Benoit Richard

Benoit Richard is the founder of Harmonia, the company behind All Cool. He has also run Best Batteries since 2011, the site dedicated to batteries and portable power, where he built a rigorous product-testing culture from 2015 onward. Listening to his readers ask how best to keep drinks cool on a hike or sleep well during a heatwave, the idea for a standalone site took shape. Once Best Batteries' European expansion was underway, Benoit launched All Cool as a deliberate spin-off, with its own team and its own editorial line.

On All Cool as on Best Batteries, Benoit holds to the same demanding standard: an impartial selection, never dictated by margins or commercial partnerships, and constant attention to the ecological impact of products (power consumption, repairability, lifespan). His conviction is simple: in portable cooling, the most frugal solution is often the best one, a fan or a passive cool box being worth more than an oversized air conditioner for occasional use. This philosophy, inherited from ten years at Best Batteries, has run through All Cool since its launch.

Unlike his role at Best Batteries, where he sticks strictly to management without signing or testing any product, Benoit keeps one foot in the testing room here: he personally evaluates the fans in the selection. This choice is no accident. In his view, the fan is the simplest device in the catalogue, free of complex electronics, and its real-world performance can be judged in a few hours of use rather than weeks of measurements. It is also the category he knows best on a personal level: in Harmonia's warehouse in the Lozère, where summers often turn surprisingly hot despite the altitude, a good fan was long the only fix before air conditioning arrived. Keeping this category for himself is his way of staying connected to the products, despite a manager's schedule that no longer lets him test everything as at the start of the adventure.

Outside of work, Benoit remains deeply attached to his native Lozère, where he lives with his wife and their two children. He regularly takes to the region's rugby union pitches, a sport played since his teenage years for its team spirit. A knowledgeable wine lover, he long considered becoming a sommelier before devoting himself to entrepreneurship, a passion he still cultivates, glass in hand, at tastings with friends.