Best Fans to Buy in 2026: Beat the Heat Without Air Conditioning

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.

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

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

Searching for more inspiration? Read our guide to the best evaporative air coolers

The best of the rest

What you need to know

What are the different types of fan?

Pedestal fans are tall fans where all the hard work happens at the top. They don’t have to be old-fashioned; some have modern designs. And some are convertible, with a pole you can remove to turn them into a desk fan. They can be good for a focused blast of cooling wind.

Bladeless fans aren’t magic; they just don’t have visible blades. The work is done in the body of the fan, and then air is pushed out of a nozzle. The Dyson, VortexAir and Shark on test are all bladeless. They look modern and are easy to clean. And there are no moving parts on show, meaning zero chance of getting your hair caught.

Tower fans are tall and narrow. They produce a lot of wind and oscillate from side to side, making them good for a room like an office.

Desk fans are like pedestal fans without the pole. They’re not only for desks, they’re good on a bedside table too. And they take up less storage space over the winter.

Evaporative coolers use water from a reservoir to cool the air that blows at you. They don’t produce a powerful wind like a fan, but they genuinely cool the room and are much more energy efficient than air conditioning. Note that they only cool the room a little – they won’t turn it fridge cold like aircon.

Handheld fans are lightweight, portable fans to cool you on the move. We’ve tested a wide range of handheld and neck fans.

What does oscillation mean?

Most fans oscillate (move back and forth) by swivelling on their base, and some let you select how wide an angle you want. If it’s just for you, pick a narrow angle; if you’re cooling the whole office, go wide. Some fans achieve the same effect in other ways, such as by moving louvres. Some also oscillate up and down, so the fan can circulate air all over the room to create a gentle breeze.

What’s sleep mode?

Most fans have a sleep mode, where every 30 or 60 minutes the fan lowers its setting until it reaches a certain point. This is a good compromise that helps you get to sleep without wasting energy, minimising the risk of waking up in the middle of the night suddenly cold.

Start by lowering the fan speed to the point where you don’t find it annoying. In fact, some people find the white noise of a fan helpful at bedtime. Then switch to sleep mode.

Where is the best place to position a fan?

For personal comfort, simply point it towards you. The cooling feeling is because the moving air from the fan displaces the warm, humid air near your skin, which in turn helps your sweat evaporate, cooling your body down. It’s like a breeze rather than a still day. Or why it feels colder swimming in a river than in a lake, even if the water temperature is the same. Evaporative coolers, of which I’ve included two above, use water to actively cool the air.

Never place a fan up against a wall because air needs to flow into the back. If the air’s cooler outside, put the fan in front of an open window or door to bring in the cooler air.

How energy efficient are fans?

Fans are very energy efficient compared with the electricity used by tech such as air conditioning. Fans cost pennies to use but can make you feel much cooler. Note that they circulate air rather than actively cooling it. The effect is like turning a still day into a breezy one.

How much does a fan cost to use?

I’ll set out the maths. For each fan here, I’ve measured its power use on the top setting, in watts (W). Electricity costs are in kilowatt hours (kWh). If, for example, you were using a 30W fan for five hours, it would use 150Wh. Divide by 1,000 to convert it to kilowatt hours: 0.150kWh.

The energy price cap for 1 April to 30 June 2026 is 24.67p per kWh. Multiply this by the last figure and you’ll discover it will cost just under 4p to run that fan for five hours. Or £14 to run it for five hours every day for a year.

Running fans is pretty cheap, then, and a good fan will keep you cool enough to dodge buying any kind of air conditioning. An evaporative cooler is a good alternative to aircon. The two I tested used 26W (Swan) and 39W (Honeywell), so they use about 3% of the electricity of a typical portable air conditioner (1,000W). The effect isn’t the same: you can’t turn your bedroom into a fridge. But you can cool the air enough to make a big difference when there’s a heatwave.

Do I need air conditioning?

If you’re in the UK, honestly, no. It’s tempting to turn your bedroom into a walk-in fridge on a hot day, but fans are great and use much less electricity (and therefore money and carbon) than aircon. Unless you’re on a renewable tariff, electricity use accelerates climate breakdown.

How to clean your fan

Fan blades tend to gather dust. Make sure the fan is unplugged, then remove the front grille and wipe the blades with a microfibre cloth. If the grille doesn’t come off then a dry paintbrush or a small cleaning brush (like a bottle brush but smaller) might let you dust through the grille. Never use water on electricals. A can of compressed air is also good for blowing off dust – keep your fingers away, though, because it will of course make the fan blades spin.

What to do with your old fan

If your old fan works, try to find it a good home on a local swap site or street WhatsApp – they work better than the front wall, where it might get rained on. If it’s not working, you could take it to a local repair cafe. And if it’s beyond repair, check your council website or check Recycle Your Electricals: they don’t belong in general waste.

Caramel Quin is a journalist specialising in consumer technology. She prides herself on real-world testing and plain language. Her pet hates are jargon, pointless products and overcomplicated instruction manuals. Caramel is an engineering graduate who has won awards for communicating hi-tech subjects to normal people. When she’s not testing gadgets, she’s feeding pets (16 beasts at the time of writing) or pottering at the allotment

This article was originally published on 17 June 2025. Reviews published in the Filter may be periodically updated to reflect new products and at the editor’s discretion. The date of an article’s most recent update can be found in the timestamp at the top of the page. This article was amended on 22 May 2026; more information was added to the buying guide and prices were updated throughout.