The best neck fans in 2024, tried and tested

When you think about keeping cool during the sweltering summer months, things like cooling fans or window ACs are often the first to come to mind. Both are great for home use, but once you leave the air-conditioned comfort of your living space, you’ll need something a bit more portable. Something like a neck fan.

Neck fans are rechargeable portable fans that are wearable around the neck. These personal fans blast cool air on the wearer to alleviate the sweating and stickiness that hot, humid summer temperatures can inflict. Unlike the cooling fans or window ACs mentioned above, neck fans are bladeless cooling products that help get rid of unpleasant clamminess while leaving your hands free. Many of the designs are U-shaped, resembling a pair of over-ear headphones draped around the neck, but some clip onto clothing or hang around the neck with a lanyard.

For this review, we tested seven highly rated neck fans in the blazing Texas sun to see which were most effective for sustained heat relief in temperatures over 80 degrees Fahrenheit and which were most comfortable and practical during light exercises like brisk walking and other low-impact daily activities like bending over. After sweating and brow-mopping our way for several weeks through the testing process, two clear winners emerged.

Best neck fan: Gulaki Bladeless Portable Neck Fan

$40 $25 at Amazon

The Gulaki fan is the most powerful U-shaped fan we tested, and it stands out clearly above the other fans for cooling capacity. The highest setting provides jets of refreshing air up the back and sides of the neck and over the face without an annoyingly loud motor. Unlike the other fans we tested, the second-strongest setting is also effective, giving decent air at an even quieter volume.

Its Amazon product page states the fan is 4.5 Watts (W), but when the box arrived, it said 5W instead. Either way, this fan gave the strongest airflow, which prevented our foreheads from getting sweaty on 85- to 90-degree days.

The battery life is excellent at just over five hours on the highest setting, but it takes around three and a half hours to charge, so be prepared.

At 10.4 ounces, it’s slightly heavier than the other fans we tested, but that’s still light enough to feel comfortable for long periods of wear. Its shape is nicely rounded and open, so we never experienced discomfort, and they didn’t fall off when we bent and turned our body at speed.

Another massive bonus is that its power button is easy to find. On other fans, especially the Jisulife, we had to remove the device and search for the button to turn the fan off or change the strength setting.

We love the efficacy of the Gulaki fan and the fact it’s available in four colors.

The only real drawback is that it doesn’t show how much battery life we have left, so we could easily get caught short while using it.

Best budget neck fan: Comlife Portable Neck Fan

$30 $16 at Amazon

We enjoyed how powerful yet quiet the Comlife fan is and how we can bend it into our desired position due to its flexible, bendable rod. Other advantages of the bendable rod are that it prevents the fan from falling off and can also be used as a mini desk fan; just set it on a table and direct the airflow toward your face.

When folded up, the fan is smaller than all the others we tested (except the Aocoolfan); this makes it convenient to carry in a pocket or purse.

We liked the helpful four-point light gauge on its side, which let us know when we were running low. The control switch is also easy to find because it’s located next to this light gauge.

At 6.7 ounces, it’s lighter than the Gulaki fan, our top pick, but it’s definitely not as comfortable.

The bendable rod does get tangled more easily in long hair than the other brands we tested, but at no point did our hair get caught in the two fan blades, even when we attempted to make that happen.

This fan has three wind speeds. At 4W, it provides effective cooling on the highest setting, but unlike most of the others we tested, it doesn’t have any vents on the back or sides. The lack of vents on the fan’s main curve meant the backs of our necks still got a little heated in the sun, but once set on the highest cooling setting, this wasn’t too much of a problem.

This fan includes one lithium polymer battery, which holds out for almost two hours on the highest setting; this is better than the manufacturer’s claim of one and a half hours. However, this fan still has the shortest battery life of the fans we tested.

Another downside is that the batteries take about four and a half hours to charge, but overall, for $20, we think this fan is a great budget option.

How to choose a neck fan

The main thing to look for in a neck fan is its power capacity for cooling, but it’s also essential to consider comfort, durability and battery life.

If you can test out a few options before buying, it’s worth comparing how noisy they are. Some models make a louder whirring sound than others, and if you’re hard of hearing, you use a hearing aid or you’re easily distracted or irritated by sounds near your face, then the noisier ones will not suit you.

Since you’ll be wearing the neck fan in a prominent, visible place on your body, appearance is also a factor to consider as you may want to wear an attractive neck fan.

Choosing a neck fan also depends on where and how you intend to use it. If you need it for brief 30-minute walks in the park, make sure it fits snugly and won’t bounce too much while you’re on the move. It also doesn’t require a long battery life.

Conversely, battery life is the more important feature if you intend to use it all day in an office or outdoors. Most of the fans we tested took at least two hours to recharge after the battery was drained, so keep that in mind.

