Sun Home Eclipse vs Clearlight Sanctuary: Best Infrared Sauna 2026

Last reviewed: August 3, 2026 · Prices, specifications, and warranty language checked against both manufacturers' live pages on August 3, 2026 · Next scheduled review: February 2027

Editorial transparency: This comparison is published by Sun Home Saunas, so we have a financial interest in the outcome. To keep it useful anyway, this article compares one exact configuration against another, labels every figure by its source, applies the same evidentiary standard to both brands, publishes the scoring weights and group scores with their limitations, and excludes anecdotal customer-review claims from the verdict entirely. Clearlight is a legacy, long-established brand in the category, and several rows below favor its configuration; we say so plainly. An earlier version of this page misstated the Eclipse's wood and maximum temperature, both brands' warranty terms, and the CORE Tower's mounting design; all of those are corrected here, and the changes are itemized in "What We Could Not Verify and What We Corrected."

Short Answer

Choose the Sun Home Eclipse if you want dual red-light towers permanently integrated into a new sauna — included at one publicly listed price rather than purchased separately. Choose the Clearlight Sanctuary 2 plus CORE Tower if you prioritize removable use, multiple mounting options, published irradiance at four inches, and stronger published labor coverage per Clearlight's service portal, subject to final written terms. We did not identify matched optical or clinical testing proving that either system produces better therapeutic outcomes in the sources reviewed through August 3, 2026. The final value and electrical comparison remains provisional until Clearlight's complete configured price and circuit requirement are documented.

Our practical verdict: choose the Eclipse for dual built-in towers, integrated design, and an all-in-one installation with red light included at one transparent price. Choose the Sanctuary plus CORE Tower for modularity, door-mount flexibility, and currently published irradiance data.

The Exact Configurations Compared

This comparison is configuration-to-configuration: the Sun Home Eclipse 2-Person versus the Clearlight Sanctuary 2 plus CORE Tower. Larger builds (Eclipse 4-Person, Sanctuary 3/5) are covered separately below. The two cabins have nearly identical exterior footprints — 51.5" × 47.2" versus 51.75" × 47.75" — which makes the differences in red-light architecture, electrical requirements, weight, and warranty unusually clean to compare. Every row carries a source marker; manufacturer-published means it appears on that brand's current product or policy page, and a documentation advantage means one side publishes a figure the other does not — it is not proof of better real-world performance under matched testing.

Supporting configuration specs, all from the current product pages [1], [9], [11]: the Eclipse 2-Person measures 51.5" × 47.2" × 76.7" outside, weighs 600 lbs, and pairs six far-infrared heaters with two full-spectrum heaters behind a dark-tinted full-glass front, with Magne-Seal™ tool-free assembly. The Sanctuary 2 measures 51.75" × 47.75" × 77" outside, weighs 450 lbs, and pairs two 500 W "True Wave" full-spectrum front heaters (a brand-coined heater name) with carbon/ceramic far-infrared heaters on the back wall, side walls, calf area, and under the floor, in double-wall tongue-and-groove construction with an 8mm glass front. The CORE Tower is 38" × 5" × 4", 15 lbs, 200 W, with mounting hardware for Clearlight saunas included and a five-year device warranty.

Total Configured Price

Omitting price would hide the most practical difference between these configurations, so here is what can be published today. Where a current price cannot be published, the table says "quote required" rather than excluding the row.

Prices change with promotions; both figures above carry their check date. Clearlight sells the CORE in mount-specific bundles from $1,599 (sauna mount included) to $1,994 (floor stand) on its store, and its sauna pricing is provided by quotation.

Red Light, Measured Properly

Rated electrical wattage and delivered light dose are not interchangeable measurements. A meaningful red-light comparison requires irradiance at a stated distance, treatment distance, coverage area, beam angle, treatment time, energy dose in J/cm², and — where it exists — independent optical testing. Panel wattage tells you how much electricity the device draws, not how much light reaches your skin. On that standard, here is what each system actually publishes today:

Because the Eclipse does not currently publish irradiance at distance and neither system publishes dose or independent optical testing, this article makes no claim that either system delivers a stronger therapeutic dose or greater clinical effectiveness. We did not identify a public head-to-head clinical study or matched optical test comparing these two systems in the sources reviewed through August 3, 2026. The available information supports a comparison of architecture, published wavelengths, controls, irradiance documentation, coverage, price, and convenience — not clinical superiority.

