SwitchBot’s Standing Circulator Fan is worth fighting for

I can’t remember the last time I got excited about a fan. Normally, I just buy whatever Vornado or Dreo model fits my budget, but that was before I started testing the battery-powered Standing Circulator Fan from SwitchBot.

As the name indicates, the SwitchBot fan is a 3D circulator — a fancy way of saying that it can tilt up, down, left, and right to push a decent amount air around a room. It looks okay, despite all the plastic, is relatively quiet, runs for hours on battery, has an integrated nightlight, transforms from a desktop to standing fan in seconds, and works on its own or as part of a smart home. There’s a lot to like here.

Over the last month, I’ve been testing the Standing Circulator Fan in a variety of scenarios at temperatures up to 34 degrees Celsius (93°F) and I’ve gotta say, I’m impressed. It’s so versatile, quiet, and portable that it’s got my whole family fighting over who gets to use it. It’s not cheap at $129.99 (though it’s currently discounted to less than $100), but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more capable fan for less.

Like many, I still associate SwitchBot with those button-pushing robots. But that’s a disservice to a company that’s branched out into everything from robovacs to doorbells and smart locks. The Standing Circulator Fan is just the latest smart home device in a burgeoning portfolio that now includes Nanoleaf’s lighting gear.

The fan head quickly attaches directly to the battery-powered base to create a desktop fan. You can also screw one or two vertical segments in-between to create a standing fan up to 100cm (39.4in) tall. Assembly takes seconds.

Turning it on produces a respectable amount of airflow for a relatively small unit — up to 9.15 cubic meters per minute (about 323 CFM), wind speeds of 6.1m/s (about 20ft/s), and an airflow distance of 27m (about 89 feet), according to the spec sheet — and it can oscillate up to 90 degrees horizontally and 100 degrees vertically. That makes it a medium-duty fan suitable for a bedroom or home office, but it’ll struggle to circulate air in a large living room.

It’s very quiet thanks to its DC brushless motor and fan blade design. When standing about one meter away, I measured 50dB when running at max speed, and a whisper quiet 28dB on the barely audible “Baby” preset I typically use at night.

The fan can be controlled from the app, via touch controls built into the base, or with an included remote control that magnetically attaches to the back of the fan. It can also be voice-controlled through Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri when paired with one of SwitchBot’s Matter-compatible hubs. Unfortunately, Matter only lets you turn it on and off, not adjust any settings, but it’s still useful for automations and scheduled events. “Hey Siri, turn on the standing fan,” is something I’ve been repeating several times each week.

One reason SwitchBot’s fan is so compelling is its USB-C rechargeable battery. That makes this standing, articulating fan usable anywhere, no AC outlet required (but you can always plug it in). It helped keep me cool on an outdoor terrace, for example, on one particularly hot, windless day.

The battery lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes with every feature maxed out. That means the nightlight was set to bright and the fan set to high while swiveling through its full range of motion. Battery life can be extended dramatically by dialing things back. In my testing, it easily lasted through the night when set to Baby mode and SwitchBot claims over four days of continuous operation when the rechargeable base is plugged into a standard 10,000mAh USB-C power bank.

My five-person household is fitted with a few $55 Vornado 533 fans in the bedrooms. They’re less than half the list price of this SwitchBot, but run much noisier despite producing roughly the same airflow. Everyone prefers the sweeping 3D air pattern produced by the extremely portable SwitchBot. That’s meant more than a few squabbles over who gets to use it, especially on warm nights.

For the last few weeks the fan has found a home at the foot of my bed, where it creates an oscillating airstream just overhead to distribute the CO₂ plume created by me and my wife. It keeps us cool and keeps the mosquitoes guessing at our whereabouts. My wife’s a mosquito magnet, and so far we’ve avoided having to break out the net that would otherwise hang obtrusively over our bed.

SwitchBot’s Standing Circulator Fan lists for $129.99 but is regularly on sale for less than $100. It lacks the heavy-duty air circulation of something like a $149.99 Dreo PolyFan 704S, but it packs a punch for its size in a very portable, quiet, and highly adaptable battery-powered unit that can be integrated into a wide range of smart homes.

All photos by Thomas Ricker / The Verge