Clearlight Vs. Sun Stream: Which UK Infrared Saunas Are Better?

Whilst we outline the differences and facts as clearly as possible, we feel the responsibility to advise on the fact that we’re working for Clearlight. This should be obvious, given the blog is hosted on the Clearlight website. Nonetheless, we wanted to be fully 100% transparent on this topic as a team.

So in this blog post, we answer the question: “Which infrared sauna - full-spectrum infrared saunas or otherwise - is better, Clearlight^® or Sun Stream?”‍

Let us be clear:

Sun Stream and Clearlight® Saunas are currently the two most prestigious brands in the infrared sauna space. Both companies offer: 

• a full range of premium-quality infrared saunas.
• excellent service and lifetime warranty, although only one company offers a lifetime warranty on the sauna wood as well
• various add-ons - but the add-ons of one of these companies are superior
• extremely low “electro-magnetic fields” (EMFs) exposure

For that reason, we decided to create a comparison.

Step by step, you’ll learn why Clearlight® Saunas is the best infrared sauna in the UK. 

So whether it’s the sauna heaters or add-ons, better warranty, and more promising therapeutic potential, Clearlight^® Saunas offers the highest-quality saunas on the market currently.

Let’s find out why that conclusion holds:

DISCLAIMER:
Before we dive in, we want to be honest that we’re part of the Clearlight Saunas team for non-US regions. We nevertheless aim to be as transparent and objective as possible in my analysis of these different saunas. We believe Clearlight is the superior sauna based on these facts and analysis.

Let us explain where we’re coming from:
Over the last 10 years, different individuals in our company used, tested and designed various infrared saunas. In this process, we have worked extensively on deepening our understanding of infrared saunas, infrared technology and their excellent health benefits. In this process, we have continued to improve and pioneer Clearlight Saunas towards becoming the leading infrared sauna company in the world. Clearlight has also been in business for 25 years.

Let’s begin our comparison of both companies thought:

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Facts Overview

In this section, we’ll give you two examples of similar models that Clearlight and Sun Stream offer.

First, we’ll start with a 2-person far infrared sauna model. That comparison uses the 2-Person Clearlight^® Essential Far Infrared Sauna and the Evolve 20 far infrared from Sun Stream:

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So what’s the difference between these infrared saunas?

First, the Essential sauna has the best heater profile because a full-spectrum heater can be added to the front of the sauna. That full-spectrum heater not only adds near-infrared and mid-infrared to your exposure but also adds 500 Watts of energy, bringing the total to 2,250W of power.

Also, Clearlight uses combined carbon and ceramic heaters. In this True Wave^® technology, the carbon provides the healing far infrared wavelengths while the carbon provides a higher infrared output with shorter wavelengths. The True Wave® is exclusive within the infrared sauna industry.

Secondly, the therapeutic add-on options for the Clearlight^®  Saunas are far more extensive. With Clearlight, you can expand the therapeutic repertoire with salt therapy, red light therapy that can be used simultaneously with your sauna during your sessions, and an additional full-spectrum heater. 

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The Sun Stream Evolve 20 has many standard add-ons such as a sauna hat and towel, a movable bench, backrests, and an aromatherapy cup that Clearlight doesn’t offer. The difference here is that Sun Stream targets a different customer. Even though both companies offer premium products, the therapeutic offerings of Clearlight  are more high-end. The goal of Clearlight^® Addons is improving the sauna’s therapeutic benefits. Nevertheless, the price of the Evolve 20 and Essential - 2 Person are comparable.

To better demonstrate our point about the difference in targeting the luxury and high-end of the infrared sauna market, we’ll compare two other saunas. That comparison uses the 3-Person Clearlight^® Sanctuary Full Spectrum Sauna and the Sun Stream Evolve 30. 

The Sun Stream Evolve 30 is far more affordable but offers fewer premium options, such as add-ons and a less luxurious wood type.