Weighted Scorecard and Methodology

An earlier version of this page declared a winner across seventeen dimensions without showing weights or scores. Here is the scoring we actually used, with the weights published first, the group scores second, and the caveats attached. Scores are 1–10 editorial assessments assigned by the Sun Home editorial team; groups marked subjective reflect design judgment, groups marked documented are anchored to published figures. Evidence quality is described in each row and does not inflate a score. No dimension is awarded on rated panel wattage alone.

The scorecard is provisional because Clearlight does not publish the Sanctuary 2's configured price and the complete electrical requirement after adding the CORE Tower is not published on the pages reviewed. Price-transparency and electrical-installation scores should not determine an aggregate winner until those figures are documented. For that reason, the group-level results are more reliable than the weighted totals, and this guide does not declare an aggregate winner.

Read the results honestly: the provisional total leans Eclipse and the documented-only total leans Clearlight, which is exactly why no aggregate winner is declared. The group-level picture is the reliable one — the Clearlight configuration wins red-light documentation and warranty-on-paper, the Eclipse wins heating documentation, integration, and design, and the electrical and price groups stay open until Clearlight's configured quote and CORE-equipped circuit requirement are in hand. That split is why the verdict at the top is fit-based rather than a crown.

The Differences in Detail

Integrated vs. modular: what the CORE Tower actually is

The Eclipse builds its red light therapy in at the factory: dual towers — 360 LEDs, described by Sun Home as medical-grade, delivering 1,800 W across two 900 W panels of 660nm red light and 850nm near-infrared per Sun Home's specification (see the wavelength note in the limitations section) — recessed into the cabin, controlled through the cabin's system and the native Sun Home app, covered under the sauna's warranty, with no equipment occupying the cabin space [1].

Clearlight's CORE Tower is modular rather than permanently integrated. Per Clearlight's current product pages, it can be mounted inside compatible Clearlight saunas — including on the sauna door — attached to a wall mount or floor stand, or used separately outside the sauna with the included wall adapter; sauna mounting hardware ships in the box, and the tower plugs into a socket arrangement in the sauna via an IEC C14 cord [10], [11]. This preserves flexibility and can avoid consuming bench or floor space, although it does not create the same built-in dual-tower appearance as the Eclipse. Two practical notes from Clearlight's own documentation: adding the CORE Tower changes the sauna's electrical needs (Clearlight publishes a conversion chart), and the tower carries its own five-year device warranty separate from the sauna's coverage. The fair summary: the Eclipse's advantage is integrated appearance and dual built-in towers at one price; the Clearlight configuration's advantage is modularity, removable use, and multiple mounting options.

Heat and temperature, at their published scope

The Eclipse publishes a manufacturer maximum of 165°F with six far-infrared plus two full-spectrum heaters and a Canadian red cedar interior [1]. The Sanctuary 2 publishes its heater layout — two 500 W full-spectrum front heaters plus far-infrared panels on the back, sides, calves, and floor — but no model maximum temperature; Clearlight's warranty-page FAQ describes its saunas operating effectively at 115–125°F [9], [12]. This is a documentation advantage for the Eclipse, not a matched-test result: no model-specific independent temperature test was identified for either cabin, and actual comparative heat performance under identical conditions is not established. Sun Home's closest independent heat data point is Garage Gym Reviews' test of a different model, the Luminar 5-Person, which reached approximately 160°F within 10 minutes [6] — useful brand context, not an Eclipse measurement.

