The Best Fans To Buy Online In Australia

Mitchell Fisher By Mitchell Fisher Updated 19 Feb 2022

The hot summer months can be unbearable without a good fan to help cool you down. Our list has some of the best fans that you can buy for a variety of budgets and needs.

Best Bladeless Fan

Dyson Pure Cool ™ Purifying Fan

Dyson Pure Cool ™ Purifying Fan

Where to buy
From $499.00
Pros & Cons
  • Covers spaces up to 27 square feet
  • Has 10 speeds
  • Comes with a remote control
  • The unit takes up a fair amount of storage space when not in use

The bladeless Dyson unit gives you an oscillating cooling unit that can cover your entire room while being incredibly easy to clean and maintain thanks to its blade-free design. You also get 10 speeds, which is more than enough, enabling you to find a setting that’s just right for you in any sort of summer heat.

The Dyson fan also works as a purifier, and it’s particularly good at it as well. The purification unit at the base of the fan absorbs foul odours and releases cleansed air through the fan itself. The device also comes with a night mode that reduces the running speed but makes it much quieter so that it doesn’t accidentally wake you. Additionally, there’s a sleep timer that can turn it on or off at certain hours based on your specifications.

Best Budget Bladeless Fan

Kogan Smarterhome Bladeless Purifier Tower Fan

Kogan Smarterhome Bladeless Purifier Tower Fan

Where to buy
From $159.00
Pros & Cons
  • Has a voice command feature
  • Silent brushless DC motor
  • Sleep timer that can be set for up to 8 hours
  • Not ideal for larger spaces
  • Only 80 degrees of oscillation

Just like the previous unit on our list, this fan is a bladeless tower fan that comes with a remote control and even an app that can allow you to change between the 9 different fan speeds. Moreover, you can choose between a silent speed mode and a strong mode for those especially hot summer days. This unit also has a built-in purifier, and even though it’s not as effective as the one on the Dyson, it still does a decent job of removing unpleasant odours from the room.

The Kogan is a bit smaller than the Dyson, which means that you can find a space for it a bit more easily, but this also affects the amount of air that can be displaced.

Best Pedestal Fan

Omega Altise 12.5cm Aura Pedestal Fan

Omega Altise 12.5cm Aura Pedestal Fan

Where to buy
From $329.00
Pros & Cons
  • Adjustable range of motion covers the entire room
  • Takes up very little space
  • Has 6 speeds
  • No on-board controls
  • More expensive than standard fans

The Altise has a pretty unique design when it comes to fans. The top part is shaped like a cylinder, which makes it take up less space than a standard fan. Furthermore, it has the added benefit of a more concentrated airflow that can really go the distance. 

The fan can also be extended, tilted, and it can oscillate up to 80 degrees, which essentially means that you can point it in whichever direction you want.

You also have 6 different fan settings as well as a remote control that comes with its own hidden storage compartment. The DC fan that this unit runs on is incredibly quiet and can actually produce quite a gust. However, it doesn’t use all that much power, which is its biggest upside.

Best Floor Fan

Vornado 660 Air Circulator Fan

Vornado 660 Air Circulator Fan

Where to buy
From $203.48
Pros & Cons
  • Fully adjustable glide bar
  • Powerful for a small fan, and surprisingly quiet
  • 5-year warranty
  • Tricky to clean due to the shape of the fan
  • Bulky design

The Vornado 660 can be used as both a desk fan and a floor fan. It has a wide circle of oscillation, so it can cover all sides of the room even when put in a corner since it can bounce the air off the walls. It comes with 4 speed settings and has accessible control buttons on top of it. The downside is that it doesn’t have a remote.

Having said that, the Vornado can displace 997 cubic metres of air per hour and move air to a distance of around 30 meters away from where it’s located. The fan is pretty powerful, but surprisingly, the fans themselves work at a relatively quiet 54dB, which means that they’ll still produce a bit of noise at top speed, but that’s the case with every fan.

Best Tower Fan

Dyson Cool Tower Fan

Dyson Cool Tower Fan

Where to buy
From $569.00
Pros & Cons
  • Very powerful, with customers praising the air output
  • The slim design and oscillation feature allows you to place it anywhere in the room
  • 10 settings
  • Limited number of additional features for such a high price tag
  • Soem customers found this unit quite loud on the higher settings

The reason why we consider this to be the best tower fan on our list is simply that it takes all of the best features from other similar fans and puts them in one slim package. You get the primary perk of the Dyson models: the fanless construction that makes cleaning this unit a lot easier. Besides, it’s much safer for children.

You also get a sleep timer for up to nine hours and a remote control with timer and fan speed options. The brushless motor also uses a lot less power than the previous Dyson models that we went over, and everything from the oscillation to the overall functionality of the fan is made to be a lot smoother and run a little bit better than any other model that came before it.

