Free Online Player
Household Fan
Household Fan is a room fan running at a constant speed — a solid low body with open midrange air above it, and no blade rhythm you can pick out. It sits between the dark table fan and the airy ceiling fan, which makes it the most generally useful of the three.
Ready to play
Stack this under rain or a fire, keep the blend, and play it with your screen off. Slo, on iOS, Android and Mac.
The middle of the three fans
The low end is strong, but unlike the table fan the mids are not stripped away: the region from a few hundred hertz up to about 4 kHz stays present and roughly level, which is what gives the recording its sense of moving air rather than motor hum. There is a modest stereo spread — enough to sound like a room, not enough to spread overhead the way the ceiling fan does.
The level holds steady across the loop with no periodic swell, so there is nothing to count. Among the three fans this is the one that behaves most like a broadband masker.
Why people pick a fan over a noise generator
A fan recording carries small irregularities that a generated signal does not, and for many listeners the familiarity matters more than the spectrum. A steady background may make sudden room noise less noticeable for some people, though research on continuous sound for sleep is limited and results vary — use the lowest comfortable volume and stop if it distracts you. The guide to fan sounds for sleep goes into this in more depth.
The other two are the darker metal table fan and the wider ceiling fan; compare all three from the sound library index. To deepen the low end, open the household fan and brown noise blend in the free sound mixer.
Frequently asked questions
Which of the three fan sounds should I choose?
This one for a balanced, general-purpose fan; the metal table fan for a darker, narrower hum; the ceiling fan for a wide, airy wash overhead.
Can you hear the blades?
No. Unlike the ceiling fan, this recording has no periodic swell you can pick out.
Is it stereo?
Yes, modestly. The channels differ enough to suggest a room without spreading the fan overhead.
How long is the loop?
About 32 seconds, repeated continuously.