It’s a Fan, It’s a White-Noise Machine. But Is the Snooz Breez Worth the Price?
The allure of a two-in-one device is strong, especially when space is limited. But products that promise too much sometimes end up being not very good at anything in particular. The Snooz Breez 2 combines a personal fan and a white-noise machine in a single good-looking package. But can the $200 gadget out-fan and out-white-noise our top picks in either category? I tested it to find out.
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The Breez has one fan for white noise and another for airflow
Many people sleep with a fan on primarily for the white noise it provides, with the airflow an added benefit for those who run hot. For people who like the sound of a fan but don’t actually want airflow, the go-to is a white-noise machine — often a mechanical one like the Yogalseep Dohm, which uses an internal fan to generate white noise but doesn’t actually blow air out. The Breez mashes these two ideas together: It looks and functions like a tabletop fan that uses propeller blades to move air through a room, but it also has a separate white-noise fan that makes noise without noticeable airflow.
The air fan and the white-noise fan operate independently, letting you control how much noise and how much airflow you want. Each component has ten levels, so you could turn the white noise all the way up to level ten, but have the fan running at level two. Or you can just run one at a time if you onlywant white noise or onlywant the fan on.
(Note that while the 2 in the Breez 2’s product name denotes the “newest” version of the Breez fan, functionally it’s almost exactly like the original. Earlier this year, Snooz issued a voluntary recall of the original due to a safety concern with the power connector, so the Breez 2 is updated to correct that issue. I had been testing the original Breez for about six months when the recall was announced, and the brand ultimately replaced it with the Breez 2.)
The Breez looks nice, does both of its jobs pretty well, and is easy to use
I was primarily interested in trying the Breez because my husband loves to sleep with a box fan on. He runs warm, so he likes the extra airflow, but he mostly prefers the white-noise sound it makes. I’m not a huge fan of the box fan because I tend to get cold at night, and I don’t love how it looks or how much floor space it takes up. The Breez is a nice compromise that’s smaller, gives us more control over both airflow and white noise, and is much more aesthetically pleasing.
The Breez is about the same size as most desk fans, like the Strategist-favorite Honeywell. It fits on our dresser and could even be placed on a nightstand, depending how much surface area you have.
Because the white-noise and fan functions are entirely separate and you can adjust them independently, the Breez is more versatile than a traditional fan. You can customize how much airflow and how much noise you want, whereas with the box fan, you have to turn the fan up higher to get more noise. While I didn’t always mind my husband running the box fan in the summer, I usually made him put it away in the winter, because I would simply get too chilly. The Breez can live on our dresser year-round because we can run the fan at full blast in the summer, at a lower level in the fall, and turn it off completely in the winter, but still have consistent white noise.
The fan itself does produce its own noise, as fans generally do, so if you have the white noise and fan running on the highest settings, the Breez can get pretty loud. But the sounds the fans produce are slightly different. Using them in tandem creates a nice blend of masking noise. And the fan alone is definitely quieter than a box fan. The white noise has a similar sound quality to the Yogasleep Dohm, though you can’t alter the sound range on the Breez the same way; with the Dohm, twisting the cap changes how much air is escaping and creates a lighter, airier white noise or a lower, humlike white noise. With the Breez, the white noise has a consistent tone — an ambient whirring hum that’s reminiscent of airplane background noise — that can only be made louder or quieter.
The Breez also has an app, which you can use to create a schedule, set timers, or simply control the fan and white-noise settings from bed, as you would with a remote. I played around with the app to test it out, but truthfully, I don’t really use it and it’s not required to use the device — you never even have to download it if you don’t want to, because there’s a control panel on the front of the Breez to turn it on and adjust the fan and white-noise levels to your liking. The one app setting that seems especially worthwhile is the Auto Temp feature, which you can set so the fan turns on if your room reaches a certain temperature. But on the whole, I prefer the simpler, app-free approach.
The fan is powerful but basic, so think of the Breez as a (pricey) white-nose machine with extra oomph
Of course, you can achieve the same effect as the Breez by simply using both a white-noise machine and a fan. And one of the biggest drawbacks of the Breez is that it lacks the features of some fancier fans: It doesn’t oscillate and only swivels up and down, not side to side. If you really need to cool down your bedroom, there’s a limit to how much it can do. But the fan is fairly powerful at its highest setting, and due to its smaller size, it’s easier to point it right where you want — especially helpful for couples who prefer different temperatures.
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Then there’s the price of nearly $200, which is a lot of money to spend on saving some space and only having to plug in one thing instead of two. You could just as easily buy a mechanical white-noise machine for about $50 and add a $20 fan to go with it. But if your bedroom is small, you’re willing to splash out on a nicer-looking option, and you appreciate the high level of control over both the white-noise and fan levels, the Breez is a nifty two-in-one device.
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