I bought 42 Saunas Here are the Best and Worst

People ask me this every week—what are the best saunas you’ve ever used, and which ones should people avoid? After testing more than 40 sauna brands over the past seven years, I finally put together a video that covers both. In this video, I walk through two of the worst sauna experiences I’ve had, and two that continue to blow me away. You’ll see exactly what matters when choosing a sauna, how heat coverage makes or breaks your session, and why build quality isn’t the only thing that counts. If you’re serious about finding the right sauna for your home, this will help you avoid the wrong ones and zero in on the good stuff.

Read the transcript below

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Transcript

We put out health and wellness content every single week, over 700 videos here on YouTube, tons of live streams in the Facebook group. We have it pulled up. We see all the questions every single week from you guys. People want to know, Matt, what are the two best and the two worst saunas that you’ve ever used in the last seven years or so that you’ve been doing this?

Some stand out, some not so much. Let’s talk about it. So let’s get into the two worst saunas that I’ve ever used. First, a couple of things come to mind.

It’s difficult to immediately. I’ve been in so many saunas over 40 sauna brands. Now it’s difficult for me to figure out like what’s the absolute worst because there’ve been a bunch that I don’t really like, but there’ve also been a bunch that are mediocre or kind of good, right?

But two that specifically stand out for me, number one, as far as a wooden sauna goes, has to be my sauna ray experience. The heater layout is severely lacking in that thing. So I sit in there and I wait for heat to build. It does eventually build inside the cabin, but there’s no infrared coverage in the right areas to really give me like that deep detoxicating sweat.

Um, I think this company stands for great things. They build saunas in North America. We’ve never really done like bad reviews on them or anything. At the same time, when I get out of that sauna, I’m kind of wondering where was my sauna session?

Like what happened? Yeah. I feel a little hot. I have a little surface sweat, but I don’t have any infrared penetration on my core.

My organs aren’t being hit. There’s no heat on my spine. It’s kind of like shoved into the corners at awkward height distances. My knees are on fire yet.

There’s no heat on the sides for my, for my core. So the sauna session itself, regardless of how well they’re built or what the company stands for really left me wanting like a sauna session when I just completed one. So that’s kind of, that’s a, that’s a hard pill to swallow because we’re using this in order.

to get heat therapy, but you do an hour in there and you don’t really have a heat therapy session. So that’s probably one of my least favorite experiences, not the worst built sauna per se, it’s built fine, just the heat delivery on it doesn’t work, it didn’t work for me.

Second on that list is, has to be, 100% my worst experience ever was with one of those sauna blankets. Specifically we had like a version one or version two higher dose sauna blanket, extremely popular, you see influencers that are paid to plaster them all over the place, even on the box.

There’s fancy pictures, it shows how the sauna is spread out on a nice comforter and there’s like your bedspread pillows and all this stuff and the girls laying on top of it enjoying herself. That’s completely insane. That is absolutely nuts to put a cadaver bag that you’re going to sweat in on top of your bed.

Because when you open it up, this nastiness is basically everywhere. You have to clean it up, like mop it up because it just sits in there like it’s disgusting. And then the weirdest thing to me is that parts of my skin that come into contact with the bag or my feet or whatever are literally on fire.

There’s no doubt that the cubic footage is so small that it can heat you up, but you’re literally laying like in a wrapped, I feel like I’m in a coil of an electric blanket or something. A little bit weird also to be like mummified. I feel like my arms were sort of, once you Velcro yourself in, I feel like my arms were sort of stuck inside.

And this just could be a bias for me. You have to take everything you see on the internet with a grain of salt. But for me, this is by far my worst sauna experience. I can’t film myself in these things.

So I had the guys film me. The crew was running the camera gear and stuff. And they were laughing the entire time because I’m not enjoying myself, nor am I getting what I would consider like a great sauna experience.

set a sweat session. Um, feedback from the company was, Oh Matt, you just need to wear a sweatsuit. I’m like, what do you mean to wear a sweatsuit? Like literally wear a sweatshirt and sweat pants and thick socks.

So I’m going to sweat into that. So now I have to wash that. I have to clean the sauna and I have to be careful of where I lay with this thing. You know, regardless if I like it or whatever, that is just not enjoyable for me.

It’s just wasn’t for me. I’ve never liked them since I’ve never, ever, ever suggested people get a sauna blanket in the last six years that I’ve been doing this. I know you can raise core temperature, but I also think that you’re not actually getting a infrared penetration in the body from some of them because they’re woven heat coils.

