Cool air that follows you

That is the whole reason this design exists. On an ordinary mini fan the rotor spins directly behind a grille, so anything long enough to get through the gaps — hair, a scarf thread, a hood cord — reaches a moving blade. Here the impellers are enclosed inside the housing, air is drawn in through the side intakes and pushed out through vents along the inside of the band, and there is no route from the outside to a moving part. Long hair sits over the band the same way it sits over a pair of headphones. It is also the reason people are comfortable letting a child wear one.

Quieter than most fridges, which run around 35 dB, and quieter than a quiet library at roughly 40. In practice that means at the lower speeds it disappears into ordinary room noise — you can wear it at a desk, in a meeting or on a bus without anyone turning round. Be straight about the top end, though: 36 dB is the rated maximum for the fan itself, and at speed 5 you will hear it in a silent room, in the way you hear a laptop fan. If silence matters more than maximum airflow, speeds 1 to 3 are where you will live.

It is honest rather than flattering. Three hours is the low-speed figure and about an hour is what you get running it flat out, so the number depends entirely on how you use it. For the way most people actually use a neck fan — a commute, a walk, an hour in a hot kitchen, a match on a Saturday morning — that is comfortably enough, and it recharges from any USB port including a power bank in your pocket, which turns an all-day event into a non-issue. If you want it running continuously from morning to night without a top-up, this is not the product for that, and a second fan at the bundle price is cheaper than any fan that claims it.

The weight sits on your shoulders, not on your neck — the band curves round the back and the two housings rest at the front, which is the same load path as a pair of over-ear headphones at about the same weight. Most people stop noticing it within a few minutes. The soft rubber band flexes rather than clamping, so it does not grip, and there is nothing to tighten or adjust. If you wear a collared shirt it sits over the collar without pulling at it.

It moves air, and it moves it at the place where moving air does the most. It is not an air conditioner and there is no refrigeration in it — nothing this size and this price can chill air. What it does is push a steady stream over the sides of your neck, where major blood vessels run close to the surface under very little tissue, which is why a cold flannel on the neck works faster than one anywhere else and why this feels stronger than a handheld fan of similar power. In a genuinely humid room where sweat is not evaporating well, expect less — that applies to every fan ever made.

Write to us within 30 days of delivery and we refund the order. Thirty days covers a hot week or two, which is genuinely all it takes to know — either you find yourself grabbing it on the way out of the door or you don't. There is no form to fill in and no set of questions to get past; reply to any email from us. Orders are processed in 1 to 3 business days and ship tracked, so you can see where it is from the moment it leaves.