Best fans for 2024: Tried and tested models to help you stay cool

Functioning as a heater, air purifier and (virtually silent) fan, this multi-tasking appliance is great value for money, considering it can be used year-round. Looks-wise, it’s remarkably similar to the Dyson AM09 hot + cool (also included in this review), but the Vortex Air model is more than £100 cheaper. Plus, it has a HEPA 13 air purifier, unlike the AM09.

We liked the streamlined design, which fits seamlessly into a room. Although we tested the white and silver design, it is available in eight colours to further complement your decor.

The appliance has a remote control timer, so you can adjust the settings from wherever you are in a room, without having to get up and push any buttons. The highest setting is so strong that we felt a significant drop in temperature within just two minutes after turning on the fan. Typically bladeless fans like this can draw air in and circulate it much faster than a traditional fan, cooling a space quickly, and this model is no exception. The heating functionality is just as fast.

There are timer settings, so you can program the appliance to run overnight, to help you sleep better during a heatwave. We also really liked its smart thermostat feature, which meant we could choose a temperature and have the fan switch off automatically when it had cooled the room to that level, helping to conserve energy.

Working from home has its benefits but leaving the office air conditioning behind on a hot day is not one of them. If you just can’t avoid spending hours stuck at a computer, a desk fan is a no-brainer buy for the summer months to make life a little more bearable. As you’ll be sitting close to the fan itself, there’s no need to spend extra on fancy features, smart controls or even a huge amount of power.

This model has everything required to keep you cool, for a brilliant price. It’s easy to use and assemble with just two speeds, and it won’t even take up much room, as it’s much smaller than a traditional desk fan.

While it can stand on a solid base, we especially loved the fact it can clip onto the side of a desk to use even less space, making it a summer office essential, in our book.

If you can’t decide if you want a desk fan to cool you as you work or a floor fan to bring down the temperature of the whole room, this convertible model by Shark is the one to pick. It can be used in 12 different ways, from corded to cordless, and can even used outdoors. It can be placed on the floor to cool you when you’re having a picnic or extended to act as a pedestal fan for when you’re sitting at the table or lounging on a deck chair. If you want to feel like you’re sitting by a pool, even when you’re just on your balcony, this has an InstaCool misting attachment that can be connected to a hose pipe to spray you with a light mist of cool water as well as a gentle breeze.

Battery life is excellent, with 24 hours of cooling power on a full charge, so you can use this for a full day of sitting outdoors in the garden to get your vitamin D fix, without breaking a sweat. With five cooling settings and 180-degree oscillation, it does a great job of cooling the air to each side of the unit as well as directly in front of it.

Weighing 5.6kg, it’s a sturdy, durable piece of kit that won’t fall over if you accidentally knock it. However, the downside to this is you will need two hands when you want to move it from place to place.

If you need to be outside on a hot day for an occasion such as a wedding or a barbecue, this neck fan is an affordable way to make life more comfortable. A full charge will give you up to nine hours of battery life, so you’re covered for the daylight hours. With four settings, you can ramp up the freshness when the midday sun’s at its most powerful and then put it on a low speed for a gentle breeze.

The streamlined, minimal design means you don’t look like you’re wearing a fan – only those close to you will hear it, too, as it’s less than 31dB on the lowest setting. We like that it cools the neck and face constantly, and we find it’s more effective than a handheld fan. The other advantage to wearing a fan as opposed to holding one is your hands are free to take photos, eat and drink and enjoy summer socialising.

If you wince at the thought of spending money on an appliance you’ll only use on the few hottest days of the year, Dyson has the answer. The AM09 doesn’t just cool but will also heat a room, so you can control the temperature inside your home year-round.

If you’ll be using a device a lot, you’ll want it to be easy on the eye, and, thankfully, this model ticks that box, too. It’s a sleek dream machine with curved edges and a long power cable, so you don’t have to worry about placing it near a plug socket. An easy-to-read LED display shows your space’s current temperature, too.