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So let’s explain the Clearlight^® Sanctuary 3-Person Full Spectrum Sauna and Sun Stream Evolve 30 saunas comparison in more detail. Comparing both options is difficult because they’re entirely different products. It’s like comparing a BMW car with a Bentley - both are high-end cars but target a very different level of luxury. 

Even though both are high-end options, the average Bentley price is 2-4X times that of a BMW car. But, within high-end options, the Bentley has better specifications and a more luxurious feel. Bently also takes more prestigious care of their customers. And, in this case, the Clearlight option also offers the best therapeutic value.

The same is true for the Clearlight^® Sanctuary 3-Person Full Spectrum Sauna that arguably uses the best sauna wood on the market: Western red cedar. That cedar wood explains the 2X+ higher price for a Clearlight® Sanctuary 3-Person Full Spectrum Sauna and two 500W full-spectrum heaters not included in the Sun Stream Evolve 30. 

The Clearlight is also more spacious, further adding to the luxurious experience. And, last but not least, the Clearlight offers better therapeutic value, either as a standalone or with add-ons.

‍Hence, the products are incomparable because both options target a different market segment.‍

Let’s explore Sun Stream’s product in more detail now, though:

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Sun Stream’s Products

Sun Stream specialises in infrared saunas in the same way Clearlight does. Sun Stream does offer other products technically unrelated to infrared saunas, such as their Rojo red light therapy panels. 

Sun Stream also promotes third-party red light therapy panels from PlatinumLED but is shifting their business towards offering self-produced panels. These red light therapy panels will be used before or after sauna sessions but not inside a sauna with the current design.

Sun Stream only offers one sauna range, the Evolve series. That Evolve series only offers far infrared saunas, not full-spectrum types. Let’s explore that Evolve series in more detail:

Sun Stream’s Evolve Series

As mentioned, Sun Stream targets the lower-end of the luxury consumer market with their UK infrared saunas. Evidence for this thesis exists for several reasons, which we’ll consider point by point.

First, all Sun Stream Evolve series saunas are paired with a lifetime warranty for residential purposes. In that regard, Sun Stream and Clearlight both offer a lifetime warranty. However, that warranty doesn’t extend to the sauna wood for Sun Stream while it does for Clearlight.

Secondly, the Sun Stream Evolve series has low EMF emissions. Claims of companies' low EMF and ELF levels aren’t always valid, even though they appear in the case of Sun Stream.

Thirdly, Sun Stream offers great heater panel placement that doesn’t target the head of the individual. Heating the head isn’t recommended as it’s the weakest link of the human body and doing so prevents you from increasing what is called your “core body temperature” maximally. 

So if sauna companies allow their heaters to target your head, you can’t stay in an infrared sauna as long and because of this you will sweat less and get fewer results. Sun Stream also has optimal heater panel placement.

Fourthly, Sun Stream doesn’t offer a portable infrared sauna as their budget model. That Evolve Mini has dimensions of 83 centimetres wide, 89 deep, and 169 high. We’ll come back to that topic later.

Fifthly, no wood choices are available for the UK market for Sun Stream saunas. All Sun Stream saunas are made from hemlock. No particle board has been used anywhere in their saunas, though, which isn’t valid for all competitors on the UK market. Particle board made from plywood (that you may or may not see) is a technique many infrared sauna manufacturers use to limit their costs.

Lastly, all Sun Stream saunas are equipped with LED chromotherapy, a panel to adjust the infrared intensity (if you cannot stand full-powered exposure due to poor health or health conditions), minimal toxin exposure due to the use of human-grade consumable glues, and in-built Bluetooth audio.

Next up, let’s consider the price of Sun Stream saunas:

Sun Stream Infrared Sauna Price

Sun Stream infrared sauna prices range from the mid-£2K range to the mid-4£K pound range. That difference in prices is explained entirely by sauna size.

Worth mentioning here is that all Value Added Tax (VAT) are included. Shipping to UK mainland is also free. So, whenever you buy a Sun Stream sauna on mainland UK, you’re always paying mid-£2K to mid-4£K for the full price except if you add the red light therapy add-on.

