SwitchBot Standing Circulator Fan review: Cordless cooling

Price When Reviewed

$129.99

Best Prices Today: SwitchBot Standing Circulator Fan

When the next heatwave comes along and you drag your old standing fan from the cupboard, you’ll blow off the dust, plug it in and listen to it rattle away.

You might idly consider replacing it but wonder if a newer fan will really make any difference.

I hope I can convince you that it will. An investment now could make the next heatwave much more bearable.

SwitchBot’s standing circulator fan is a deceptively simple, old-fashioned circular fan. But it’s ultra-quiet, powerful and comes with a host of features that make it extremely handy to use anywhere in the home.

For a start, you can use it cordless, schedule it to come on at regular times, and it even has a night light and ultra-gentle baby mode. As an energy-efficient 24W device, it’ll cost you a maximum of 1p per hour to run in the UK – and much less at lower levels – making it a cheap and reliable way to stay cool.

What it looks like

• Convertible design
• Two night light options
• Comes with magnetic remote

The SwitchBot fan needs a little assembly before it’s ready to use. You’ll need to attach the stand to the base and the fan head to the stand. But this itself is an advantage – you can also use the fan in a more compact form, without the stand, although bear in mind that its wide base means it’ll take up a lot of space on a desk.

It’s a traditional-looking circular fan that stands 100cm/39.5 inches tall (or around 38cm/15in in desk mode). It’s white, except for a wood-effect fan guard. It’s a much less stark colourway than most black/grey/white rivals, which only look good in modern rooms, and it’ll blend in better in homes with warmer décor.

It’s lightweight too, so you can take it from room to room with you – or even use it outside in its cordless form.

What it does

• Cordless use
• 100 speed settings
• Very cheap to run

There are three ways to control the fan: via the control panel on the base, using the supplied remote, or using the smart features.

The controls on the base are small and hard to make out at a distance, so if you’re using the fan in standing mode, you’ll want to use one of the remote options.

The remote control is nicely designed and will let you do everything except scheduling the fan. It sticks magnetically to the back of the fan when not in use, so you’re less likely to lose it. However, it doesn’t have glow-in-the-dark keys like some rivals do, so you’ll want to use the app at night, to stop you fumbling around in the dark.

The app also gives you access to scheduling, using voice commands via Alexa, Siri or your Google Home speaker, plus all other controls. Simply download the SwitchBot app, create an account and pair your device. In our test, this was quick and easy to do.

The fan has all the features you’d expect. There are nine basic speed settings, but in the app you can finesse the speed level from 1-100%. The lowest setting is silent at just 22dB and gentle. The top setting is still relatively quiet and, while not as strong as some rivals, it’s still far more than you need to keep cool on a hot day.

It has four modes: normal, natural, sleep and an ultra-gentle baby setting. There are also two night light options (gentler and brighter), making it a good option for a child or baby’s room. Incidentally, smart features are a big plus in this case, as you can switch the fan off remotely, without disturbing your child’s sleep.

The fan also oscillates on a vertical and horizontal axis – and both at once, if you like that sort of thing. And it’s powerful enough that you can place it by a window and use it to draw colder air in and hot air out.

This is a fan you can afford to leave running all day and night

One of the things we like most about the SwitchBot fan is how incredibly energy efficient it is. Its brushless motor means it consumes much less power than most rivals. On full power, it’ll only use 24 watts of electricity per hour. On a standard UK July 2026 price cap tariff, that’ll cost you less less than 1p per hour. And that, to be clear, is when you’re running it at full whack. This is a fan you can afford to leave running all day and night, if need be.

Unplugged, SwitchBot says that the fan can run for up to 12 hours in natural mode, 13 hours in sleep mode and a whopping 28 hours in baby mode. If you use other features, such as oscillation, the battery life will likely drop significantly.

Where to buy it

In the UK, the SwitchBot fan is nominally priced at £99.99, but at the moment, you can buy it for £84.99 from either Amazon, where it’s marked as an early Prime Day deal, or direct from SwitchBot, with the code APAP15.

It’s a similar story in the US. Buy it from Amazon for $94.97, or SwitchBot for $110.49 (again using the code APAP15), down from a launch price of $129.99.

Is this the cheapest fan we’ve tested? No. But it’s not the priciest either and the fact that it costs so little to run counts for a lot – and we think its features are more than worth it. Check out our round-up of the best fans we’ve tested to see the competition.

Should you buy the SwitchBot standing circulator fan?

This is a fan that’ll be useful in almost any household. In smaller homes, it’ll be easy to move from room to room with you. If you have a garden, you can use it outside, or take it into the kitchen to cool you while you’re cooking, without taking up a plug point. It would also be ideal for a child’s bedroom with its ultra-gentle setting and night light.

People with established smart home set-ups are the only ones who should look elsewhere, as you’ll need to invest in a SwitchBot Hub to get Matter compatibility. But altogether, this is a highly recommended buy.