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. The more settings, the greater control you’ll have over the fan’s air flow. Look for a minimum of three – any more and our tester found the differences between them negligible. Modes The Tristar is light, stands knee-high and is easy to move around on its casters or with the built-in carry handle, making it a decent air cooler to keep in a cupboard, ready to wheel out when a heatwave strikes. 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

air coolers 2023: Evaporative fans tried and tested from Best air coolers 2023: Evaporative fans tried and tested from

The EcoFlow Wave 2 is not cheap, but if you want a highly versatile air conditioning unit, there’s nothing quite like this. 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.) 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.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. It was really a toss-up between this and the Tristar (see above) for the title of Best Value. They’re almost identical in terms of power and airflow and both have a two-year warranty. In the end, despite being a few pounds more expensive, I thought the Tristar just about edged it for being lighter and easier to move around. There are controls at the base of the fan although these are a little confusing: you have to tap, rather than hold, the power button to change modes. Fortunately, there’s a remote control in the box, which makes it easier to use the Duux Globe. 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. You don't have permission to access "http://www.argos.co.uk/browse/appliances/fans-heaters-and-dehumidifiers/air-conditioning/c:29440/" on this server.

Princess Mobile Air Conditioner, 7000 BTU, Easy Steer Wheels Princess Mobile Air Conditioner, 7000 BTU, Easy Steer Wheels

The buttons on the fan could be more responsive, but we were impressed with the noticeable differences between the three air flow settings. Of the models we tested, this was also the quietest on high.

Best portable air conditioners to buy

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 associated HomeWizard app (for iOS or Android) allows you to give it voice commands using Siri or Google Assistant. I will never use those. Some will, but I can’t help feeling it would be cheaper without them. We also like the fact that you can clean the filter under the tap or in the dishwasher, and that the illuminated side panels can be set to glow with a choice of seven colours if you fancy a little mood lighting. While it could be easier to remove the filter and get the water tanks in and out of place, for sheer value and convenience, this cut-price compact cooler is a winner. Measured on its highest setting, we detected air flor at 1.7m/s at 1m away. At this kind of power, this fan can cool more than one person. Impressively, the fan is also quiet: just 48.5dB from 1m away, and 40.8dB on its minimum speed: that’s barely a whisper. Our only complaint is that the fan makes a slightly waspy noise in operation. 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.

Princess 358640 Smart Air Cooler | Princess

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. Firstly, we consider its power, looking at the strength of each setting and the difference between them. To do this, we use an anemometer to understand how much air it blows, measured in feet per minute. The greater the range of speeds and the wider the difference between them, the more you can adjust the fan to suit you. Dyson fans all look so distinctive with their bladeless heads that you can put a hand through that theDyson Pure Cool Meimmediately looks different thanks to its ball head. The reason for the design change is that the fan uses Dyson’s Core Flow technology, which lets the convex surface direct a fine stream of air exactly where you want it, making it perfect for personal cooling. We measured air flow at 3.8m/s at 15cm, dropping to a powerful 2.1m/s at 1m. This fan is quiet, too, ranging between 39.25dB and 56.8dB.

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. 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. Unfortunately, it doesn’t move as much air as its 120W motor would suggest and is a little bit more unwieldy than the other tower models. But it’s solidly constructed, has a big water tank and should last a long time. In this test, I haven’t given any 10 out of 10 scores because I don’t want to give the impression that air coolers are perfect. In a heatwave, an air cooler will be just enough to make the difference between sleeping and not. 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.

11 best fans 2023 UK – top tower fans for keeping you cool

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. Most fans can only be used in the hotter months of the year, taking up space when they’re not wanted. Not so with the Dyson Purifier Hot+Cool Formaldehyde. As well as being a powerful fan, it’s also a purifier and a heater, complete with thermostat. 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. Even the least energy-efficient – the Princess Smart Air Cooler – wasn't much more expensive, averaging about 2p an hour.We’ve been impressed with Evapolar’s previous personal evaporative coolers, and the Evapolar evaSMART is the best yet. It’s a little expensive compared to other evaporative coolers, but its smart features and envelope of cold air make it well worth the cash.