The Ultimate Fan for Silence and Power
(Rowenta VU5870U2)

Of Towers and Noise...

The fan I had was a 'vintage' one from the 90's I got as a kid which I kept all these years, the ones branded "Super" (a private label for Taiwanese manufacturers, that eventually got retired once Canadian Tire and others axed their contracts and electrical safety testing became a requirement). Many good nights having that fan on playing AOE1... "habadagus, sunks, erectus, rogan?"

I also did try getting a vintage McGraw box fan awhile back which you can watch here; in my opinion it's just a little bit too aggressive and obviously its lowest setting is like the fastest on any normal fan. Even worse, it really does need some bearing maintenance but I just don't have the tools for it, so it was sold to a 'collectibles' place that will have better use than I will.

I wanted a taller one for my living room that could be avoided by my Robot vacuum as this was simply a desk fan. I started looking at the basics: tower fans, the Dyson fans, and everything else in between. People said the Dyson fans didn't push much air and had a rather noisy motor (since it's essentially a vacuum), and for $700 that's a miserable prospect. Eventually I decided to try my luck on a Honeywell HYF290BCM1, because supposedly they did not have any motor noises and my Honeywell HEPA filters are pleasant to listen to for white noise. Oh dear... it had one of the loudest humming motors in a fan I've ever heard (perhaps the motor hum reverberated more than normal in my living room?), far more than my 90's "Super" fan, and worse, it pushed less air than the Super fan... the base was also incredibly unstable and flimsy. Back to Amazon it goes...

Back to Square One

At this point it became clear tower fans are horrible for both noise and airflow; radial fans are most likely going to be more optimal. I was close to just opting for a Honeywell "TurboForce" instead but decided to actually find a fan that was both quiet and powerful, surely someone made a fan that at the very least did not make any hum or annoying noises from the motors which was my biggest complaint?

After cursory searches and investigation "Rowenta" kept coming up again and again. Well... off to Canadian tire to pick up one of these things.

Wow. What a game changer, not only does the motor not make any noise, at speed 1 you can't even hear the fan while still feeling the breeze it produces! Speed 2 is still infinitely more silent than any other fan on the market I've used (and honestly, it pushes more air than the noisy Honeywell with a very direct 'breeze'). As you go into the higher speeds all you end up hearing is just the wind, and still never the fan or fan motor itself.

I honestly didn't think such a fan could even exist, one that can still silently push air entirely at its lowest setting. It's truly a miracle of modern engineering, but also optimisation (see, there's a very specific set of variables of what makes a 'good' appliance fan in terms of both noise and that 'breeze' like wind which feels nice).

Ideal 'Appliance' Fan Specifications

This got me interested in studying 'why' the Rowenta VU5870U2 was so quiet but pushed so much air, and also why it had such nice a breezy feeling to it. The first thing you'll notice is that it actually has 5 blades that have a rather 'scooped' design rather than a scimitar style design which you see in 'performance' case fans. And most other appliance fans you'll notice have 3 blades, which is your red flag right there.

It comes down to weighing all of these attributes:

• 5 blades increase the aerodynamic drag which means a more powerful motor and balanced blade is required (*ding ding ding* this is why the majority of fans you see are 3 bladed), but 5 blades also decreases the noise because the blade doesn't have to spin as fast.
• Because appliance fans by law require to be enclosed in a grill, they cannot be open like PC case fans or performance fans, which means a 'scimitar' style fan design would actually fail to operate with high levels of static pressure on the blades. But also, scimitar blades don't push air out like a 'breeze' like a scooped blade (which obviously less efficient, its application is appropriate for an appliance fan)
• Increasing beyond 5 blades doesn't give a 'scooped' style blade enough time and so it introduces aerodynamic interference (this is solved by scimitar blades but once again, they can't operate under static pressure from the grill 'cage' and also don't push air out like a breeze)

So it's really fascinating... the only combination that solves all of the issues of grill static pressure, 'breeze' style air, and noise, always comes back to specifically and only, 5 blades. But it also explains why you never see Noctua-styled scimitar blades in appliance fans. Who knew.

Rowenta isn't even actually primarily a fan manufacturer as much as appliances as a whole, they just happened to-- out of the blue-- align all of those variables and design the best fan (since they're a European brand it could explain why they're more focused on designing better fans: Rowenta started out as a German company). If you were wondering "VU5670U2" is the older model and slightly noisier (they optimised the latest white ones even more). Oh... it's good. I don't think I can ever go back to 'traditional' fans. My cousin was so shocked as I was, he even purchased one.

It does mean I scrutinise fan blades a lot more now though whenever I see fans, 3 bladed fans are always going to be noisier and/or had to make a compromise somewhere.