EMF and VOC evidence, applied at its actual scope

Sun Home publishes brand-level Vitatech EMF ranges — report VTE-3534 (January 2025): 0.6–4.0 mG at one foot, 0.4–1.8 mG at two feet, and 0.3–0.9 mG at three feet under the reported test conditions — but the public summary does not establish a separate model-specific result for the Eclipse [3]. Sun Home's VOC result comes from one tested cabin and one sampling event: an April 2, 2026 VERT Environmental cabin-air sample (Project #66958) analyzed by AIHA-accredited LA Testing under EPA Method TO-15, measuring 27 µg/m³ TVOC, characterized as "Low" [4]. Clearlight also publicizes low-EMF/ELF engineering, including a manufacturer-stated "under 1 mG" heater claim on its warranty page, and references older third-party EMF documentation whose applicability to the current Sanctuary 2 was not established on the pages we reviewed; no current named-lab report with date and method was identified there [12]. A fair comparison identifies the exact models tested, test dates, measurement distances, operating conditions, and whether current products are materially identical to the tested configurations; on that standard, Sun Home's documentation is more current and more specific, and neither brand's public summary is model-certified for these exact cabins.

Warranty, as actually written

Sun Home and Clearlight publish different warranty structures, and neither should be summarized as simply "full service" or "parts only." For qualifying Sun Home purchases made on or after March 2, 2026, replacement parts, labor, and shipping are included for the first 90 days, after which the customer is responsible for labor and shipping costs; the Eclipse sits in Sun Home's limited lifetime residential tier, under which cabinetry and heater coverage extends up to 7 years per its published terms, with ancillary components (LED lighting, glass, audio) at 1 year — full terms on the Sun Home warranty page [5]. Clearlight publishes a limited lifetime residential warranty described as covering the entire sauna — heaters, controls, electrical, wood, and audio — with 5-year commercial coverage, and its online service portal currently lists seven years of labor coverage for indoor residential saunas; because Clearlight's public warranty pages are not fully consistent on labor, buyers should confirm the final terms in the warranty document supplied with their exact configuration [12], [13].

The Eclipse's cabin and red-light system share one warranty path while the Sanctuary-plus-tower configuration has two — but one warranty path is an administrative convenience, not automatically broader coverage, so compare the red-light component terms directly:

Electrical and installation

The Eclipse 2-Person is 120V but draws 23.5A, so it requires a dedicated 30A circuit with a NEMA L5-30P twist-lock receptacle — typically an electrician visit. The Sanctuary 2's base cabin runs on a standard-format dedicated 120V/20A outlet (2,260 W, 18.83A, NEMA 5-20P) [9] — but this comparison is against the complete configuration, and Clearlight's own documentation states that wiring the CORE Tower into the sauna changes the electrical requirements per its conversion chart, which was not published on the pages we reviewed [11]. Until that converted requirement is documented, no electrical advantage is finalized for the complete configurations; buyers should request the CORE-equipped circuit specification with their Sanctuary quote. Circuit basics for any sauna: our electrical requirements guide.

Apps, controls, and customer experience — what we scored and what we didn't

Both configurations publish app control: the native Sun Home app (remote preheat, scheduling, guided breathwork library) on the Eclipse, Pod, and Luminar, and Clearlight's digital keypad paired with a tablet/smartphone app on the Sanctuary line [9]. We did not test the two apps side by side, so app reliability is not scored. This revision also removes anecdotal customer-review claims — delivery timelines, app complaints — from the comparison entirely, because we did not audit both companies' review platforms with a symmetric method (same platforms, date range, sample size, and classification). Both brands maintain public BBB profiles (Sun Home, Clearlight) and Clearlight a Trustpilot page; read recent reviews on both, with equal skepticism, before purchase. Independent hands-on coverage of the Eclipse specifically: the David Maus Jr. video review.

Larger configurations

The Eclipse 4-Person ( $13,599 as checked) keeps the same integrated dual-tower red-light package and red cedar interior on a 240V / 30A NEMA L6-30P circuit [2]. Clearlight's Sanctuary 3 and 5 are quote-priced full-spectrum cabins to which the same $1,599–$1,999 CORE Tower adds; the mounting, electrical-conversion, and separate-warranty considerations above carry over unchanged. The configuration logic does not change with size: integrated single-purchase versus modular two-purchase.

