I hate tower fans.
I know I’m in the minority here. Plenty of other people seem to love them, because every year, when I’m scouring the internet for new fans to test, the bulk of them are tower fans. Even at a glance, you can tell they all suffer from the same problems that make every tower fan so unbearable. There’s the narrow, wobbly structure, like the leaning appliance of Pisa. The tall, slender stream of wind that never quite satisfies. The oscillating system that always seems to squeak or break or both.
And then there’s the air filter. Every fan requires semi-regular cleaning, but tower fans turn it into an absolutely miserable process. You can vacuum up the dust outside of the machine, but you can never quite find a way to get the gunk inside. The dust and hair and tiny flecks of who-knows-what build up over time, making the paltry draft even more deficient and weighing down the already-perilous pendulum swing of the breeze.
But every year, I still give tower fans a shot. I find a few that pique my interest and call them in for testing. Every year, I try to find a tower fan that isn’t terrible.
And every year, I end up disappointed. That is, until last summer, when I tried out the new Vornado ARA, and it literally brightened up my life.
Top pick
This quiet, reliable tower fan also works as a lamp, providing pleasant ambient lighting while it keeps the air moving through the room. It’s still not that easy to clean, though.
Vornado makes some of our absolute favorite fans, to the point that we’ve been consistently recommending the same basic model since 2017. So when I saw that the company was releasing a new tower fan, I figured it was worth a look.
At first glance, it seemed like any other tower fan, with a sturdier build and an actual metal grille around the fan blade. But the LED light ring running around the base and up the back made me raise an eyebrow. Who is this for? I wondered. Why would anyone turn to a tower fan for mood lighting?
I soon found the answer as the summer settled in. We often rely on a relay of fans to circulate the air conditioning. So on one particularly sweltering day, I set up the Vornado ARA in the kitchen as a temporary respite. It was basically right in the middle of our home, right next to my 4-year-old’s bedroom. And it has not moved from that location since. In fact, we rarely ever turn it off.
The fan on the ARA moves the air around 2.7 mph on the lowest setting and up to nearly 13 mph on high. Even during the winter, that low setting helps to move the heat around and to prevent the scents of the kitchen from seeping into the kid’s room. (He has a very sensitive nose.) And since its volume is less than 40 decibels, we barely even notice it. If we have to crank the fan up even higher — in the summer, for example, or when someone burns the popcorn again — it’s still slightly quieter than what’s typically considered a “normal conversation” volume of around 60 decibels.
This fan doesn’t use that much energy, either, thanks to its energy-efficient DC-powered motor. With the fan and the lights both on high, it uses 50 watts of electricity per hour. But on the lower settings, which is where we usually keep it, the ARA pulls only about 10 watts. That costs me less than $20 over an entire year, even with the lights on 24/7.
And speaking of the light, the Vornado ARA has a weirdly wonderful ambience, with a nice warm color temperature. During the daytime, it helps to brighten up the awkward corner between the kitchen and the bedroom. At night, it gives off the perfect level of illumination to get us where we’re going. Whether my wife is coming home late from rehearsal, our kid has a bad dream and wants to come into our bedroom, or someone needs a midnight bathroom break, the ARA offers just the right amount of pleasant low lighting to guide you through the darkened house without overwhelming your pupils.
Of course, at the end of the day, the Vornado ARA is still a tower fan. And that means the cleaning process is still pretty lousy. The durable metal grille does catch most of the dust and hair, and it’s easy enough to wipe down or vacuum. But there’s still no way to get inside the machine to do a real deep cleaning.
On the bright side, the ARA comes with Vornado’s reliable five-year warranty. This gives me some confidence that it was built to last — or, at the very least, that you won’t be throwing your money away if anything does go wrong. And that’s good because this thing costs a whopping $250.
When I asked the company to explain the price, a representative told me it was due to a combination of the fan’s bigger size, the more powerful airflow, the “elegant metal details,” and, of course, the accent light. That makes a certain amount of sense, though I suspect an old economics adage also comes into play — that the price of something is just as much as anyone’s willing to pay for it at any given time.
If you’d asked me a year ago, there’s no way I would have ever told anyone to spend $250 on a tower fan. But in that time, the Vornado ARA has become a centerpiece of our home. It’s a functional piece of decor that literally keeps the flow going, day and night. That’s not something I can say about any other fan I’ve ever tested, towering or otherwise. Then again, the ARA isn’t just an attractive, powerful, well-made fan — it’s also a lamp, with a guarantee to last for at least half a decade. When you put it like that, the Vornado ARA feels like a genuinely good value.
This article was edited by Harry Sawyers and Maxine Builder.
