SwitchBot Circulator Fan review: a smart air circulator with app control and quiet performance

There are quite a few on the market now, and they bring various benefits over conventional fans because of some clever physics that goes on, thanks to how they're designed.

While a regular fan pushes air in one direction, giving you a direct breeze, an air circulator can move air around the whole room.

This means it doesn’t just blow at you — it creates a continuous airflow loop that mixes warm and cool air together, evening out the temperature and helping your space feel more comfortable overall.

Air circulators can also help in warm weather, boosting the efficiency of a heating source by helping it to fill the room more effectively.

One of the latest companies to dip their toes into the air circulator space is SwitchBot, a tech firm that has become known for taking existing technology and making it smarter.

But, on the face of it at least, its latest Circulator Fan doesn't look all that smart. It's a nice design with a minimalist feel about the horseshoe-shaped base stand, but it still has the trademark bulbous fan surround, and a compact digital display with an array of touch-sensitive buttons, and a basic remote control is included.

You can choose a cordless battery-powered version or an ever-so-slightly cheaper mains powered version - but the cordless one is obviously more versatile.

The smart features are there, though, and they're largely hidden away in the SwitchBot app. It gives you access to the full suite of controls, and lets you alter the angle of horizontal and vertical oscillation remotely, and lets you set up timers.

The truly smart features happen when you link it to a SwitchBot hub, though, because this uses the Matter network to integrate it with other smart devices in your house, and it unlocks access to smart speakers, or smart thermometers.

Bellowing an order at Alexa might not seem all that futuristic nowadays, but having your fan turn on when a smart thermometer notices the temperature has just reached an uncomfortable level is very handy indeed.

It goes some way to justifying the fan's entry price. The cordless version is around £129.99 - deals come and go, but that's about the ballpark. It's actually pretty pricey as air circulators go, but there really aren't any out there that are much cleverer than this one.

A big benefit of air circulators is you don't need to run them at high speeds, even on very hot days. This brings two bonuses - firstly, it can be really quiet. Even on its top speed setting, SwitchBot's air circulator is very unobtrusive. At its lowest speed setting, it's practically inaudible.

The other bonus is a lengthy battery life. SwitchBot claims it will run for up to 12 hours in its low setting, and that's about right. It's much shorter with the fan speed turned up a few notches, but still more than enough to polish off a picnic or watch an outdoor movie.

There are other clever touches, too. It's the first fan, let alone air circulator, I've tested that has a smart sleep mode. This starts the fan off on a high setting to cool you down, then gradually weakens the speed as you nod off. There's also a night-light, which can be set up and controlled remotely.

It could be argued that, without linking the air circulator up to some sort of smart eco-system, it's just a posh fan with a fairly high price tag. And it's important to add that there are other decent battery air circulators out there, like Meaco's excellent Sefte, which is far cheaper at £79.99.

But this is for people who like their smart features. It's incredibly effective at cooling you down, but when you consider all the automations you can unlock by linking it up to other smart devices, it comes into its own.

I'm very much one of those people, so personally I'm a big fan.