diff --git a/R/type_loess.R b/R/type_loess.R
index 3f751d31..b7d51af4 100644
--- a/R/type_loess.R
+++ b/R/type_loess.R
@@ -6,6 +6,9 @@
 #' @inheritParams stats::loess
 #' @param se logical. If `TRUE` (the default), confidence intervals are drawn.
 #' @param level the confidence level required if `se = TRUE`. Default is 0.95.
+#' @param locfit local. If `TRUE` the LOCFIT library is used to estimate the 
+#' local polynomial regression which is much faster. Note that `span` is reused
+#' for locfits `nn` option.
 #' @importFrom stats loess loess.control predict
 #' @examples
 #' # "loess" type convenience string
@@ -20,11 +23,21 @@ type_loess = function(
     family = "gaussian",
     control = loess.control(),
     se = TRUE,
-    level = 0.95
+    level = 0.95,
+    locfit = FALSE
     ) {
+    if (locfit == TRUE) {
+      pkg = "locfit"
+      if (!requireNamespace(pkg, quietly = TRUE)) {
+        msg = sprintf("Package '%s' is required by type_locfit(). Install with install.packages('%s').",
+                      pkg, pkg)
+        warning(msg, call. = FALSE)
+        stop(msg, call. = FALSE)
+      }
+    }
     out = list(
         draw = draw_ribbon(),
-        data = data_loess(span = span, degree = degree, family = family, control = control, se = se, level = level),
+        data = data_loess(span = span, degree = degree, family = family, control = control, se = se, level = level, locfit = locfit),
         name = if (isTRUE(se)) "ribbon" else "l"
     )
     class(out) = "tinyplot_type"
@@ -32,18 +45,29 @@ type_loess = function(
 }
 
 
-data_loess = function(span, degree, family, control, se, level, ...) {
+data_loess = function(span, degree, family, control, se, level, locfit, ...) {
     fun = function(datapoints, ...) {
         datapoints = split(datapoints, list(datapoints$facet, datapoints$by))
         datapoints = Filter(function(k) nrow(k) > 0, datapoints)
         datapoints = lapply(datapoints, function(dat) {
-            fit = loess(y ~ x, data = dat, span = span, degree = degree, family = family, control = control)
+            if (locfit == FALSE) {
+              fit = loess(y ~ x, data = dat, span = span, degree = degree, family = family, control = control)
+            }
+            else {
+              fit = locfit::locfit(y ~ locfit::lp(x, nn = span, deg = degree), data = dat, family = family)  
+            }
             if (se == TRUE) {
+              if (locfit == FALSE) {
                 p = predict(fit, newdata = dat, se = TRUE)
-                p = ci(p$fit, p$se.fit, conf.level = level, p$df)
-                dat$y = p$estimate
-                dat$ymax = p$conf.high
-                dat$ymin = p$conf.low
+              }
+              else {
+                p = predict(fit, newdata = dat, se.fit = TRUE)
+                p$df = Inf
+              }
+              p = ci(p$fit, p$se.fit, conf.level = level, p$df)
+              dat$y = p$estimate
+              dat$ymax = p$conf.high
+              dat$ymin = p$conf.low
             } else {
                 dat$y = predict(fit, dat)
             }