some people enjoy their pedestal fan speeding up and slowing down audibly and unpredictably, but I have not met them. 当我第一次阅读 NatureWind Studio 的描述时，我有点担心它所谓的“自然户外微风”本质上和许多新款风扇上的“自然风模式”是一样的。“自然风模式”通常通过随机增加或减少风扇转速来工作。它本意是让人感到清爽，但对我来说，这实际上非常令人分心。也许有些人喜欢落地扇发出忽快忽慢、不可预测的声音，但我还没遇到过这样的人。
The NatureWind Studio’s wind is instead consistent and wide; you’ll feel it all over the room, but you won’t have to worry about it ruffling your book pages. However, you’re also not going to get the kind of bulk air movement you’d get with a high-velocity air circulator like Vornado’s feature-packed EOS 9 ($150), which can push more than 1,400 feet per minute (fpm)—helpful for open-concept spaces and high ceilings. Even on its highest setting, Jet Mode (indicated by a little airplane icon), the NatureWind Studio’s output topped out at 925 feet per minute on my anemometer. That’s respectable for a design-forward fan meant for smaller spaces, especially since the decibel level on the highest setting wasn’t much more than 50. But it’s nonetheless not powerful enough to get air moving in a meaningful way in a larger space. NatureWind Studio 的风感则是持续且宽广的；你能在房间的各个角落感受到它，但不必担心它会吹乱你书页。不过，你也不会获得像 Vornado 功能丰富的 EOS 9（150 美元）那种高风速循环扇所带来的大流量空气循环，后者每分钟送风量可超过 1,400 英尺（fpm），这对开放式空间和高天花板房间很有帮助。即使在最高档位“喷气模式”（由一个小飞机图标指示）下，我的风速计显示 NatureWind Studio 的输出最高也仅为每分钟 925 英尺。对于一款专为小空间设计的时尚风扇来说，这表现尚可，尤其是最高档位的噪音也不过 50 分贝左右。但无论如何，它在大型空间中无法有效地带动空气流通。