The best outdoor infrared saunas

This is the outdoor infrared cabin we'd buy, on value. £3,171 buys a Canadian hemlock cabin for three with carbon fibre infrared panels drawing 3.5kW, a range up to 65°C and a 1 to 99 minute timer. It has an onboard panel and app control, Bluetooth speakers, three LED reading lights and an oxygen ioniser.

It's less than half the price of the 3-person Eclipse, and the gap shows in two places. The panels are carbon fibre rather than full spectrum, and the outside is timber that needs periodic protection, with the seller's notes warning of slower heat-ups below 5°C and on windy plots. It's hard-wired on a 16A supply rather than plugged in.

The warranty is 2 years on the timber structure and 1 year on the heaters and electronics. Delivery is kerbside and free to most postcodes, and at 2.3m it stands 30cm taller than the Eclipse.

The Eclipse is built for the garden rather than adapted to it: a black aluminium shell around a cedar interior, so there's no outside timber to oil or watch turn grey. Six full-spectrum heaters totalling 3.3kW warm you directly while the air settles at 40 to 65°C, with mood lighting and Bluetooth speakers built in.

It's £6,499.99, down from £9,499.99, and it connects with a 32A commando plug, so the electrician fits a socket on its own circuit rather than wiring a heater into the cabin. At 1.3m by 1.1m it takes the least ground of anything on this page, and it weighs 228kg.

Polar gives a 2-year warranty and a 90-day money-back guarantee, and its own team delivers free across the UK. It's sold on pre-order with no date on the listing, so it isn't the one if you need it this month.

The EIR2020 is the one outdoor infrared cabin here that plugs into a standard 13A domestic socket. Six 300W wall-mounted heaters draw 1.8kW in total, inside spruce-lined walls of triple-insulated panels with rockwool and a foil layer, under 21mm ThermoWood cladding and a gable roof with felt shingles.

The cabin is listed at £3,150, but the bench kit (£191) and controls (£300) are required, so the real starting price is £3,641. It's 1.75m square and 2.41m tall, the biggest footprint for two or three people here, and the door is bronze reflective double glazing.

Oceanic gives 5 years on the timber and designs it for a competent tradesperson to put up, with no fitting service listed. The page doesn't state a top temperature, and 1.8kW is the least heater power on this page, so ask Oceanic what air temperature to expect.

The Eclipse 3 is the same aluminium-and-cedar build stretched to 1.5m wide and 1.4m deep, with eight full-spectrum heaters drawing 4.6kW and room for three to sit side by side. It's £7,999.99, down from £10,999.99, and still runs from a 32A commando plug at 40 to 65°C.

For bigger households the Eclipse 5 is £10,999.99, with nine heaters at 5.1kW on a 2.2m by 1.3m footprint and the same 32A plug. Per seat the 5 Person works out cheaper, about £2,200 against £2,667, so if three is normal and five happens, the bigger cabin is the better buy.

Both weigh more than the 2-person model, 281kg and 374kg. Both are sold on pre-order with free UK delivery, a 2-year warranty and a 90-day money-back guarantee.

The Sanctuary Outdoor 2 wraps an okoume interior in a Gray Cedartec exterior, with two 500W full-spectrum heaters at the front and carbon-ceramic far infrared heaters in the back wall, side walls, under the bench and under the floor. It draws 2,380W as supplied and connects with a 16A commando plug on a 1.8m cord.

Clearlight shows no price on the page and asks you to request one; its UK store listing carries £11,999, nearly twice the Eclipse 2. What the money buys is cover: a limited lifetime warranty on the interior, which Clearlight describes as 25 years of residential cover, and 5 years on the exterior cabin.

It isn't fully weatherproof. Clearlight says to keep it under the supplied cover or a weatherproof shelter when it's not in use for the warranty to hold, and delivery with installation is free in its mainland zones 1 and 2.

This CenturaHeat cube carries both kinds of heat: a 6kW traditional stove for hot sessions with steam, and ten infrared panels totalling 3.5kW for gentler ones. The range runs from 18 to 99°C, and the 2m by 1.8m cabin seats up to six.

At £5,569 it's cheaper than the 3-person Eclipse and seats twice as many. The catch is wiring: the stove and the infrared panels each need their own hard-wired connection, 32A for the stove and 16A for the panels, and the stove runs on its own dials rather than the cabin's panel, app or Bluetooth.

The warranty is 1 year on the electrics and 2 years on the wood, and the timber must be treated or painted before it goes outside. It's the one to look at if one person in the house wants infrared and another wants a proper sauna.