Cooling is excellent, especially as the fan oscillates 350 degrees, so works wherever you are in the room. This is more than double the oscillation of the Vortex Air cleanse. Unlike the cleanse, Dyson’s model also works with voice services and an easy-to-use app, and it has a night mode, in which it operates even more quietly.

No other fan in this review has quite the bells and whistles of this one but it was also the most expensive fan we tested, so, you might want to work out how much you will use the app and voice control features before investing.

Operating at just 13dB, even on the highest setting, this fan is certainly whisper quiet. While it’s the priciest pedestal fan we tested, it does offer 26 different speed settings, so you can precisely control temperature levels in a room. We were really impressed by the natural breeze mode that simulates real wind, which was noticeably different from a constant blast of air.

This was also the only pedestal fan we tested that oscillated upwards as well as left and right, and it was the only one that came with a free app. This enabled us to control our fan from any room of the house.

Thanks to dual fan blades, the fan has 15m of wind reach, so it can cool a large kitchen just as well as a small bedroom. In night mode, the LED temperature display dims and it can be set to run for between one to 12 hours before switching off automatically. The height is adjustable, so you can use it as a desktop fan as well as a floor fan.

Anyone who’s ever been on a camping holiday will know the temperature can often get quite hot and sticky when there are several bodies in a tent. This EasyAcc model is a multi-tasking miracle that can be used as both a floor fan, a personal fan and a pedestal, so you’ll be able to keep your cool on a campsite. Simply pull the pole to extend the length and you have a fan that will lower the temperature of a two-man tent. We’re not sure it’d be powerful enough for a four-man, though, so, you might want to buy two.

It comes with a rechargeable battery pack, meaning you won’t need to leave cables trailing over the floor or worry about where the nearest plug is. What’s really useful is it has a built-in lamp, so you can use it instead of a torch for any late-night bathroom breaks. The light is dimmable, so it can also be used as a nightlight for any campers who find it hard to sleep.

This sleek black pedestal fan has a unique five-blade design, which captures more air in each turn than a standard four-blade fan, to cool a space quickly. With 60W of power, it has three speed settings, and we found the highest pumped out a satisfyingly strong breeze.

It has 90 degrees of oscillation, left and right, which is half the oscillation of some other models but this fan is also a lot cheaper. When sitting close to the fan, the lack of movement didn’t bother us, as we still felt a refreshing blast of cold air.

While it’s only available in black, it has a built-in carry handle, making it easy to move out of eyesight when not in use.

Want to recreate the feeling of office air conditioning when you’re working from home in a heatwave? Using water evaporation technology, the LV50 cools and humidifies the air at the same time. The warm air is drawn into the fan, passes through the cooling evaporation filter and is blown back out as cool air.

Supplied with a USB cable, it’s easy to charge the fan using your PC or laptop while you work, so you don’t have to worry about running out of battery. On a full charge, the battery lasts for four hours, so we also tested it on the bedside table overnight and found the humidifier function especially refreshing. For a very compact unit, this had everything we needed to keep cool at a very reasonable price.

With a powerful 120W motor and a huge 20in fan head, this model can cool open-plan spaces comfortably. With three speed settings, you can control the intensity of the blast, depending on where the fan is placed in a room. It’s a hefty unit that can operate for long periods of time on a high setting, making it ideal for home workouts, too. If you want to use a home gym, treadmill or exercise bike on a hot day, this will be your new best friend.

We liked that you can tilt this fan up and down, so it can be used to project air upwards, towards a desk, too. If you’re looking for a fan that can be used for multiple purposes such as working out and working at a desk, this could be the answer. However, it doesn’t come with a remote control or timer function, so we wouldn’t recommend using it overnight.

While tower fans are best at cooling large spaces, their looming height means they can stand out like a sore thumb in most homes. This miniature tower fan is the ideal solution. It’s powerful enough to really make a difference when temperatures soar, and it oscillates up to 70 degrees, yet it’s only 31in high, so won’t dominate a room. It’s also only 3kg and has a carry handle, so can easily be moved anywhere in the house.

