The super-wide, 21-inch circular base takes up a significant amount of room and slides readily across hardwood floors. As a light, plastic unit, ours bounced and vibrated at every speed — not audibly, but visibly. Though, if you’re a fan of white noise and a powerful breeze, you may just love this big unit exactly as it is.
To test each pedestal fan’s power, we performed multiple airspeed tests on different settings and combined that with how well it translates into what you can feel across a room. We measured airflow, placing each fan across a large room and standing on the other side to gauge how easily we could feel each setting, both directly in front of and off to the sides of every fan. And we considered how many settings, modes, features, and timer options each model has, alongside the use of those settings. Though the Lasko Cyclone does have a timer, it only goes up to 4 hours, which may not be enough for some folks. It has a push-pull tab on the motor to control oscillation, rather than including that on the remote like many others.
Being able to tilt or oscillate a fan also makes a big difference in where it can live in your home, so we considered these abilities as well. To score each model’s overall noisiness, we started off by taking decibel readings of each fan at all of their various speeds. We then qualified each lasko pedestal fans fan’s sound, including relative pitch, quality of noise, and respective annoyance levels. We noted if they had extra noises, like clicking, beeping, whirring, or vibrations. And because gunk getting stuck in your fan can affect its noisiness, we also inspected how easy they are to clean.
Cleaning and maintenance are simple so that you can use your pedestal fan for years to come. Just looking at some pedestal fans can feel like they’re on the verge of being knocked over. If your home includes excitable pets, clumsy children, or ungraceful adults, it’s important to have a sturdy fan that’s less likely to take a fall when bumped. We evaluated fans on their center of balance, weightiness, sturdiness, and other features that help to hold them in place, like rubber feet. Since many of these come with a tiny remote, we also considered extra features (like remote storage spots) as a bonus in this metric. This Lasko oscillating pedestal fan has a multi-position tilt back feature that lets you adjust the angle of airflow, and the adjustable height lets you raise the fan up to 57 inches high.
To find the best pedestal fans on the market today, we spent hours combing through the top options before selecting the most promising models to purchase and test side-by-side. Tasked with cooling us off through some of the hottest days of the desert summer, we put these fans through a litany of laboratory and real-world tests. We used them while watching movies, sleeping at night, reading books, and working out at home. We measured airspeeds and took decibel readings, comparing them all head-to-head to see which ones offer the most settings, the most power, sturdiest bases, and quietest experiences. Oddly, the jump from speeds 8 to 9 is far more noticeable than any other speed change, jumping a full 6 decibels. It doesn’t have a memory for its last settings, instead always powering up on level 18 with no oscillation and chirping offensively as you scroll through all 24 speeds.
Unfortunately, this heavy gizmo is one of the most wobbly models we tested, literally blowing itself into a backbend at high speeds. For a futuristic-looking fan, it still has the old-school oscillation knob on the unit, with no button to control it remotely. It chirps loudly and obnoxiously with every setting change, and though the lights dim, they never turn off. Switching between speeds, the unit we tested also had considerable difficulty finding the right rotation rate, shifting awkwardly between several speeds before settling at a constant pace. At the end of the day, though we find much to like about this quiet, effective fan, we’re not quite sure its shortcomings make it worth the hefty price tag.
Despite being the smallest of our tested fans, the Vornado 683 Medium is also among the most powerful. Though this certainly helps you cool off when pointed directly at your face, it’s also fairly effective as an air circulator when positioned just right in larger spaces. Instead of a solid base, this lightweight model has five sturdy legs that give it a small but stable footprint.