Levoit Classic Pro Smart Tower Fan review: A 42in tower of cooling power

The Levoit Classic Pro Smart Tower Fan stands tall – 42 inches tall to be precise – as one of the biggest and mightiest tower fans around. Levoit claims maximum air speeds of up to 7.9m/sec, along with Quiet Mark accreditation thanks to an energy-efficient DC motor. What’s more, it’s also a smart fan, with fully automatic modes and scheduling and controls through a smartphone app.

With all this for under £100 you might be expecting some compromises somewhere, but does the Classic Pro Smart Tower Fan live up to its billing? I’ve spent a few hot summer days testing it to find out.

Levoit Classic Pro Smart Tower Fan review: What do you get for the money?

The Pro Smart is a 42-inch tower fan that will set you back £100. The body is made up of a mix of matte and gloss black plastics, with a large but basic LCD display on the front of the column and a touch-sensitive control panel on the top.

It ships ready for business, bar a two-part circular stand that needs to be assembled and locked into place at the bottom of the column using a threaded shaft and ring. It’s powered by a compact 36W wall wart power supply, and comes complete with a remote control. The remote is a decent wand-style effort, and slots neatly into a compartment at the rear of the tower.

It has to be said that while it looks quite expensive and commanding, the plastics don’t have the premium feel I might expect from a £100 fan. Notably, the column wobbles on its stand if you move it around, or even when you use the touch sensitive controls. However, it doesn’t wobble while the fan’s in action, even when it’s oscillating, and both the remote and touch controls are perfectly intuitive. I’d like to see plus and minus speed controls on the panel, rather than cycling through the speeds with a single button, but otherwise I don’t have any serious complaints.

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Levoit Classic Pro Smart Tower Fan review: What features and settings does it have?

The Classic Pro Smart Tower Fan has a strong set of features, including 12 speed settings, Turbo, Auto and Advanced Sleep modes, and a simple timer. It also features adjustable louvres to direct the airflow by up to 30 degrees up or downwards, while the column itself can oscillate left and right through 90 degrees.

The Auto mode sets the fan speed according to the current temperature, keeping things nice and quiet when it’s not too hot. The Turbo mode adds some extra grunt at the expense of added noise, while switching oscillation on. Finally, the Advanced Sleep mode reduces the fan speed while turning off the display, but can still increase or decrease the fan speed as the room temperature ebbs and rises. The timer can’t switch the fan on from standby, but it can turn it off automatically after a period of one to 12 hours.

You can also use the fan through the VeSync smartphone app, which scores high for being easy to set up, with none of the connection issues I’ve seen on some other smart appliances. It’s also very slick and fully-featured. All modes are available and there’s a nifty slider to control the fan speed, and you can also schedule the fan to turn on and off, with specific settings for mode, oscillation, display and speed. You can even set up different schedules for individual days of the week.

Levoit Classic Pro Smart Tower Fan review: How well does it perform?

I couldn’t get near Levoit’s stated air speeds but measuring at a distance of 1m, I still recorded some of the fastest I’ve had from a tower fan. It beat Levoit’s own 36-inch tower fan and the VonHaus 40-inch tower fan. On its maximum 12 setting, it went all the way up to 3.4m/sec, and I measured 3.5m/sec in Turbo mode, though this took some time to measure due to the pesky oscillation.

At this speed, we’re a long way from Quiet Mark territory, and I measured noise levels of up to 54.6dB. However, you can turn it down and still get plenty of airflow. At setting 6 I could still get 2.4m/sec, with more manageable noise levels of 36.7dB. Even on the lowest settings you can have air speeds of 1.5 to 1.9m/sec, with noise levels as low as 29.8dB. What’s more, the noise that is produced is more of a low and consistent hum than a pulsing, high-pitched whine. That makes it a whole lot easier to doze through.

It’s energy efficient too. I measured energy consumption at a low 2.8W on the lowest speed setting and a still reasonable 22.4W at max speed. Compare that to the 36.6W for the VonHaus 40in and 43.1W for the Princess Smart Compact Tower, and this fan really won’t cost you a fortune to run.

Levoit Classic Pro Smart Tower Fan review: Is there anything we didn’t like?

Aside from wobble and speed control, not much. In fact, I found this fan a pleasure to use, especially if I just left it on the Auto setting and had it running low for an easy breeze to help keep me cool while I worked.

Levoit Classic Pro Smart Tower Fan review: Should you buy it?

Yes. It’s too tall to ignore and not especially good looking, but the Classic Pro Smart Tower Fan can push a lot of air across a wide area, without taking up too much space. The Automatic and Advanced Sleep modes work better than the Natural and Sleep modes on many rival tower fans and the Smart features are actually useful rather than a gimmick. True, it’s one of the most expensive tower fans I’ve looked at recently, but it’s well worth paying a little extra for.