Although the exterior is a little plastic-looking, it’s one of the least obtrusive fans we tested, and we barely noticed it once it was installed in the corner of our living room.

There’s no app connectivity or voice control, but the fan does have a timer, so it can be set to turn off at 30-minute intervals up to 120 minutes. The ability to add a scent in a small tray on the fan for a fragrant breeze was a nice touch, too. A fantastic buy all-round. 

When we’re dreaming of air conditioning, a fan can sometimes feel like a sorry second best, simply able to circulate warm air. This air circulator is a much better compromise, as it moves in a circular motion and bounces air off the walls and ceilings to keep the entire room (and everyone in it) cool.

Not only is this strangely compelling to watch, but it’s staggeringly effective, transforming even the stuffiest room in our house in a matter of minutes. Miraculously, our space even stayed cool once we’d turned down the fan.

That’s not all. Although the maximum noise level is stated as 60dB, we thought it seemed a lot quieter, thanks to the brushless DC motor, and it’s cheap to run. Meaco says it costs less than 1p per hour (based on current energy prices) on the highest fan speed.

The fan also has an eco mode to adjust the speed as the temperature changes, a sleep timer and even a nightlight, which would be handy if used in a child’s room.

It is on the chunky side, taking up more space than most desk fans but, when it works so well, we’re definitely not complaining.

This attractive black and white fan cools a room rapidly. If you’ve been out of the house all day and are returning to a sauna, this will only take a few minutes to give you instant relief. This is due to an impressive maximum fan speed of 25ft per second.

Despite being one of the most powerful fans we tested, at 28dB, it was also one of the quietest. We had to concentrate to hear it. However, the most impressive thing about this Levoit tower fan is that it has an intelligent temperature sensor. It tracks the room temperature in your home and responds accordingly, by changing the fan speed. Perfect for busy people who don’t want to add “change the fan speed” to their to-do list. Should you want to take back control, though, it’s relatively easy to switch to manual mode by pressing a button on the main unit, but we enjoyed letting it do its thing in the corner.

Of course, Dyson features twice within our review – this model doesn’t just cool but will also heat a room and eliminate pollutants, including pollen, dust and formaldehyde. The latter is a colourless gas used in building materials and household products, such as paint and furniture, and the Dyson purifier detects molecules 500 times smaller than 0.1 microns. Although this is a nice-to-have bonus, it’s likely not what will convince you to part with a considerable chunk of cash to have this in your home.

Luckily, it’s a sleek dream machine all round, with a super-effective heater and excellent air purifier, which ramped up whenever it detected pollutants in our home. We especially loved the fact we could see how clean the air was on the LED screen on the front.

Cooling is also excellent, especially as the fan oscillates 350 degrees, so works wherever you are in the room. It also works with voice services and an easy-to-use app, and has a night mode, so we had no trouble sleeping when it was on.

No other fan in this round-up has quite the year-round bang for its buck, but you’ll need to be sure you’ll use all its features before blowing the budget on it.

It’s all very well decking out your house with the latest high-tech fans, but that won’t help much when you’re out and about. Stash a teeny handheld model in your bag and you can still keep your cool when you’re commuting, or even on the beach.

Obviously, a dinky fan won’t bring your overall body temperature down, but it really does help just to feel the breeze on your face when it’s sweltering.

This Beldray model does all you’ll need for a great price. It has two blades, is suitably lightweight to carry all day and is only 10cm long. Plus, it’s operated with two AA batteries – which we were impressed to see were included – so it won’t need a daily charge. Our junior testers were big fans (sorry) of it, too.

There’s no avoiding the fact electric fans aren’t the most attractive household gadgets, yet they’re impossible to hide when the weather’s hot. Also available in black and grey, this pink and rose-gold-coloured version is easily the most glamorous model we tested, and was even admired by visitors in our home – surely a first for a bog-standard fan.

It’s not just stylish either. With 35W of power, an adjustable head and 80-degree oscillation, it did a decent job of cooling us down, too. While it won’t work too well if you’re sitting on the other side of the room – there’s no remote, either – it’s perfect for using at a desk, dinner or bedside table. There’s even a carry handle to take it between rooms, as needed.

