Its power helps a lot: we measured air speed at 4m/s from 15cm away making this one of the most powerful fans that we’ve tested. Fortunately, this fan is very quiet, moving between 43.5dB on the lowest fan setting up to an acceptable 57.2dB on the maximum setting. With a neat remote control giving you easy access to all of the fan’s features, this is a top-quality fan for keeping you cool and your room feeling fresh. If you want a desktop version, go for the MeacoFan 650 Air Circulator. Tower fans are a great space saver but they often sacrifice power to get a slimmer body. Not so with the VonHaus 35″ Tower Fan, which manages to deliver some of the best fan performance that we’ve seen, both up close and across a room. The Dr. Prepare 13-inch Dual Oscillating Tower Fan is a relatively small tower fan that’s as at home on a desk as it is on the floor. Rather than having one set of fan blades, this model has two that work together. The result is more powerful airflow than you might expect from such a model.

Princess 357250 Smart Air Cooler | Princess

Air coolers are growing increasingly popular, giving you a kind of halfway house between an expensive and bulky air conditioner and an ordinary fan. They can’t refrigerate the air like an air conditioner, but they can reduce the heat through a combination of airflow and evaporation, effectively using some of the thermal energy in the air to evaporate water, so lowering its temperature before it’s driven out through a fan. Testers found its selection of air speeds improved their comfort nicely and it was generally quiet too, although not on its highest setting.

The verdict: Air coolers

Rated 5100BTU, the EcoFlow Wave 2 is enough for around a 10m², so smaller rooms, camper vans and tents. On maximum power, we found that it could keep our office room at sensible temperatures, although we did have to shield our south-facing room from the sun for it to cope. The clear instructions, complete with text and images, make this fan a breeze to set up and use. It’s well made with thoughtful design details, including the option to tilt the body of the fan, offering extra control over the direction of air. Its highest setting was notably strong and quiet too. There’s some confusion, understandably. The popular Dyson cooler, for example, is not actually an air cooler, nor an air conditioner, but a fan. Big names like Mylek and ProBreeze all make air cons, fans and air coolers. So it’s important to know what you’re getting - and why. Sitting somewhere between an air conditioning unit and a fan, the Princess Smart Air Cooler uses a tank of water to cool the air through evaporation. This makes it more effective than just a fan on a hot summer’s day, although this model is also a powerful fan in its own right. If you’re looking for a powerful fan that will blow colder-than-room-temperature air and doesn’t cost a fortune to run, this is a great choice.

Princess Smart Air Cooler 3.5L | Toolstation

You can turn on horizontal and vertical oscillation, so the fan can be used to refresh air over a wider range, which is useful for refreshing an entire room. Our one minor complaint is that this fan could do with a more gentle speed; all speed options are quite intense. As far as features go, the Honeywell keeps things simple. One dial switches between off and the three fan settings, while the other selects cooling, oscillation or cooling and oscillation. What matters more is that it dishes out a consistently good, cooling airflow, with the louvres shifting side to side to spread it over a wider area. You’ll still need to clean the honeycomb cooling membrane regularly to avoid unpleasant smells, but if you’re keener on keeping cool than faffing around with modes and features, this is the air cooler to buy. Like Princess’ traditional tower fan below, this connects to a user-friendly app and is compatible with voice control. It also feels sturdy and has a good range of air strengths. It's not tall though, and it only oscillates 50 degrees, meaning it works best when positioned nearby and directed at one or two people. While some of the water is recirculated through the system, some will inevitably leave the cooler in the air blown out by the fan. Because of this – and the fact that the water in the absorbent pad or membrane can grow stale – you need to keep the air cooler filled and change the water in the tank daily. You should also wash the pad or membrane occasionally or you might get some pretty nasty smells. Is there anything worth looking out for? The Princess has a ‘sleep’ setting, which means it comes on only intermittently to maintain a cool temperature. In theory, that means it’s silent most of the time. But on a very hot night the constant on-off may keep light sleepers awake. (See our guide to the best earplugs for help there.)A fan with a remote control can be a good option if you want to adjust settings on the fly. This is particularly true in the bedroom, where you may not want to get out of bed to turn off your fan. On that note, look for a fan with a sleep timer so that it will shut off after a set time. Alongside these controls, there’s a timer (one, two or four hours) and oscillation mode (65° angle). If you don’t want to walk to the fan, then there’s also a remote control that attaches magnetically when not in use.

