The best fans to keep you cool in 2026 – tried and tested

View image in fullscreenReviewThe best fans to keep you cool in 2026 – tried and testedAs temperatures soar across the UK, chill your space – and avoid energy-guzzling aircon – with our pick of the best fans, from tower to desk to bladeless The best portable neck and handheld fans Dyson HushJet Mini Cool fan reviewOur 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 20 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.Still in stockFollowing this summer’s fossil-fuel charged heatwaves, many of our favourite fans are now out of stock.

Our favourite misting fan, the Shark FlexBreeze Pro Mist, is still in stock, however.£249.99 at AmazonOur favourite bladeless fan, Dyson’s Cool F1, is also still in stock.

£249.99 at DysonFrom our roundup of the best air coolers, this portable option from Morphy Richards is still available.£69.

99 at Morphy RichardsWhy you should trust meI’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 testedView image in fullscreenAn anemometer was used to measure the air speed each fan generates on its top setting. Photograph: Caramel Quin/The GuardianI chose 16 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 2026View image in fullscreen Photograph: Caramel Quin/The GuardianBest quiet fan for the bedroom and best overall: AirCraft LumeAirCraftLume£149£149 at AirCraftWhat we loveQuiet, elegant, powerful cooling and a backlightWhat we don’t loveSo quiet, it’s easy to forget to turn it offView image in fullscreen Photograph: Caramel Quin/The Guardian£149 at AirCraftPreorder now for delivery late AugustThis 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