Best Fan for Sleeping - Reviews and Guide

It’s a well-known fact that temperature is a major component of a good night’s sleep. While everyone’s tastes differ, studies have concluded that sleeping in a room between 60 °F and 67 °F is ideal for a comfortable night’s sleep. We all know that the room can be a certain temperature and we’re just not feeling it… literally. Getting our body heat to a comfortable climate can be frustrating at times, especially at the peak of any season. We have all the technology in the world to keep us cool while we sleep: air conditioning, cooling capabilities in our mattresses and blankets, and the not so technological, sleeping in the nude.

Particularly during the warmer months, we all turn to the floor fan. Sometimes it takes more than one attempt to find the right one, since there are many options available on the market. We’ve done the research for you and found five different yet very useful fans to help you out if you need to sleep with a fan on. We’ve tested them all for hours in different situations and broken down each feature so you know which are the best fans for sleeping.

The Top Fans for Sleeping

How a Fan Works

The human body cools itself when it’s overheated by a four step process:

Conduction – The process when heat is transmitted through something (your body) when there is a difference in temperature throughout all connected areas, e.g. your torso may be hotter than your arms. This happens without any movement.

Radiation – The emission of energy.

Convection – The movement caused by the hotter material to rise, the cooler material to sink and the results of heat transfer.

Evaporation – The process by which liquid turns into vapor.

This process is a key factor in a fan actually cooling you down. If you think about how a fan works, it’s really just pushing the air around that’s already in the room. It doesn’t have any way to actually cool (or heat) the air, so it’s strictly moving it around to distribute it more evenly. In some cases, a fan can make the air it’s pushing around hotter, just because of the electrical equipment using energy and electricity to operate.

How exactly does the fan cool you off? As we’ve outlined in the four-step process above, your body functions as it’s cooling capability. When you overheat, your body does its thing, and then when you sweat, a fan blows on you (helping the evaporation process) and you are cooled down.

What to Look for in a Sleeping Fan

There are a few questions you’ll want to answer before you go searching for the floor fan for your bedroom. Starting with where you want to put the fan. If you’re in a smaller space, you don’t want a large floor fan taking up valuable floor area, so perhaps a box fan might be your best bet. Maybe you’ll have to hang it, and if so, how heavy should it be? How much wall space will it take up? If this is the case, you could search for corner stands so that it can oscillate, but your airflow will most likely be restricted and the air at the top of the room will be what gets cooled.

Hopefully you have ample floor space or an empty corner that’s near a wall outlet, which also has enough room for the fan to turn from side to side. How big the area is you want to cool will determine how much it needs to oscillate.

Do you want airflow directly on you all night?
Some people don’t like this, but others may need it to fall asleep. If so, make sure the fan is at the right height to move air over the bed directly on you while you sleep.

What kind of power do you want?
The amount of airflow a fan can generate is measured in cubic feet per minute (CFM), it measures the volume of air that the fan pushes through in 60 seconds. You can sometimes find ratings of a fan depending on its velocity, the strength and speed at which it pushes the air. This is popular in commercial sized fans that need to work for large size garages or even storage rooms.

How energy efficient should it be?
This is important, especially if you’re replacing or supplementing a current cooling system. None of us want to have the air cranked and have a poor efficiency fan moving around the cooled air in your room. You’ll want to find the most airflow moved per amp used.

What type of fan do you like?
There are so many styles on the market to choose from. We have the small desk fans, oscillating fans, tower fans, pedestal fans, and the oh-so-fancy bladeless fans.

What features should it have?
There are features such as remotes, power options, oscillation speeds, oscillation patterns, fan speeds and timers.

How easy is it to clean?
If you have pets, all the hair and dust bunnies floating around are bound to get caught up in your fan blades. The problem is not cleaning it (although, it would be nice to have a self-cleaning fan, let’s not stop there), but the ease of cleaning it. If your fan blades are locked in like box fans are, it’s going to be very difficult to clean even after the first use, so consider this if you always need things clean and dust-free.

 A note on Ionizers
It’s a word that gets used a lot in marketing, from blow dryers to fans. But what does it actually mean? Ionizer fans help clean the air by attracting indoor pollutants and removing them from the air you’re breathing. Indoor air has a very poor quality. Allergens are circulating and can cause consistent issues. To assist in removing these particles in the air, we have some fans that are ionizers. These fans have a charged wire that sends out charged molecules, which in turn attract themselves to pollutant particles. These little clusters will now stick themselves to walls, floors or other objects to remove them from the air. There may even be a collection plate near the ionizer where the particles can all gather.

Fans can be ionizing, or you can purchase a separate ionizer machine. Some say ionizer fans do come in handy for cleaning the air and freeing the area of allergens, pollutants and other particles. However, they clean only physical pieces – the machines are not effective against gasses and odors. One last thing to mention, when looking for an ionizer machine or fan, be certain that you don’t get one that creates ozone. This is extremely harmful to your health and may actually cause healthy people to develop breathing problems.

You may want to read: How to Pick the Best Bedroom Fan

Conclusion

To find the best bedroom fan for you, if all you need is a cheap option that provides air circulation, extra features may not be so important to you. If you want a stylish and powerful fan with all the bells and whistles – and you’re willing to spend a bit more – our fourth pick, the Rowenta Pedestal Fan, might be the best choice. Overall, our top pick for you is the Lasko Wind Curve Fan, which should fulfil all of your needs in a sleeping fan at an affordable price.

Whatever your choice is, remember the importance of a fan’s many functions before you buy the first one you see. It’s key to go with your primary needs first, then list a few things that are important to you as far as features go.

Recent Updates

June 4, 2021: Holmes Box Fan has been replaced by the Lasko Black Decor Colors Box Fan due to product unavailability and popularity of the Lasko brand. Editor’s Pick has been updated to the Lasko Wind Curve Tower Fan, listed as #1 on our list.