You don’t have to spend a fortune to get some of the gizmos and good looks for which the priciest models are known. This Princess tower fan is one of the most stylish fans we tested, with its triangular shape and smart black-and-silver design. It can also be controlled with a remote, an accompanying app or voice assistants, including Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

Although the smart controls are fairly basic compared with the priciest fans, they still worked well and made it easy to operate the fan without actually getting off the sofa.

Other handy functions include a timer, personalised programs and three wind speeds, including normal, natural or sleep. The highest setting seemed a little noisy when we used it while watching TV, but lower settings were barely noticeable, so, we had no trouble sleeping with this fan purring away in the corner.

With an eight-hour timer that can be adjusted by one hour increments, this clever fan is perfect for summer nights. Set it to operate for a couple of hours, which is long enough to help you reach a deep level of sleep, then it will turn off automatically, so you don’t over cool the room. It also helps keep electricity bills low, as you’re not using the fan the entire night.

There’s a remote control, which you can keep next to the bed, so you can adjust the settings while lying down and conserving energy. Even on the highest setting, it emits barely a murmur, so we had no trouble drifting off with this fan in the bedroom.

Able to oscillate 90 degrees, this fan is brilliant at moving cold air around a room. This makes a room feel less stuffy and humid. Even better, you can easily move it between rooms, thanks to an integrated carry handle. When you’re done sleeping, carry it into the kitchen for breakfast and then leave it in your home office to create a productive working environment. At 4kg, you can lift it with one hand and it doesn’t feel too bulky in a room.

Weighing just 900g, this unique fan can be collapsed, so you can take it on the move. At it’s full size, it’s over a metre in height, at it’s smallest it’s no bigger than a compact portable speaker. Charge it via the included USB cable and you’ll get up to 10 hours of power. You can use it outside at a picnic or party as well as inside your home. It would also fare well on camping trips, cooling down a tent or caravan fast, with no need to be placed near a plug socket. The only place we might not put it would be a child’s bedroom, as the base seems less sturdy than some of the other fans we tested.

Despite its diminutive size, this foldaway fan is surprisingly powerful. Position it a few metres from the bed or sofa, and you’ll still feel a breeze. For this reason, we suggest operating it on the lowest of the three settings if you’re planning to use it as a desk fan. Thankfully, the motor is whisper quiet, so it won’t distract you from your work or intefere with sleep.

If you’re constantly changing your mind about how cool you want a room to be, this is the fan to invest in. Eight different speed settings offer a lot of opportunity to tinker with the controls to create the perfect conditions but there’s no need to get up from what you’re doing, as a handy remote control allows you to adjust the blast of air in milliseconds. When you leave the room, store the remote control in the special pocket at the back of the fan and it will always be ready to use when you need it.

We like that there’s an LED display on the top of the unit, so you know what setting it’s on – this gave us peace of mind that it was operating as it should. The display can be dimmed at night if you need the room to be dark before you drift off to sleep, though. Other handy functions include a timer and 80 degrees of oscillation to help the cooled airflow around the room. We also approved of the sturdy base, which would be useful in a home with pets or young children.

Babies, toddlers and a heatwave are a terrible combination but there are occasions when you need to get out of the house for everyone’s sanity. Enter this genius portable fan, which could help prevent some major meltdowns. Simply wrap the stretchy legs around the safety bar on a buggy, pram or car seat and your little one will be relieved by a fresh breeze near their face. An added bonus is that parents can lean over and benefit from the cooling sensation whenever they need it.

For less than £20, there’s a huge amount of useful features. One is that it rotates 360 degrees to provide airflow from different directions. Another is that the flexible ‘octopus’ legs can be wound around a bar multiple times, so your baby can’t pick it up mid-ride. Don’t worry, there’s a lot of thick plastic on the outside, so your baby will never be able to touch the blades and incur an injury. As we all know how important nap time is, the fan operates at less than 57dB, so it won’t disturb little ones while they drift off.