They’re not actually infrared emitters. They make it seem sexy online, but you get into this sucker and you’re like, uh, this, this is not what I thought it was going to be. So by far worse sauna experience would be one of them blankets. Now that you’ve heard me whine about stuff that I don’t like, let’s get into some stuff that I do like.

I’ve had some really great experiences over the years. I’ve tried more saunas probably than most people will ever have access to. Uh, this is why in some of the live streams, you know, we have questions or we in the Facebook group, somebody will paste a response from an email, you know, so-and-so’s salesperson, from this company said this, theirs is this way or that.

It’s like, well, yeah, but have they actually used those two? I mean, you’re never going to use both of them. If they haven’t used both of them, are both of you talking about something that exists nowhere in either one of your real world experiences? Because that’s what I’m hearing, right?

So let’s talk about stuff that I actually like. The Radian Health E2.5 is one of my favorite saunas in all of my sauna experiences because it delivers a sweat at a low temperature that is intense enough for me to get a great session. Even if I’m short on time.

or even if I’m uh you know all the things that when life happens and you can’t do your regular you know protocol and this that and the other that thing just delivers time after time but the reason why the 2.5 specifically is because it’s big inside it’s not so huge that you need like 240 volt electrical or something that usually you have to have an electrician run or this that and the other generally you can find an outlet in a basement in a garage in a room near the laundry room that’s 20 amp and not have to do any electrical upgrades but my point is it’s big enough for me to put my feet up and then I still get the heat coverage from the concealed heater in the bench so whether I’m laying flat have my legs up sitting indian style you know maybe I’m sore from a workout it offers or want a sauna with a spouse or something or whatever do a demo it offers the most flexibility in the smallest package that still heats like a high performing sauna so great experience with it over the years never had any trouble and I also love the way that it looks it looks like a decent piece of furniture in any room that I put it in and like I said been rock solid for me no crazy techno mumbo jumbo where like it won’t connect to the internet or any of that stupid stuff it has a delayed start right on the screen so if I want to go do a workout and then I want to jump in the sauna after I just come set it for the number of hours that I want it to come on you know after and then I just walk up and it’s ready the second thing that I’ve had a really eye-opening experience with is the heavenly heat mini eco it delivers a really strong sweat in a very short amount of time and I think the build quality most mini saunas that I’ve tried are very flimsy they’re very um short right like they usually have a door on the side where I have to literally turn sideways in order to squeak in and then I’m also crouching because I’m taller than the sauna itself and I’ve never really liked that yeah you can get a decent sweat in them but

They’re just not really built well. I feel like, you know, if I was trapped in a car and was trying to kick out the glass, I could easily bust the walls open on one of those minis. Uh, but when I unboxed the heavenly heat mini, I don’t know if you’ve seen the review on YouTube, but we have it up when, when Aaron and I unboxed that, he even said something to, I mean, he’s just running the camera and he’s like, that seems pretty heavy duty.

I said, come grab it. He grabbed a wall and he was like, Oh my God, you know, there’s a noticeable difference in quality and that carried through, through the entire experience to, it wasn’t just like how thick the walls are or how well it was built. It was damn, this thing heats up fast.

I could be short on time. Just turn it on, go make my drink, come back, get in it, get a sauna session in with, I don’t want to say zero preheat, but as close as possible from every single thing that I’ve ever tried. Right. And I get it.

It’s not for everybody. If you look at me in there, you know, I’m, I’m not sitting like this, but there’s no room for me to go left or right or to turn or to do anything. I’m a bigger person and that’s just what it is. But that also contributes to amazing performance, a small package that we put in a closet, right?

These are all like standout things where I’m not just thinking about myself. I had one of the best experiences that I’ve had in a sauna in that, especially being short on time, and I’m just thinking, man, this is, this is great. If I moved to an apartment for a period of time, or if I had to switch cities, cities, like living in a different place for a career, um, whatever, you know, all those circumstances we face in life, there are so many instances where this is the best choice for something like that.

And it was a standout for me. I think it would be a standout for you. Um, if you haven’t seen these products before, we’ll put links in the description, one is the heavenly heat eco. They also have a one person that I’ve tried as well.

Uh, that works great. Obviously it’s not that small. Obviously it’s not completely zero preheat. Uh, you know, some of the many features are unique specifically to that model because the cubic footage is small, but.

Really cool packages check them out. See what you think. I think you guys will love some of those and then don’t take the bad reviews as Like look at what you can learn from them when I when I say like the my worst sauna experiences It’s not about those brands.

It’s just about how those products deliver a lack of right It’s really a lack of heat there That said those have got to be some of the best saunas that I’ve ever used and some of the worst saunas that I’ve ever Used if you like this video we put out content on health and wellness every single week.

We’ll see in the next one