Best Fan 2023: Dispel the summer heat with our top picks

Even the least energy-efficient – the Princess Smart Air Cooler – wasn't much more expensive, averaging about 2p an hour. Next, this model is also a humidifier, adding moisture to the air when needed. Again, it’s a fully automated system that will only add moisture when it’s needed. This helps improve the home environment and can help with dry skin and make it easier to breathe. In fact, that is probably the ideal use, because it’s heavy enough to pose a problem getting up and down stairs if used at home, as well as taking up a lot of space and making a fairly industrial noise. You wouldn’t choose it for cooling your bedroom at night, but it’s the only one we reviewed that can stand a chance of cooling a 40 square-metre space. Our runner-up fan is a strong all-rounder. With 12 air speeds, it can provide everything from a gentle breeze to a strong flow. It has a broad range of movement too, oscillating at up to 130 degrees to cover multiple people at once, or adjustable downwards if it’s only catering to you. As a result, our testers found it successfully increased their comfort levels.This cheap cube desktop cooler doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but it’s a good way to chill your fevered brow while you’re plugging away at your desk. Its two removable 300ml tanks mean it doesn’t constantly need refilling, and you can freeze them if you want some extra cooling. The three-speed fan gives you options from subtle breeze to full-on gusting, and on the lowest setting it’s quiet enough that it won’t disturb you while you work. Desktop fans are the traditional models. These let you tilt the fan to direct airflow; you turn on the oscillation mode to let the fan sweep from side to side. As anyone who’s tried to buy a new fan in the middle of summer can attest, there’s a ridiculous amount of choice out there and mostly from brands you’ve never heard of. Just take one look at the available wares of some of the biggest online retailers and you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about. Plus, the Princess Smart Air Cooler costs a lot less to run than an air conditioner. We measured power and this air conditioner will cost around 2p per hour to run at current costs. The Symphony has the largest water tank we tested, which doesn’t translate into more power – it just means it lasts longer (two days and nights, in this case). But as it happens, the Symphony is powerful, too, with an airflow of 840 cubic metres per hour that allows it to cool rooms up to 12m 2. That’s a bigger space than many air coolers – although still not huge. No air cooler can chill a big living room. For that you will need a proper air conditioner.

Air Conditioning Units | Portable Air Conditioners | Argos Air Conditioning Units | Portable Air Conditioners | Argos

Lastly, a panel of testers sit in a room kept at 30 degrees with each fan for half an hour and assess how comfortable it makes them (yes, really). Every model is then scored according to its performance, ease of use, design and product information. Pedestal fans look like tall desktop fans, and are designed to stand on the floor. Typically, they have larger blades, so take up more room, but this makes them more powerful. With most models offering height adjustment, in addition to pivot and oscillation, pedestal fans are easier to configure for the perfect cooling breeze. Tower fans work by blowing air over your skin, making living, working and sleeping more comfortable when the thermometer rises. For this test, I either tried the air coolers at home during a very hot spell, looking for a temperature reduction of at least two degrees, or consulted independent retailers with long experience in the market. I wanted noticeable cooling efficiency at a reasonable price, but also took into account the noise level (most of these will be used at night) and how easy they were to move around and store. Controls are simple on this device: three power settings and three timers (two, four or eight hours). There’s no remote control or oscillation; if you want those features, look elsewhere on the list. If you want a cheap, small, tower fan, this is a great choice.The Chillmax is one of the most searched-for air coolers, but that may have more to do with JML’s hard-sell TV advertising than its cooling ability – which, to be honest, is fairly minimal. At a mere 7.5 Watts, it’s less than one twentieth as powerful as the Symphony air cooler above and could more accurately be described as a vaporiser, projecting a cloud of somewhat cool mist for about a metre. Finally, air coolers can help to humidify the air in dry climates. This makes them a great choice for those who want to stay cool while also reducing their impact on the environment. Ultimately, the choice between an air cooler and an air conditioner will depend on your room size, budget, and setup needs. * Air cooler running costs Fans make you feel cooler by helping sweat evaporate from your body. How effective a fan is, depends largely on how humid it is. When there’s high humidity, it’s hard for sweat to evaporate, so a fan doesn’t do much to help cool you. This is why on humid days we tend to think of them as being hot and sweaty. Conversely, when humidity is lower, it’s much easier for evaporation to happen, which is when fans feel the most effective. Air flow isn’t particularly fast. At full speed, just 15cm from the grille, we measured air at 1.9m/s, but the wind speed was unmeasurable by 1m. As this is a personal fan that physically cools the air, the evaSMART doesn’t need to blow air any faster. In fact, at times it felt too cold sitting in front of this cooler.