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List Price: $416.00
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I'm torn here because I love Panasonic vents... this is the third I've installed in our house. The vent fan functions perfectly--when I enter the bathroom it turns on--very quietly. It's hard to tell how the humidity sensor is working. I have it set to run for 30 minutes after I leave the room. I haven't timed it to see if it's running longer until the humidity goes down. The usually fogged up vanity mirror is now virtually fog-free after my very hot showers. Great.
Now, for the light. Sigh. I'm a professional photographer by trade--lighting is my science. This light is poorly designed. It uses one of those odd stick shaped fluorescent bulbs that are hard to find. The bulb that comes with the unit is a cool white. It feels like you're in the dentist office, a super market or hotel bathroom. It is very cold and bluish/green when compared to the gu10 halogen pot lights in the same room. Very harsh and cold.
I tried to buy a warm white replacement bulb at Home Depot and though the fixture looked the same, there was a small tab toward the top of the mount that prevented it from plugging in at all. I ordered two different brands on Amazon and hopefully one type will fit. The mounting base designation is not listed in the Panasonic docs. They only refer to their own brands replacement part number--no mention of the base type. This stinks.
Ok, my other complaint is the light "falls off" very quickly from the ceiling to the bottom of the tub/shower you are standing in. This unit replaced an older style pot light (the old ventilator was not over my tub--thus the change) that took a halogen with a fresnel lens and spot reflector. The light was focused downward and lit your feet as bright as your chest. The quality of light in my tub/shower was amazing, but the unit was old and I really needed a vent over the tub.
The Panasonic reflector is a simple half cylindrical design with a plastic housing--white plastic inside the barrel shape. This causes the light to bounce out of the reflector up at the ceiling and the brightness falls off dramatically as it comes down to your feet. The wall looks bright at the top 2 feet and makes the white tun look dim and dirty at the bottom. A simple silver reflector shape inside the cylinder would help push the light out further from the reflector. A linear fresnel lens over the housing would help further. This is not rocket science--it's simple light design. Photographers use "light modifiers" of various types over their studio lights to change the contrast, softness and other characteristics as need. I could design a better reflector/lens combo in 30 minutes for Panasonic. This is a cheap light on an otherwise top of the line ventilator combo unit.
What a shame.
Oh... one more thing. There is the nightlight. As far as I could tell, there is no light sensor. The night light stays on all the time. Think about that. Just about every night light you buy nowadays senses the ambient light and turns on only when it's dark. This unit doesn't. It's pretty bright for middle of the night trips to the head. I might pull the bulb out.
I'm going to affix some polished silver mlylar on the inside of the lamp housing so at least it pushed out the light further down toward the tub. But, I should not be doing such a gimmicky fix on a high quality item.
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We've had this fan installed about six months ago. We were very careful to follow the installation recommendations. We used 6 inch diameter non-flexible metal duct and kept the run as short and straight as possible and we insulated the duct. The fan is extremely quiet and removes moisture very quickly. Don't forget that you must either crack your bathroom door or window open so there is a fresh air exchange while the fan is running. Otherwise, it won't be able to remove the moisture as well. Because the motion detector is so sensitive, we turned the timer all the way down to about 5 minutes. We've found this setting is the best since we still spend time in the bathroom getting ready after the shower so it keeps running until we leave. If you don't want the fan to turn on just because someone walks into the bathroom, you may want to install it directly over the shower. It turns on even when our cats enter the bathroom to use the litter box (which I guess is a good thing). We turned the humidity sensor level up pretty high (80%?) since it seemed to turn itself on too often. The low time, high humidity combo works best in our situation but you may find something else works better for you.
The only issue I have with this fan is the ugly green little light that blinks when motion is detected. However, this light is only noticeable when there are no other lights on. So if you get up in the middle of the night to go to toilet, you feel like you're in a creepy disco tech. Other than that, I am happy with this fan.
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Panasonic is well engineered to be very quiet, however installation is difficult compared to nutone. So quiet you may not know its on is absolutely true. Working great so far. Few more weeks and I'll forget I have a fan as it is a non issue now. If you want a fan for people who will not use one otherwise, ie. kids, renters.
Honest reviews on Panasonic FV-08VQCL5 WhisperSense-Lite Bathroom Fan motion humidity
Great item, very silent and powerful. The auto detect works fine. The light is very bright and the night light is also OK. Great investment !
