Unless you live somewhere that’s moderate year round, chances are you’ve relied on a cooling fan to make an otherwise steamy room more bearable. While fans don’t always add cold air to the mix, they help circulate the air so that our bodies can better cool down. In some cases, though, air conditioning is a much better option. “If a person has allergies, asthma, or eczema that are exacerbated by pollen, then it's best to use air conditioners, which filter out pollen and allow the windows to be closed,” says Hadley King, M.D., NYC-based dermatologist and clinical instructor of dermatology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. But the reality is that air conditioning isn’t always available—and in some cases, skin conditions like eczema can be triggered by heat. In these situations, a cooling fan can be helpful, says Hadley, as long as it’s used correctly.
If you’re using a fan, Hadley suggests positioning it so that it's not blowing directly on you. “Air blowing over the skin can contribute to drying it out,” she explains. If you are allergic to pollen, avoid window fans, which can actually circulate more pollen into the air inside and make matters worse. Finally, be aware that fans are “dust collectors,” says Bruce Prenner, M.D., board-certified allergist at Allergy Associates Medical Group in San Diego, California. While they aren’t generally a source of dust mites (the little buggers prefer burrowing into soft things like blankets, pillows, and curtains) dust itself can still cause sneezing and other reactions in people who are sensitive to allergens. For this reason, it’s important to keep any portable fans clean and dust-free.
Fans don’t need to be fancy to work well, but there are a few other things (in addition to the best practices above) that our experts suggest considering when shopping for a portable fan. For SELF's product reviews, where we rigorously test and evaluate all kinds of wellness products to help you decide what's worth buying, we wanted to know exactly what those criteria were. Here's what the experts suggest, and what we pay attention to when testing cooling fans for reviews.
How Easy It Is to Clean
If dust accumulates on the blades of the fan, those particles will fly through the air every time you turn it on, says King. Dust can be irritating for both people with allergies and those without, says Prenner, which is why he recommends wiping down fan blades with a microfiber cloth every two to four weeks. When testing fans, we pay attention to how easy they are be to clean—specifically, how easy it is to reach and wipe down the blades regularly. If the fan is meant to be used with a reusable pollen filter, how easy is it to remove and clean the filter?
Noise Level
If you’re going to run a fan overnight, it’s important to make sure the noise level is bearable. To test for noise level, we run each fan overnight and note if it interrupts the tester’s ability to fall or stay asleep. We also compare the noise level to other common appliances to determine if it is relatively quiet or loud, to help advise people with different tolerances for ambient noise, and use a noise app to measure the fan’s noise output.
Tested for Safety
According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), portable fans do not pose a significant fire hazard in the home, but it’s important to always look for fans that have been tested by a Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL). This certification means the appliance has undergone independent testing to ensure it meets safety standards and is free of recognized hazards that could cause injury or death, according to the Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI). Underwriters Laboratories is recognized by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) as the standard certification for electric fans. When testing fans for review, we note whether or not a fan has been certified by UL or another NRTL.
This is a buying and testing guide for SELF product reviews. See all our reviews here.
A good fan should make you feel more comfortable while also being energy-efficient, gentle on the ears, and easy to control. For almost a decade, we’ve tested dozens of fans, and we consistently land on the Vornado 630 Medium Air Circulator as our first recommendation.
This inexpensive fan is quiet and effective, without ever feeling cheap.
This smart, energy-efficient fan is 44 inches tall and oscillates side to side as well as up and down.
This fan’s high price is offset by its infinitely adjustable fan speed, energy efficiency, and a 10-year warranty.
This fan performs and sounds practically the same as our top pick. But it adds oscillation, a sturdy metal construction, and an attractive retro design.
This impressively powerful room circulator comes with built-in Alexa capabilities, so you can voice-control the breeze.
This compact fan can send breezes to the far corners of a large room. It’s also relatively easy to control and clean, and it has a long-established record of reliability.
The Vornado 630 Medium Air Circulator is a simple, powerful, and reliable fan that can move huge amounts of air without making too much noise.
The vortex created by this fan circulates all of the air in a room better than an oscillating fan, without the distraction of intermittent gusts. This fan is compact, without any embellishments like a remote or a timer. But the minimalist design touches—including a readily accessible speed-control dial on the side—make the Vornado 630 easy to use, clean, and maintain.
Vornado puts out plenty of fantastic fans, and they’re backed by a five-year warranty. We have found that the 630 in particular offers the best balance of power and energy savings.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe Vornado 660 AE Large Air Circulator comes with built-in Alexa compatibility, but the real appeal lies in the fact that it’s one of the most powerful room circulators we’ve ever tested.
Quieter and less energy-intensive than our top pick, the 660 still produces a substantial breeze you can feel from over 20 feet away—and that’s without using the almost-too-powerful turbo mode.
The onboard controls can be a little tricky to use, but we more often found ourselves relying on the built-in voice commands anyway. We would suggest this model as an excellent option for anyone who may prefer voice or phone control for mobility reasons.
The all-metal Vornado Silver Swan Alchemy is a stylish improvement over the black plastic design of many other air circulators. Its Art Deco aesthetic hearkens back to the earliest Vornado fans, from the 1940s, which were based on an experimental airplane propeller.
This model performs even better than our top pick, thanks to its oscillation ability and rigid metal fan blades, which create a pleasant but powerful breeze throughout the room, without being too loud or grating.
It’s also one of the easiest fans to clean, so you’re more likely to take care of it—which is good, since it’s a genuinely nice home-decor piece.
The Vornado 610DC Energy Smart Medium Air Circulator is a great choice for people who want less noise, more energy savings, and more adjustability overall.
Its infinitely variable speed-control dial allows you to dial in the perfect power setting to match your needs, and to balance that wind with your ideal volume and energy use. It also comes with an exceedingly generous 10-year warranty.
The 610DC isn’t necessarily better at moving air than our top pick—but these features do make for a nicer experience overall, even if this fan is more expensive. Fortunately, you’ll be able to offset the price difference with the money you save in energy costs in just a few years.
The Dreo PolyFan 513S smart fan offers a lot in addition to its height advantages. Its DC-powered motor means it’s quieter and more energy-efficient than most other fans, and its oscillation abilities include three different horizontal arcs options, plus a vertical setting. The result is a fan that seems to paint the room in a multidirectional blanket of breeze.
Although we didn’t love the onboard controls, the PolyFan 513S offers plenty of other options for dialing in your perfect wind, including a remote control, smartphone app, and voice commands. It’s also incredibly easy to clean.
However, its one-year warranty is significantly shorter than those of our other picks, even with the optional 18-month extension.
With a lot of inexpensive fans, you get what you pay for. But that’s not the case with the Dreo Fox One, which performed comparably to our top pick.
The draft it produced didn’t fill up the room with the same robust breeze you get from an air circulator like our top pick—but it came close, while costing about half the price. This fan is easier to clean than the Vornado 630, with a single screw to keep the grille in place and an easily removable blade.
The simple, effective Fox One seems better designed and more durable than other similarly priced models. And that’s a good thing, since it’s covered by only a 30-month warranty.