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I bought a smart fan to beat the heat — and I never thought I’d have this much fun controlling a fan from my phone
Even with one of the best smart thermostats, keeping your house cool in the summer can get expensive really fast, especially if you like to blast the AC. This summer, though, I decided to do something different by investing in a smart fan for my living room, and doing so turned out to be as fun as it was cool.
Every year, I think about ways to lower our electric bill depending on the season. For instance, this winter, I picked up a smart space heater so that I could warm up my bedroom from my phone and turn it off with just my voice before bed instead of having it run all night. With heat waves expected this summer, I figured I could do the same thing with a smart fan instead of having my air conditioner running all the time.
I first got the idea after visiting my friend’s apartment, where he had a tower fan from Dreo set up in his living room. While it wasn’t a smart device, it did have a handy remote control so that you could change its speed and settings without having to get up from the couch. As I have a toddler around that loves stealing and hiding remotes as well as a penchant for smart home gadgets, I decided to spend a bit more on a smart tower fan, and my investment is already paying off.
Here’s why I think a smart fan is the perfect solution for beating the heat this summer and a great addition to your smart home or any home, for that matter.
Smart fan, simple setup
As I already have several strands of their string lights out on my porch and a few of their smart bulbs throughout my house, I decided to pick up Govee’s 42-inch Smart Tower Fan 2 Max for my living room.
While you can control smart home devices from different manufacturers using the Google Home or Alexa app or even your voice with one of the best smart speakers, once I find a brand I like, I prefer to stick with it. One problem with testing loads of different smart home gadgets is that when they’re from different brands, you end up with a ton of different apps on your smartphone.
Govee’s smart fan arrived in a large cardboard box and inside, there was the fan itself, a circular stand for it, a power adapter and to my surprise, an attachment with a pack of cotton sticks that you can soak in essential oils. I have to admit I haven’t tried this out yet as I’m fresh out of essential oils but it’s a nice extra and something I’m looking forward to testing.
The stand screws onto the bottom of the fan without any tools making for a very simple assembly. However, I really like how there are grooves on its underside that make it easier to run its power cable out from the center to the stand’s edge.
With my smart fan assembled, it was time to set it up and see if a 42-inch tower fan would really make a difference in helping cool off my living room.
Tap, touch, or talk for instant cooling
Since I had already had the Govee app installed on my phone, adding the Smart Tower Fan 2 Max to it was a breeze. I just tapped on the plus icon in the top right corner of the app and waited a few seconds for it to scan for new devices. My new smart fan showed up almost instantly, and I went through the pairing process and connected it to my home network.
One thing I really like about Govee is that once you connect your account with Google Home or Alexa, new devices are added to your smart home on either platform automatically. There’s no extra steps you have to go through and it’s very easy to control them with your voice. For instance, I just asked Google to change my smart fan’s speed to 10 without any issues whatsoever.
Within the Govee app, you can adjust and customize all of the Smart Tower Fan 2’s settings. You can also set up a scheduler or a timer as well as lock the device which is perfect if you have a curious toddler around like I do.
One thing that really impressed me is that, in addition to turning the fan’s oscillation feature on or off, you can also change the angle. As I have it pointed right at the couch in my living room, I changed the angle to 40 degrees so that it blows cool air on everyone sitting there but doesn’t blow away papers or other loose items on the far sides of the room.
Since everyone in your house might not be on board with smart devices or have access to the app needed to control them, there are also physical controls on the top of the Smart Tower Fan 2. In the middle, there’s a power button with a button for the night light and a timer on the right, while on the left, there’s a mode button and a lock button.
My absolute favorite thing about these touch-sensitive controls, though, is the slider underneath them, which you can use to decrease or increase the fan’s speed.
Govee’s Smart Tower Fan 2 Max has five built-in modes you can switch between which include normal, sleep, nature, DIY model and auto. I started off just leaving it on normal before I accidentally switched to nature mode. I really like this mode because it mimics the feeling of wind blowing on a cool day.
As bright as it is cool
Now for the kicker, just like on my previous Govee smart heater, the Smart Tower Fan 2 Maxhas an RGB light underneath its digital display. Govee has a few cheaper smart fans without this feature but I enjoyed it so much on my smart heater that I decided it was worth paying a little extra for.
If you’ve ever had a tower fan or one of the best air purifiers set up in a dark room, then you’ll know how easy they are to bump into. Just the other day, my wife accidentally tripped over the air purifier in our bedroom that doesn’t have a light like this, which reinforced my decision to get a smart fan with one.
Within the Govee app, you can change the color and brightness of the Smart Tower Fan 2’s night light. All of the basic colors are there front and center, but you can also open a color wheel to pick your own and then save to a separate My Colors section.
Just like with Govee’s smart lights, there are a few scenes to pick from too though not as many. Of course, you can have the light act like an actual night light, but you can also set it to Forest, Ocean, Leisurely, or Asleep. That’s not all, though, as there’s also a DIY section where you can create your own scenes that either make the Smart Tower Fan 2’s light twinkle or show up as a gradient.
I know it’s a small thing, but the fun aspect was one of the reasons I decided to transform my house into a smart home in the first place. While my son loves picking colors and seeing them show up on the fan, I also had a lot of fun testing out all the scenes and trying to get the light’s color to match the mood of the show or movie I was watching on TV.
Worth the smart tax?
One of the main reasons to invest in a few small fans or even a larger tower-style fan is to save money on electricity, so that you don’t have to set your air conditioner that low or run it that often. Now with a regular fan, you either have to get up to adjust it or turn it off or use the included remote control. Having a remote is convenient, but it’s something else you can lose or misplace, plus you’re going to have to change its batteries at some point.
With a smart fan like this one though, I’m able to turn it on or off as well as adjust its settings using my phone or just my voice. Likewise, you can do so remotely from anywhere with an internet connection which can come in handy if you forgot to turn it off before leaving the house.
The Dreo Tower Fan ($99, Amazon) that I saw at my friend’s house is definitely cheaper than the smart one I picked up. However, when I bought it back in April, it was on sale just like it is now, and instead of paying full price, I picked it up for $119. For $20 extra then or $30 extra now, I’d say all the additional features the Smart Tower Fan 2 Max offers are well worth paying more for. Plus, with physical controls up top, you still have a powerful tower-style fan when the internet goes down or if you decide the smart home lifestyle just isn’t for you.
Now that I’ve tested and used Govee’s Smart Tower Fan 2 Max for the past month or so, I’m tempted to pick up a couple more for the kitchen and our bedroom. I haven’t had to clean it yet, but based on its design, this looks like it will be fairly easy to do when the time comes.