How we tested

After several hours of researching top brands, we selected a testing pool of six highly rated neck fans with favorable Amazon review ratings. We tested the fans for several weeks in the scorching heat and humidity of Austin, Texas. We tested to see which fans effectively sustained heat relief in temperatures over 80 degrees. The hottest day we tested was 91 degrees and the coolest was in the mid-80s.

We also tested to see which fans were most comfortable and practical to wear during light exercise like brisk walking, jogging and running, as well as low-impact daily activities like bending over. (We found none of the fans suitable for running because they bounced around too much.)

We also gave each fan a test run when the AC was turned off, using the fan indoors and then while driving our car. All the brands tested have three power settings, but we found little relief on the lowest two fan speed settings with the majority of them, except the winners. We evaluated each fan by using the following criteria:

Other neck fans we tested

The Aocoolfan model is one of the more affordable fans we tested, but it isn’t effective enough to make our cut. We find the neck lanyard doesn’t direct the air toward our faces efficiently and isn’t particularly comfortable to wear. The lanyard swung around while we walked (or moved in any way), and it got annoying when we bent over and it swung in our faces. It comes with a clip for attaching it to clothing, but we found that, unless we’re wearing a heavy, tight top (which we probably wouldn’t do in hot weather), it still moved around too much. The clip also doesn’t work with any button-down shirt, low-cut top or bathing suit. The white lanyard also gets dirty quickly, which isn’t a good look.

The battery takes three hours to charge and lasts for just over two and a half hours on the highest setting, and we love that it showed us exactly how much battery is left by percentage. The fan is also on the noisier side at 35 dB, but we didn’t hear it so loudly because it isn’t right next to our ears. It’s 5W, which is powerful on the highest setting, but for some reason, the drafts didn’t feel that strong even when we held it close to our faces.

The fan only weighs 4.76 ounces. So, if you’re looking for an affordable, lightweight handheld fan, this could be a good option, but we didn’t get the results we were hoping for with the lanyard or the clothing clip.

The Civpower fan is advertised as 5W on Amazon, but the back of the box stated 3W when the fan arrived. We found it provided less powerful cooling than the 4.5W Gulaki fan, so we assumed the box was accurate. We found this fan to be relatively quiet and comfortable — plus, at 8.8 ounces, it’s marginally lighter than the 10.4-ounce Gulaki fan.

However, the Civpower fan’s power just wasn’t strong enough for us. This fan also gives no indication of when its battery is running low, but the control button is easy to locate while it’s in use, which is a bonus. It’s available in eight colors and its battery lasts for just under four hours on the highest setting, with a charging time of three and a half hours, which is better than some of the fans we tested.

This FrSara fan has a nice, futuristic look and is available in 11 solid colors plus two paint-splattered graffiti options. But the fan isn’t powerful or comfortable enough to make our top pick.

At 8.8 ounces, it weighs the same as the Civpower fan but a bit less than the Gulaki fan (10.4 ounces), but it isn’t as rounded, so we found that the FrSara fan dug into our collarbone over time.

The battery takes four hours to charge and lasts almost four and a half hours. At 3W, it gives a respectable amount of cooling around our neck on the highest setting, but on a 90-degree day, that setting doesn’t make a significant difference while outdoors.

We liked how the power button was large and easy to find, but there was no way of telling how much battery life we had left. The fan is advertised as “super quiet,” but at 25 dB, it sits in the midrange for quietness among the fans we tested.

The Jisulife fan almost made our top spot due to its decent power and cooling abilities and excellent five-and-a-half-hour battery life on the highest setting (the longest of all the ones we tried). It’s also sleek and comfortable and is available in five colors (gray, pink, blue, green and a yellow duck design). It didn’t give us a battery percentage or gauge, but at least it alerted us to a low battery with a flashing red light.

The main drawback of this fan is that the control button is almost impossible to locate while wearing it and irritatingly tricky to find even after we removed and examined it. This meant we had to take it off every time we wanted to adjust the setting or turn it off, which got tiresome quickly.

The fan takes three and a half hours to charge, which is better than some of the models we tested. It weighs 9.1 ounces, which feels extra light because of its great design. Overall, this is a good option with a fairly quiet motor (25 dB), but the power button issue got on our nerves so much that we had to bump it down the list.

This 3W fan from PenKou isn’t powerful enough to make our top spot, but we liked its minimalistic design, prominent control button and how it’s available in a range of nine colors.

The battery life wasn’t as good as we’d hoped, coming in at around three hours. But at 20 dB, this fan is quieter than most of the fans we tested. This fan could be a good option for less extreme heat, and we think it’s worth the price while on sale.

The fan weighs 8.8 ounces, which is reasonable and the same as the FrSara and Civpower fans. The PenKou fan charges in three and a half hours.

A drawback of this fan is that there’s no indication of when its battery is running low; it just quits without warning.