The best fans to keep you cool: 14 tried and tested favourites to beat the heat

Our world is getting hotter. Summer heatwaves are so frequent, they’re stretching the bounds of what we think of as summer. Hot-and-bothered home working and sweaty, sleepless nights are now alarmingly common. The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. Get a good fan and you can dodge the temptation of air conditioning. Aircon is incredibly effective, but it uses a lot of electricity … and burning fossil fuels is how we got into this mess in the first place. Save money and carbon by opting for a great fan instead. Fans are much more energy efficient than aircon. A typical portable air conditioner uses 1,000W of electricity, which would cost about 26p an hour to run. The fans I tested used between 8W and 60W; my favourite, the AirCraft Lume, used 18W on its top setting. You could run it on max for 56 hours, and it would still use no more electricity (money, carbon) than a single aircon unit going for an hour. I tested 15 fans of all shapes and sizes, so you can pick the best one for you. I tested them for size, noise, power use and, of course, how much they cool you down. I also tested a few “evaporative coolers”, which use water to cool the air blowing at you while using significantly less energy than aircon. At a glance Best fan overall AirCraft Lume Best budget fan and best desk fan Devola desk fan – stock expected at end of May Best misting fan Shark FlexBreeze Pro Mist FA300UK Best tower fan Dreo Cruiser TF518 Best travel fan Morphy Richards Air Flex USB fan Best evaporative cooler Swan Nordic air cooler Why you should trust me I’m an award-winning consumer tech journalist with decades of experience testing gadgets. I’m also a menopausal woman in her 50s who honestly can’t remember the last time she felt cold: I think that might be why we gravitate to wild swimming in middle age. Oh, and I have a degree in engineering. So I’m triply qualified to put these fans through their paces, scientifically and subjectively. How I tested View image in fullscreen An anemometer was used to measure the air speed each fan generates on its top setting. Photograph: Caramel Quin/The Guardian I chose 15 fans, each from different brands, aiming for a mix of new and highly rated models plus a few stellar bargains. I wanted to make sure there was something for everyone before I put them through their paces. I used a power meter to measure how much electricity (and therefore money and carbon) the fans use, an anemometer to measure the air speed they generate on the top setting, and the Sound Meter app to measure the noise on the top setting (they were all too quiet to register on their lowest). I measured everything from 1m away, although in reality, you’ll probably position a tower or pedestal fan farther away and a desk fan closer to you. That means the noise a desk fan makes matters more. I also measured them myself, as sometimes the official specs can be misleading or wrong. For example, I measured a tower fan that was supposedly 17cm wide, only to find that wasn’t including the base. Here I’ve stuck with each fan’s largest dimensions, including their footprint. I used a thermometer to measure the impact of the evaporative coolers I tested, and took note of everything from how cooling each of the fans felt, how annoying the noise was and how good the controls were. I also considered how they looked and how small they packed away, as well as the price tag. All the fans that weren’t returned to the manufacturers were donated to Furnishing Futures, a charity that furnishes the empty social homes in which women and children are placed after domestic abuse. The best fans in 2026 View image in fullscreen Photograph: Caramel Quin/The Guardian Best fan overall AirCraft Lume AirCraft Lume £129 £129 at AirCraft What we love Quiet, elegant, powerful cooling and a backlight What we don’t love So quiet, it’s easy to forget to turn it off Photograph: Caramel Quin/The Guardian £129 at AirCraft This pedestal fan was hard to fault, with an elegant design that boasts a dimmable backlight (three brightness levels or you can turn it off, all with the remote control). It’s billed as height adjustable, but rather than scooting up and down, you can remove the bottom pole to convert it into a 63cm desk fan. There’s an LED display and touch controls on the front, and other features include a 12-hour timer and a sleep mode. Of all I tested, this is probably the best fan for sleeping: it’s the best for low noise relative to wind speed. Pick a lower setting for silent cooling, a higher setting if you’re happy to doze off to the white noise, or use the sleep button if you’d like it to gradually reduce power in the night. I found the lower settings cooling enough to get to sleep on a hot night during a heatwave. Why we love it When I’m working from home or relaxing (I can’t say chilling out when it’s 30C+), the AirCraft Lume is the fan that I reach for. I love it for m