^ No, it’s basically a swamp cooler. You fill it with water. The cartridge supposedly increases the surface area that the water evaporated from.
And it won’t cool a room. “Cools a 4ft (1.2m) radius up to 12˚F (6.6˚C)” 4 feet? You basically have to be sitting right next to it.
And if the humidity is high, you get much less cooling. Seems like a gimmick to me.
Traditional a/c units, yes. Evaporative coolers, aka swamp coolers, work by evaporating water. Basically they blow air over water. The energy consumed by the water’s phase change from liquid to vapor causes the air to cool. They work best in a low-humidity environment. Swamp coolers are popular in AZ, but unintuitively they don’t work well in summer in AZ which suprisingly to many people is our most humid season.
That gizmo @AboutTheSame linked looks cool, but obviously only works in a very small area. Also looks like you’d have to refil it quite regularly depending on the size. And if you’re in a humid area it wouldn’t work very well at all. If you have hard water the evaporative mesh would probably get gummed up pretty quickly and require regular cleaning.
Thanks @notrichenough. I’ll go back to my recommendation for a basic swamp cooler then. As I noted earlier, the ones we have expressly say that they don’t cool, but with cold water and ice in the reservoir, they do. Our floor plan is a very open one, but if I put one cooler in each of the entries to the dining room (which is not enclosed on one side), it makes it very comfortable, and one by itself (on low fan speed at that) works to make our medium-sized master BR cool even on the hottest of nights. I think it really depends whether you need a humidifier or a dehumidifier. The former works for us, and, I suspect, for OP’s daughter in LA (from what I remember of my childhood days in Fallbrook).
These SoCal heat waves are getting worse and it is not cooling down enough at night. NPR had a story this morning suggesting we can expect more of the same in years to come. If the landlord ever has a change of heart I highly recommend the ductless mini-split systems from Mitsubishi and Fujitisu (http://www.fujitsu-general.com/us/residential/index.html). They are high efficiency and both the outdoor compressor unit and indoor wall units are extremely quiet, almost silent. They provide both heating and cooling and are easy to install as they require only a line for the refrigerant and one for the drain tube. If the tenants offer to share the cost the landlord might be tempted. We paid about $5000 for a two room system but 4 rooms wouldn’t have been much more because they all run off of the same outdoor unit. The wall units are independently operated so everyone can set their own temperature.