What We Could Not Verify and What We Corrected

• Corrected in this revision: the Eclipse's interior wood (Canadian red cedar, not hemlock), its maximum temperature (165°F manufacturer-published, not 170°F), both brands' warranty descriptions, and the CORE Tower's mounting design (modular with in-sauna, door, wall, stand, and standalone options — not a floor-consuming unit by necessity).
• An Eclipse irradiance-at-distance figure; none was identified on the current product page, so no dose superiority claim is made in either direction.
• A published maximum temperature for the Sanctuary 2; the 115–125°F figure comes from Clearlight's general warranty-page FAQ, not a model spec.
• Sun Home's product-page elements currently show wavelength-notation variance for the Eclipse red light system (660nm in Sun Home's specification, with one spec-table element displaying 650nm); until those materials are standardized, this comparison assigns no advantage based on the difference between the published red wavelengths.
• A configured Sanctuary 2 price; Clearlight prices by quotation, so the tables report "quote required" with the tower's dated store price, and the price-transparency scoring group is provisional as a result.
• The complete electrical requirement for the Sanctuary 2 with the CORE Tower wired in; Clearlight references a conversion chart that was not published on the pages reviewed, so the electrical group is provisional and no electrical advantage is finalized.
• The warranty term specific to the Eclipse's red-light towers, which are not separately itemized on Sun Home's current warranty page; confirm the classification before purchase.
• Clearlight's labor-coverage terms end-to-end: the service portal's seven-year indoor labor listing was not reconciled with the warranty overview page, which is silent on labor; confirm final written terms with the configuration quote.
• The scope and current applicability of the older third-party EMF documentation Clearlight references, and any Eclipse-specific EMF measurement; Sun Home's Vitatech summary is brand-level.
• Any head-to-head clinical trial or matched optical test between the two systems; no such test was identified during this review.
• A symmetric customer-review audit of both brands; anecdotal review claims are therefore excluded from the scoring.

FAQs

Which is better: the Sun Home Eclipse or the Clearlight Sanctuary 2 with CORE Tower?

It depends on the architecture you want. The Eclipse is better for buyers who want dual red light towers — not a single unit — factory-integrated into a new sauna, with the red light system included at one transparent price ( $10,599 as checked) rather than purchased separately, and one warranty path. The Sanctuary 2 plus CORE Tower is better for buyers who want a modular panel that mounts inside the sauna, on the door, or on a stand, can be used separately, and currently publishes irradiance data. Our provisional scorecard is effectively a split decision — 6.45 vs. 6.35 including price-transparency assumptions, and 6.35 vs. 6.76 on the documented-only groups — so no aggregate winner is declared; buy by fit.

Is the Clearlight CORE Tower freestanding, or does it mount in the sauna?

Both, per Clearlight's current product pages. The 38-inch CORE Tower ships with sauna mounting hardware and can be attached inside compatible Clearlight saunas — including on the door — mounted to a wall or floor stand, or used separately outside the sauna with the included wall adapter. It is a modular device, not a unit that necessarily consumes bench or floor space.

What red light wavelengths do the two systems use?

The Eclipse's system is published at 660nm red light plus 850nm near-infrared per Sun Home's specification, with one Sun Home page element currently displaying 650nm pending standardization; Clearlight publishes 650nm and 850nm for the CORE Tower. Both products combine visible red light with 850nm near-infrared. This article does not infer equivalent dose or clinical effects from wavelength alone, and no advantage is assigned on the red-wavelength difference.

Which delivers a stronger red light dose?

Neither claim can be made on current public data. Clearlight publishes approximately 55–110 mW/cm² at four inches for the CORE Tower; Sun Home does not currently publish an Eclipse irradiance figure, and neither brand publishes energy dose in J/cm² or independent optical testing. Rated wattage (1,800 W vs. 200 W) measures electricity drawn, not light delivered to skin, and no matched clinical or optical test was identified during this review.

What are the real warranty differences?

For qualifying Sun Home orders on or after March 2, 2026, parts, labor, and shipping are covered for the first 90 days; after that, covered parts claims carry customer-paid labor and shipping, with Eclipse cabinetry and heaters covered up to 7 years under the limited lifetime tier's published terms. The Eclipse's red-light towers are not separately itemized on the warranty page, so confirm their classification in writing. Clearlight publishes limited lifetime residential coverage of the sauna, its service portal currently lists seven years of indoor labor coverage — though its public pages are not fully consistent, so confirm final written terms with your quote — and the CORE Tower carries a separate five-year device warranty.