And with that data, let’s explore now the Clearlight Versus Sun Stream battle for the best luxurious infrared sauna UK:

Six Reasons Why The Clearlight Vs. Sun Stream Competition Is Won By The Former

As stated before, both Clearlight and Sun Stream target customers who want luxury infrared saunas with incredible therapeutic benefits. Clearlight^® Saunas targets higher-end luxury, though and Sun Stream, the lower end of the luxury market. Below we will give you six reasons, however, why Clearlight^® offers the best infrared saunas on the UK market currently:

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1. Premium Sauna Wood Offerings

Clearlight^® Infrared Saunas UK currently offers many different wood types. You can opt for Eco-Certified Grade “A” Nordic Spruce by choosing from the Essential Collection. Alternatively, you can opt for the Western red cedar used in the Clearlight® Sanctuary Full Spectrum Sauna and Clearlight® Sanctuary Outdoor Full Spectrum Sauna. Or, you can use our DIY service and choose other wood types such as Lindenwood and Eucalyptus.

The Western red cedar gives rise to an olfactory, visual, and kinesthetic sensation unmatched by any other offering on the infrared sauna market. And while that choice for a much more luxurious wood type more than doubles the cost of an infrared sauna, it also crafts an unforgettable sauna experience. 

If you want the best sauna, not only from the perspective of therapeutics but also from a sensory perspective, Clearlight clearly offers the better option here. Once again, both brands offer premium saunas but the comparison here is more akin to the difference between a BMW and a Bentley.

Next up, from a therapeutic point of view, differences exist too:

2. Full-Spectrum Heating Therapy And In-Sauna Red Light Therapy

One benefit of Sun Stream is that they offer 360-degree heating, which most infrared sauna companies don’t offer. Clearlight  goes one step further, though, in four regards:

• Offering full-spectrum infrared saunas by adding 500W heaters at the front of the sauna. These full-spectrum heaters emit equal portions near, middle and far-infrared to the front of your body.
• A better general heater panel experience using True Wave® heater technology. The patented True Wave® technology combines carbon and ceramic heaters for a better infrared exposure pattern. That way, we ensure you’re exposed to roughly 33% near-infrared, 33% middle-infrared and 33% far infrared.
• Better overall therapeutic exposure because full-spectrum heaters added to a Clearlight  dramatically increase the total Wattage, meaning that you’re exposed to more infrared heat. More infrared heat equals higher temperatures, more sweating and better therapeutic effects.
• The option to add red light therapy inside a sauna with the Red Light Therapy Tower. You can then benefit from a far infrared sauna and red light therapy simultaneously. More than 7,000 studies have been published on the benefits of red light therapy today. Hence, red light therapy is a welcomed addition to the sauna experience. The Sun Stream saunas only allow you to use red light therapy when not using the sauna, taking more time out of your day.
  
  

Don’t get us wrong, though - you can use red light therapy outside your sauna with a Clearlight^® Red Light Therapy Tower as well. But, with Sun Stream, usage outside the sauna is your only option.

And there’s more:

3. The Best Lifetime Warranty

If you look at Sun Stream’s lifetime residential warranty agreement, you’ll find that almost every component of its infrared saunas is covered by it. The downside here is that the most expensive component of infrared saunas, the wood, isn’t covered by the lifetime residential warranty. For the wood cabinet of the sauna, only the following is insured:

“the cabinet for major deformations or breakage due to manufacturers defects”

So, if damage occurs later that are non-manufacturers defects, the buyer is responsible. With Clearlight^® Infrared Saunas, all components are covered by the lifetime residential warranty, including the sauna wood. 

Also, Sun Stream doesn’t cover potential labour costs for replacing defective parts such as electronics or heaters. Clearlight offers seven years of warranty on even the labour costs for replacing defective parts, should that happen in any rare case.

