If you are in the market for a quiet fan that is large enough to cool an entire room, then the Vornado 660 has been a top choice for a number of years. I bought one for my home and have been using it for some time. Here are my thoughts about this excellent cooling fan.
Short Version
The Vornado 660 is a great whole room fan. It’s good looking, quiet, and powerful. It’s missing a remote and it only has 5 fan speeds, but overall it’s quite good.
You can buy it from Amazon for about $100, from Home Depot, or from Bed Bath and Beyond for about the same price.
Vornado 660 Basics
The 660 is a “whole room circulator” which is Vornado’s way of saying that the fan is designed to move air around the entire room, creating a circulation effect. This circulation should move cool air around the entire room, making it feel breezy and fresh, not warm and stale, the way a room with no air movement might feel.
You can aim a fan like this at yourself for direct cooling or you can aim it into one of the ceiling corners in order to maximum room circulation.
The 660 is the largest fan size Vornado makes — it’s 15 inches tall, has blade about 10 inches in diameter, and the fan weighs about 8 pounds. It’s consider a “Large” where almost all Vornado fans are sold in Personal, Small, Medium, and Large sizes.
Using The 660 Fan
The Vornado 660, at about $100, is one of the premier whole room fans sold in 2021. The model has been around for some time and it’s seen changes over the years, but it’s remained quite good at its job.
When on the lowest setting the 660 is whisper quiet and can move around a noticeable volume of air. This setting will me mainly reserved for sleeping and working — it can cool a person.
If you want to cool an entire room you want to move up to setting 2, where the fan is clearly audible, but it’ll start to move air around the room. Settings 2 and 3 are good for light air circulation, and can give a room a nice, fresh feel. I use these in the summer to make a room feel cooler and in the in winter to move warm air from my baseboard heaters to other parts of the room. It makes a noticeable difference.
The top settings, 4 and 5, are rather loud (though not deafening and not high pitched) but most serious quantities of air. These are generally for cooling very large rooms, pushing hot out outside or cold air inside, during a party or other time when your home feels stifling. These settings are louder than I like for day to day use, but this much power and air flow — the fan is very strong and focused — does come with a cost.
The 660 fan does have some quirks, for instance the plug is quite long, so using a per outlet behind a dresser or bed can be a problem. Also, there are only 5 fan speeds, so getting the fan exactly at the power level you want. If you want this feature you need to spend another $50 on the Vornado 723DC.
The 660 is not particularly easy to clean and old school standing fans with easy to open metal grills still are the best for that.
Missing Features
$100 is not cheap for a fan so it’s worth understanding that the Vornado 660 fan is very good at being a fan, but it’s limited what it can do.
- The 660 has no remote
- The 660 has no stand, so it must be placed a table, desk, or the floor,
- The 660 has no sleep timer, so you must turn it off manually
- The 660 does not oscillate (turn side to side on its own)
Alternatives To the Vornado 660
If you want a big, powerful fan but you the 660 isn’t exactly your cup of tea, there are many alternatives. Some of the most popular options are:
- Vornado 783 – Essentially the same fan as the 660, but on a stand
- Vornado 660 AE – This same fan but with Alexa smart features
- Vornado 293HD – Another large Vornado, with a heavy duty, garage-friendly build
Verdict
Ultimately, having owned a number of Vornado, Honeywell, and Dyson fans (plus others), the Vornado 660 remains one of my favorite fans and a great general use fan to have around your home. This is a product that I get year-round use out of and expect to last for years and years. My only real wish for it is that is had the fully adjustable speeds of the 723DC, the high efficiency version of the 660.