It’s been a long time since a fan genuinely caught my attention. I usually grab whichever Vornado or Dreo happens to match my budget, but that changed once I began using SwitchBot’s battery-powered Standing Circulator Fan.
As its name suggests, SwitchBot’s model is a 3D circulator, meaning the head can sweep up, down, left, and right to move a respectable amount of air through a room. While its plastic-heavy build is merely fine, it stays fairly quiet, runs for hours without being plugged in, includes a built-in nightlight, switches from desk fan to standing fan in moments, and can operate independently or inside a smart home setup. There’s plenty working in its favor.
After spending the past month trying the Standing Circulator Fan in different situations, including heat reaching 34 degrees Celsius (93°F), I came away impressed. It’s quiet, flexible, and easy to move around — enough so that everyone in my household has wanted a turn with it. At $129.99, it isn’t exactly a bargain, though it is currently selling for under $100, and it’s difficult to find another fan this capable for less money.
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The Good
The Bad
Many people still think of SwitchBot as the company behind small robots that press buttons, but that no longer tells the full story. Its lineup has expanded into robot vacuums, video doorbells, smart locks, and more. The Standing Circulator Fan is another addition to a growing smart home catalog that now also includes Nanoleaf’s lighting products.
Setup is quick: the fan head snaps onto the battery-powered base to work as a desktop unit, or you can screw in one or two vertical extension pieces to turn it into a standing fan measuring up to 100cm (39.4in) tall. The whole process takes only a few 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.
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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