Lastly, the water-resistant cover of Clearlight comes with a 1-year warranty. That cover is only used to protect outdoor infrared saunas against the elements and is technically not part of the sauna itself. So for all intents and purposes, Clearlight^® Saunas comes with a full warranty on the entire infrared sauna for residential purposes and even a 7-year warranty on the labour costs for replacement.

Overall, Clearlight^® Saunas thus offers a full lifetime warranty while Sun Stream only offers a lifetime warranty on most of the sauna but excluding the woods.

Next up:

4. Unique Add-Ons

Add-ons can make or break a product. And Sun Stream has very decent add-ons that are automatically added to any infrared sauna order - to their credit. You’re getting a sauna hat to protect your head and hair, a towel, an aromatherapy cup, backrests, a movable bench, and chromotherapy.

And, sure, these add-ons are nice, but they simply do not stack up to the offerings of Clearlight^®. With a Clearlight^® Infrared sauna, you can add a Red Light Therapy Tower, True Wave full-spectrum heater, HaloOne® Salt Therapy, Vibration Resonance Therapy, and an ergonomic backrest.

With a HaloOne® Salt Therapy device, you release salt into the air. That salt then enters your airways and has therapeutic effects. Studies show that salt therapy cleans your airways, lowers inflammation, improves breathing, potentially enhances athletic performance, boosts the immune system, and more.

Vibrational Resonance Therapy (VRT) adds an acoustic component to your saunas. VRT adds even more relaxation to an already profoundly relaxing experience. That way, Clearlight add-ons add holistic stimulation to all of your senses which are affected synergistically.

Taken together, these Clearlight  add-ons are unique, and any other competitors do not offer most of these. Not only do you thus have more options to customise your infrared sauna order, you can also add tremendous therapeutic benefits through red light therapy or salt therapy.

And, for many customers in the infrared sauna market, the therapeutic benefit is vital. And that maximum therapeutic benefit is what separates Clearlight from its competitors. 

Moving on:

5. Offering A Portable Sauna Option

Both Sun Stream and Clearlight offer infrared saunas at a lower price point for people who cannot afford the most premium options or don’t want to. Sunstream sells the Evolve Mini sauna and Clearlight Saunas offers the Clearlight® Dome.

So let’s explore that Evolve Mini. The benefit of that sauna model is that you can sit in it. The downside compared to the Clearlight® Dome is that the Evolve Mini isn’t storable. So, Sun Stream doesn’t offer any portable sauna option for people that doesn’t take up much space.

The benefit of the Clearlight® Dome is that it’s very easily storable. While storability won’t matter to everyone, in this case, the Dome allows you to use a world-class infrared sauna even though you might be living in a tiny apartment in London or Belfast, for instance. 

The Dome can be stored in a 90 centimetres wide, 80-long, and 50-deep space. You can store that portable sauna in a large closet or a storage room. That way, you can use an infrared sauna in a tiny apartment without it taking up too much space.

The Clearlight® Dome also has an excellent therapeutic profile. That Dome is used in clinical research where a maximum increase in the “core body temperature” of study participants is warranted. So, even though the Dome has been designed as a small, easily-storable unit, it’s incredibly effective.

And, last but not least:

6. Focus On Sustainability

Even though it’s not true for many sauna companies, sustainability and ecological footprint play a significant role for Clearlight. For instance, we use Eco-Certified Grade “A” Nordic Spruce in our Essential Collection of far infrared saunas. And the Sanctuary and Outdoor Collections use Eco-Certified Grade “A” Clear Western Red Canadian Cedar for maximum sustainability. 

Other sustainability goals are becoming carbon neutral by 2031, protecting wildlife, planting trees in India, and more. Clearlight^® Saunas is arguably the infrared company most focused on sustainability.

Next up, let’s discuss prices:

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Clearlight^®  Infrared Saunas Prices

So let’s consider the prices of a Clearlight^® Infrared Sauna. All prices include VAT and shipping on the mainland of the UK.

Our Essential and Sauna Dome models start at a little over £3,000. At most, the Sanctuary Corner - 4 people costs around £12,000. Add-ons may increase the price a little bit, depending on your choices.

