A bedside fan can be extremely effective in drowning out unwanted noise and allowing for peaceful sleep.
Unwanted sounds such as traffic, barking dogs, weather, noise from another room, and even snoring from your partner can be reduced, perhaps even eliminated, with a bedside fan.
Remember, you should not try to achieve no noise while you sleep because for most people this is impossible. Your goal instead should be to have steady, consistent noise (white noise) that will drown out or reduce disruptive noises than can wake you.
Some people don't want to use a fan for sleeping because they don't want air blowing on them. This does not need to be an issue because the fan can be on a low setting and directed away from your bed. You still may feel some air circulation, especially if you have a small room. But it's better to have a sleeping environment with cool air and good air circulation anyway.
Also, if you have never slept with a fan at night, especially one that produces fairly loud sound, it may take some getting used to. So if you don't like it at first, don't give up until you've tried the fan for a few nights.
Fans vs. white noise machines
The main competitor to fans used for sleeping are sound / white noise machines, which can also block out unwanted noise. Fans are the better choice if you want air circulation in your bedroom along with strong white noise.
Best fans for sleeping
Most fans are not ideally suited to help you sleep. They often are not loud enough, or they rattle or produce less than consistent white noise. To determine which fans are the very best for sleeping, we scoured through nearly 100 fan reviews and recorded any comments from reviewers on whether the fan is good or bad for sleeping.
From this data we created a "good for sleeping" score. (This score is computed by dividing the number of favorable comments about whether the fan is good for sleeping by the number of unfavorable comments.)
The higher the "good for sleeping" score, the better for sleeping the fan likely is.
Good for Sleeping Score
Links take you to the fan's product page at Amazon.com.
| Honeywell HT800 |  |
| Lasko 3733 |  |
| Holmes HASF-99 |  |
| Holmes HAOF-90UC |  |
Raw data for above fans
| Honeywell HT800 | |
| Good for sleeping |  |
| Poor for sleeping |  |
| Lasko 3733 | |
| Good for sleeping |  |
| Poor for sleeping |  |
| Holmes HASF-99 -- Watch my video review here. | |
| Good for sleeping |  |
| Poor for sleeping |  |
| Holmes HAOF-90UC | |
| Good for sleeping |  |
| Poor for sleeping |  |