A story about modern supply chain, trial and error, and safety
I was on a layover in China, had a few hours to kill and decided to go for a spontaneous walk in the city. I noticed something unusual: every outdoor worker - construction labourers, delivery riders, street food vendors, policeman, were all wearing a little fan that blows wind up their shirts.
I walked up to one of them and asked to try it. He handed it over. I strapped it on. He laughed at my surprised face.
It was an instant game-changer. Why wasn’t this already in Australia??
Certifications
After some research I quickly realised it’s more complicated than I thought. The industry is extremely decentralised - one factory makes the shell, another the battery, another the circuit board, another the wiring.. and someone downstream picks what they want and throws it all together.
That’s not a problem — it just means two fans that look identical can be built completely differently.
China is a country that makes everything from cheap mouse traps and party hats, to advanced drones and electric vehicles - How can I make sure whatever I buy isn't made out of proverbial AA batteries held together by melted plastic bags?
I tore apart and tested over 20 models to see for myself.
Some were expensive but had junk inside
One looked tough and fancy but had laughably tiny batteries
Some looked cheap but were surprisingly well-built
Some were identical outside but totally different on the inside
I didn’t just pick a supplier and run with it. I trusted no one, asked for real compliance paperwork - full, verifiable, 50+ page reports - not just PDFs with stamps.
Most suppliers couldn’t provide anything legit, even if their product was half decent. In the end I found an ISO9001-certified factory that was happy to work with me, we worked together for months, made specific changes to meet Australian standards, including electrical safety and lithium battery compliance — and had it independently certified in a third-party lab.
Picture below: The fan proudly standing on the ashes of lower quality products that self combusted during testing
I can just get this on Temu!
I wanted to do that too, wound’t that be easy? But there’s a good reason I didn’t, even aside from quality considerations. Let me explain:
Under Australian law, whoever that imports the product - this includes buying from likes of Temu and Aliexpress - becomes the “Responsible Supplier“ and bears full responsibility for the safety of the products they bought. So you will end up running into the same problem I had - How would you go about ensuring its electrical safety? What if something goes wrong?
Best case scenario, it’ll be a forced product recall, worst case, there will be criminal liabilities from gross negligence.
That’s the whole reason that I worked with the factory and laboratories to ensure it held up to Australian safety standards.
As far as we know, it’s the only fan of its kind in Australia that ticks every compliance box and was legally imported.
Besides - comparing like for like, with a 14000mAh battery pack, brushless motor, and 50 hours of runtime - we are competitive even compared with them.
Product compliance is like a trophy - if you have it, you will make sure everyone knows about it.
It’s costly, time consuming, and hard to get.
We are proud of it, and if someone else had one that passed, they would be too and you will see it blasted all over their website.