The size of the cabin and the wood type are the main determining factors for the price of a Clearlight^®  Infrared Sauna.

Obviously, as Sun Stream doesn’t offer a lifetime warranty and especially the premium wood options that Clearlight offers, the prices are different too. For instance, here are some comparisons:

• When comparing the 2-person Essential Clearlight^® far infrared sauna to the Sun Stream Evolve 20, Clearlight’s^® 2-person model costs a little over £4K. For Sun Stream that price is around £4,000. The Sun Stream is slightly cheaper here but offers fewer therapeutic upgrades and poorer warranty. With a full-spectrum heater, the 2-person Essential Clearlight^® is more expensive but also offers better therapeutic value, a larger size, and a better warranty.
• The minimalist Evolve Mini from Sun Stream costs around £2,500. The Clearlight^® Dome costs a little over £3K. Only the latter offers a portable model that’s easily storable in a small apartment and that you can take with you easily.
• The Sanctuary Full Spectrum Infrared Cedar saunas start at the mid-£7K range for a 1-person model and go as high as the low-£12K range for the biggest 4-person model. The biggest infrared sauna Sun Stream offers is priced in the mid £4K range. But, these products are fundamentally different as the Sanctuary models are made from sustainable Wester red cedar and the Sun Steam model from Hemlock. The Clearlight^® Sauna is also bigger, offers better therapeutic exposure, more add-ons, and has a much better warranty that includes the wood. So here we’re comparing apples and oranges.

So, for the non-cedar wood options, Clearlight prices are roughly comparable to that of Sun Stream. The cedar wood options are far more expensive but are also a luxury offering that Sun Stream cannot match, currently. And, Clearlight has a much better add-on profile.

Lastly, let’s consider how both companies market themselves:

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The Online Presence Of Sun Stream And Clearlight

Both Sun Stream and Clearlight^® Saunsa have an extensive online presence. Both companies have comprehensive websites with blogs read widely in the natural health and wellness space.

Also, neither Sun Stream or Clearlight^® Saunas don’t offer a traditional online shop. Instead, customer service experts guide the sale process in both cases. 

This method is used because you’ll want each customer to find the best product that matches their needs. With an extensive product range and different add-on options, the amount of information can be overwhelming if you don’t have a deep understanding of infrared saunas.

The website of Clearlight^® Saunas also offers lots of information. The infrared sauna blog, for instance, is exceptionally heavily referenced with the latest science on saunas while still being readable. 

And, you can read about the infrared sauna health benefits and download an eBook on how to get the most out of your infrared sauna sessions.

Both companies also have an all-round presence on social media, such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Clearlight^® Saunas also has been running a podcast called the “TheSaunaShow” for a few years.

Both companies also offer direct customer care through a local team in the UK. Sun Stream has a dedicated UK phone number and e-mail address. Clearlight^® Saunas offers that same experience as well, but adds a personalised sales contact for each potential customer on top of that. That sales contact guides you through the entire process of evaluation, planning, and the potential sale of an infrared sauna.

Overall, Clearlight^® Saunas offers a feeling of luxury and a premium sauna experience. The Sun Stream website is more down to earth and focuses more on the functionality of saunas.

And with that being said, let’s conclude:

Conclusion: What You Need To Know

In this blog post we answered the question: “Which infrared sauna - full-spectrum infrared saunas or otherwise - is better, Clearlight^® Saunas or Sun Stream?” The answer is that Clearlight^® Saunas offers more luxurious and overall better saunas because of better wood choices, warranty conditions, and therapeutic options such as addons.

And while both companies target the premium segment of the infrared sauna market, Sun Stream is more focused on the lower end, while Clearlight^® Saunas aims for the high-end of the UK market. Also, for maximum therapeutic potential, the Clearlight  option is also best, especially if you take potential add-ons into account. So if you want the very best infrared sauna UK, we recommend Clearlight^® Saunas.