Create a cool, fresh atmosphere in any room in your home with a pedestal fan from Lasko. 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.
Pedestal fans are one of the more awkwardly shaped fans you can put in your home. If you have pets or humans in the house who regularly knock things over, you might consider a sturdier option that’s closer to the ground, like a floor fan. The Vornado 683 is both small and short, making it a better fit when space is at a premium.
She tests several types of fans and has been testing all types of home and outdoor gear for both OutdoorGearLab and TechGearLab since 2017. One of the tallest fans we tested, this Pelonis model also offers fairly high power on all speeds – if you’re okay with its louder-than-average whirring. Just about every pedestal fan we tested oscillates roughly 90 degrees with the exception of the Vornado 683 which doesn’t oscillate at all but can be twisted on its stand to face any direction.
¹Based on the promotion prices as advertised in accordance with this flyer’s sale dates. Our Lowest Prices of the Year are defined as the period between January 1 to December 31, 2022. Several fans have a single screw that can be removed lasko pedestal fans to take off the grill and access the blades for a thorough, regular cleaning. We appreciate the usefulness of the Black & Decker remote caddy, but find it annoying that it has to be removed in order to completely lower the fan.
At the end of the day, if you want a fan to help keep your area at a more consistent temperature, the functionality and simplicity of this fan are here to help. Of course, this level of simplicity may be too simple for some. Offering just three speeds and no remote or other frills, this fan is in no way fancy or modern. It also doesn’t blow the competition away when it comes to being particularly powerful or especially quiet, falling about in the middle of the pack on both fronts.
The lightweight Comfort Zone has a folding base comprised of four legs, and though they’re much wider, their small profile makes them conducive to squeezing into spaces and under furniture. The Lasko Cyclone and Rowenta Turbo Silence are both noticeably larger than the competition, in base and head size, as well as the overall presence in a room. Pedestal fans have a reputation for being ungainly and large — but how ungainly and how large? We measured the dimensions of every fan, checked to see how much their heights are adjustable, and considered their base size and the blade housing size. Of course, since larger fans are often more powerful, we considered other values of their sizes when calculating scores in this metric.
However, the lightweight plastic disc base lacks any feet to hold it in place on a hard floor. While we don’t think this is a huge problem, if your furniture gets frequently bumped into by children or pets (or adults!), the Lasko S16612 will slide. And, if you have a giant living space and are hoping to place a fan across the room that can still reach you with a powerful breeze on the couch, this one may disappoint you with its below-average wind speeds. If you plan to carry it around your home, we also found that it sometimes comes apart mid-transit — though it simply slides back together again easily.
We tested each fan’s performance through a battery of tests that cover four metrics. We put together a complete picture of each model through laboratory tests, precision measurements, everyday usage, and qualitative analyses. Here we break down the metrics we evaluated and the tests we used to pinpoint the best ones for specific jobs.
It includes a timer and a remote — though no CR2032 battery comes with it — and features a remote caddy on top of the motor. We also love that it’s one of the few we tested that remembers your last settings when you turn it back on and is surprisingly quiet and pleasant at every speed. When it comes to sheer airflow and power, the Vornado 683 Medium takes the cake. In our alen breathesmart tests, it reached the highest measured speed of 13.4 mph. It’s easily felt from across a room, though only if you’re standing directly in its tunnel-like path. Not only does this high velocity feel great in your face after a prolonged period outside on a hot day, but it also helps to circulate air around a room more effectively — exactly what this model is made to do.