Best Budget Tower Fan

Sunbeam 90cm Tower Fan

Sunbeam 90cm Tower Fan

Where to buy
From $79.00
Pros & Cons
  • Very lightweight
  • 3 speeds
  • The fan can start to rattle or vibrate at higher speeds
  • Not as powerful as other models

You’d expect very limited capabilities from a device that’s this cheap, but the Sunbeam is actually a pretty decent fan. As the name suggests, you get a night mode feature that reduces the speed of the fan so that you don’t get too cold while you sleep, and it reduces the amount of noise as well. You also get a timer that can be set for one, two, four, or eight hours.

The keypad is located on top of the fan, allowing you to play around with all of the features as well as any of the three speeds. The fan itself has an even slimmer design than most Dyson models, so it can fit just about anywhere. The fact that it can oscillate further makes things easier in terms of placement as you’ll have a larger area covered. You also have a very handy storage compartment at the top where you can slot in your remote control for easy storage.

Best Heating and Cooling Fan

Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Purifying Fan Heater

Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Purifying Fan Heater

Pros & Cons
  • App connectivity features and temperature regulation
  • Removes allergens, pollutants and odors and circulates purified air
  • Compact, bladeless design
  • Some customers found that it struggled in a larger room

The first thing that you’ll notice about this device is that the price tag is a lot higher than most fans that we had on our list up till now. This might put it out of range for a lot of people that don’t really see themselves spending 4 figures on a fan, but the features that this device comes with actually make it worth the money.

Since this is a heating and cooling fan, you can use it all year round and it can help keep your room at the ideal temperature. It also comes with a purifier that can absorb and filter out certain allergens and even an air sensor that detects airborne particles, making it a great choice for allergy season.

This device can also do everything that the previous popular Dyson models could, but it also comes with smart app capabilities. This will allow you to control the fan remotely, change your preferred temperatures and fan speeds, and it’ll even gather data on you and automatically switch to your preferred settings on startup. If that wasn’t enough, you also get voice control capabilities as well.

All of these features make it one of the best fans that you can buy, and it’s definitely worth the price if you can afford it.

Best Desk Fan

Nordic 30cm Copper Desk Fan

Nordic 30cm Copper Desk Fan

Where to buy
From $69.95
Pros & Cons
  • 3 speed settings
  • Very light and compact
  • Doesn’t have any extra features
  • Some customers found it a bit too loud

The Nordic desk fan is as simple as they come. It’s a small desk fan that can cool you off, it takes up virtually no space, and it has a deceptive amount of power and range for its size. You also have 3 speeds that you can use by pressing the buttons just under the fan at the base, as well as a decent range of motion when it comes to the oscillation function.

The fan itself has 4 blades and the base is pretty slim, giving it a weight of just over 3 kg, which means that you can pick it up and put it virtually anywhere. As an added bonus, you also get a warranty of one year, which isn’t very common when it comes to fans in this price range.

It’s not a very versatile unit, but if you just want something that can stay on your desk and cool you off a bit, then this is one of the best fans for the job.

Best Fan Brands

Dyson has pretty much set the standard when it comes to cooling units. This company is well-known for producing the most powerful bladeless fans, and some of the best fans overall. Their devices have tons of useful settings and features, and most of them even come with built-in purifiers.  While Dyson fans do tend to be expensive, there is still a range of prices and it's also possible to find discounted prices during times of the year when retailers are having major sales.

How To Choose The Right Fan

Standalone Fan or a Portable Air Conditioner?

There’s a bit of overlap when it comes to fans and air conditioners. Just to make things a bit clearer, let’s say that a portable air conditioner consists of an outside and an inside unit, while a fan would be any single cooling device that sits in your room and doesn’t need an external unit in order to function.

Air conditioners are stronger than standard fans, and even the most portable ones can generally cover a lot more space than a standard fan could. However, you won’t be able to move it once you’ve set it up, you need to place it close to a window or exterior wall so that it can be connected to the outside unit, and they’re usually much more expensive.

Fans are a lot more portable, you get a decent amount of coverage since you can put them in the middle of your room, they generally use less electricity, and some models even have more features than a lot of AC units. On the other hand, if you need to cool down a larger area or if you want a bit more power, then you might want to go for an air conditioner.

What to Look For When Selecting a Fan

The two main things are the size and the number of speeds that they have. Small fans usually go on top of your desk, and since they’re so close to your face, they don’t need all that many speeds. Larger units, on the other hand, usually need to cover a lot more space, so they have a lot more settings.

A bladeless fan is a great choice if you regularly have children in the house, as it removes the safety hazard of spinning blades.

A night mode or a timer can also be useful, and you can find a unit with a purifier if you want a multi-purpose device for your living room. However, keep in mind that this also increases the price of the unit, so unless you have allergies, this feature is useful, but not really essential.

How we pick and review products

Our experts independently select our top products after scouring the Australian market and conducting a rigorous review process. Learn more about our review process.