Balmuda has brought its NatureWind Studio pedestal fan to the US, asking $429 for a machine whose main trick is moving air without sounding or feeling like a small appliance trying too hard.
According to WIRED reviewer Kat Merck, the Tokyo-based company’s new US fan is unusually quiet, carefully built and good at producing a soft, room-filling breeze. It is also expensive, awkward to place and missing conveniences that cheaper fans now treat as table stakes. WIRED rated it 7 out of 10.
The NatureWind Studio is sold in black and white. Balmuda is better known in Japan, where it sells minimalist appliances including coffee makers, toasters, clocks, speakers and griddles. The fan is new to the US as of early June, though WIRED said the same basic model has been sold in Japan since 2010 under the GreenFan Studio name.
The mechanism is the pitch
Balmuda’s claim is that the fan imitates outdoor wind rather than blasting a narrow stream of air. The company uses a patented dual-blade design: an inner blade turns more slowly while an outer blade moves faster, combining two flows into a gentler output.
Merck found that this produced a steady, broad breeze rather than the speed-up, slow-down “nature mode” used by many fans. She described the airflow as gentle enough to avoid flapping book pages while still being noticeable across a room.
Balmuda rates the NatureWind Studio at 9 decibels on its lowest setting. WIRED could not verify that figure because the reviewer’s home was louder than the claimed fan noise, but Merck reported that the fan was inaudible in an otherwise quiet room. On the highest setting, called Jet Mode, WIRED measured airflow at 925 feet per minute with an anemometer and said the sound level was only a bit above 50 decibels.
That output is respectable for a design-focused home fan, according to WIRED, but it trails stronger air circulators. Merck compared it with Vornado’s EOS 9, a $150 fan that WIRED said can move more than 1,400 feet per minute and is better suited to open layouts or high ceilings.
The hardware is polished, the controls are bare
The fan arrives in more pieces than a typical pedestal model. WIRED said assembly took about 20 minutes and required attaching the blades, putting together the guard and fitting the tripod legs. The upside is that the fan can be taken apart for cleaning, a practical detail many pedestal fans ignore.
Merck said several parts, including the blade and motor housing, are metal and feel precisely made. The fan also has a 10-foot fabric-wrapped cord, plus a hook on the rear stalk to manage slack.
The tripod is less convenient. WIRED said the design keeps the fan stable, but it takes up about 3 square feet of floor space. Merck reported that the fan could not be tucked between furniture as easily as tower or pedestal fans, and it ended up sitting in the middle of her living room during testing.
The missing remote was the bigger complaint. The NatureWind Studio has no app, no smart-home features, no adjustable height, no rechargeable battery and no vertical oscillation. It does oscillate side to side and includes small LEDs for speed and timer settings of one, two, three and four hours, but the controls require walking over to the fan.
WIRED also compared Balmuda’s price with cheaper and more feature-heavy options. Dreo’s $160 TurboPoly 765S offers a smaller footprint, a remote, vertical oscillation, height adjustment and Matter support. Vornado’s $209 VFan and $290 Ara carry five-year warranties, compared with Balmuda’s two-year warranty, though WIRED found them louder with rougher airflow.
Against Dyson’s Cool AM07, WIRED found a more mixed contest. Dyson’s $400 bladeless fan has a recognizable shape and may be safer around small children and pets, but Merck said it is louder at 31 decibels on low and produces narrower airflow. Her verdict was that Balmuda makes the nicer breeze, while the price and lack of basic controls keep it from being an easy recommendation.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