What are the electrical requirements?

Eclipse 2-Person: 120V at 23.5A on a dedicated 30A circuit with a NEMA L5-30P twist-lock — plan for an electrician. Sanctuary 2 base cabin: a dedicated 120V/20A outlet (2,260 W, NEMA 5-20P). Wiring the CORE Tower into the sauna changes the requirement per Clearlight's conversion chart, which was not published on the pages we reviewed — request the CORE-equipped circuit specification with your quote. The Eclipse 4-Person moves to 240V on a NEMA L6-30P.

How much does each configuration cost?

The Eclipse 2-Person was $10,599 and the 4-Person $13,599 as checked on August 3, 2026, with red light therapy included. Clearlight quotes Sanctuary pricing individually; the CORE Tower was $1,599 on sale ($1,999 list, with mount-specific bundles up to $1,994) as checked the same day. Compare the quoted Sanctuary total plus tower against the Eclipse's all-in price.

Do both saunas have app control?

Yes, per each brand's current pages: the Eclipse uses the native Sun Home app (remote preheat, scheduling, guided breathwork; also on the Pod and Luminar — the Equinox and Solstice use a digital panel instead), and the Sanctuary 2 pairs its digital keypad with a tablet/smartphone app. This article did not test the two apps side by side.

Bottom Line

Corrected end to end, this comparison comes down to architecture and documentation rather than a knockout. The Eclipse's case is integration: dual built-in red and near-infrared towers included at one publicly listed $10,599 price, one warranty path, a published 165°F maximum, and a red cedar, glass-fronted cabin with no equipment in the space. The Clearlight configuration's case is modularity and current red-light documentation: door-and-interior mounting, standalone use, published irradiance at distance, and labor coverage that reads stronger on paper pending the final written document. The scorecard declares no aggregate winner — 6.45 to 6.35 on the provisional weights, 6.35 to 6.76 with the quote-gated price group excluded — because the price and complete electrical comparisons stay open until Clearlight's configured quote and CORE-equipped circuit requirement are documented. Buy the architecture that fits how you will actually use it, get the Clearlight quote so the price comparison is real, and verify the current written warranty, wavelength, and circuit specifications with each manufacturer before ordering.

Sources

1. Sun Home Eclipse 2-Person product page (price, red cedar, heaters, red light towers, 165°F, electrical)
2. Sun Home storefront listing (Eclipse 4-Person current pricing, checked August 3, 2026)
3. Sun Home safety and testing hub (Vitatech report VTE-3534, brand-level EMF ranges)
4. Sun Home VOC testing report (VERT Environmental / LA Testing, April 2, 2026, single-cabin scope)
5. Sun Home warranty terms (90-day labor and shipping window for qualifying orders on or after March 2, 2026; model coverage tiers)
6. Garage Gym Reviews — Sun Home Luminar 5-Person long-form test (brand context; not an Eclipse measurement)
7. David Maus Jr. — Sun Home Eclipse video review
8. Sun Home electrical requirements guide
9. Clearlight Sanctuary 2 product page (dimensions, weight, heaters, 120V/2,260W/18.83A/NEMA 5-20P, app control, wood options)
10. Clearlight Red Light Therapy Towers page (CORE mounting options including sauna and door attachment; included hardware; five-year warranty)
11. Clearlight CORE Tower store page (price $1,599 sale / $1,999 list; 55–110 mW/cm² at 4"; 200 W; 38" × 5" × 4"; mount bundles; electrical-conversion disclaimer)
12. Clearlight warranty page (limited lifetime residential description; 5-year commercial; operating-temperature and EMF statements)
13. Clearlight online service portal (labor-coverage listing referenced in this comparison; confirm final written terms)
14. Sun Home Saunas BBB profile
15. Clearlight (Sauna Works) BBB profile
16. Clearlight Trustpilot page