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278 of 281 people found the following review helpful.
smart, sleek and rather the work horse
By F.Y.I.
My family and I moved from Southern California (where we slept with the windows open almost year round for wonderful, well rested sleep) to Phoenix, Arizona (where the humidity hovers at most to 15% in my house according to my hygrometer.) After a month (and before we got the humidifier), my kids (3 and 1) were utterly suffering. During the night, they were choking and hacking, wheezing and just plugged up. I was no different. Needless to say, our sleep was seriously affected. I knew it was the air situation. After 3 nights of researching the dissimilar types of humidifiers, I at last settled on buying two Air O Swiss 7144 units (one for each kid's room). Although it was expensive, I buy things for the long haul and figured better to spend up front then have difficultnesses with for less models down the road. I have since turned it on utterly each single night for them and the divergence is short of miraculous. Here are some points:
1- a full tank lasts two nights running at 8 hours a night with the windows closed and the door almost shut (about an inch ajar at most)
2- tank is not difficult to fill. I use one 3 gallon water bottle
(normally applied for my drinking water dispense) to altogether fill up both humidifier units
3- to maximize space and therefore get the most water into the humidifier, I got rid of the demineralization cartridge and use only reverse osmosis drinking water for my unit. I have had ZERO WHITE DUST. The R.O. water is purified sufficient that there are no remaining solid homogeneous inorgani substances to be churned out as white dust. This trick likewise saves me from having to replace the cartridge. (BTW, our tap water is VERY hard so I didn't want to use it even with the demineralization cartridge because why make the machine work harder than it has to?) R.O. water is perfective and again, NO WHITE DUST AT ALL!!!!
4- It's so quiet, it's ridiculous. I LOVE that.
5- The warm mist feature is perfect. It does not raise the temperature of the room so it's never like a sauna. The air leaving the machine even at warm mist feels more or less cool (and the original night I kept checking in on the kids to make sure I wasn't freezing them) but the unit in truth heats the water to 104 degrees which is just the right temp at sustaining room temp (no moist saunas!!) and/or preventing steam burn to your finger in case a curious little one chooses to wave his/her hand in the mist.
6- I've religiously applied the units each night for the last 3 months with perfectly no problem.
7- The buttons don't light up or construct distracting glows. Important for me because I wanted the kids' rooms to stay comparatively dark as that's what they're employed to.
8- There is no leaking or condensation on the unit. The mist is so fine that it evaporates before it touches the little folding dinner tray table that I have each unit placed on. The carpet beneath doesn't feel soggy or anything. It veritably develops an ultrafine mist that dissipates almost immediately.
9- I may adjust the flow and humidity to my liking (to get 2 nights' worth of output from one tank, I set it on warm mist at the lowest air flow at 55% humidity)
10- It mechanically shuts off when it runs out of water. There is a blinking light that gives evidence of that the machine is on "On" but there's no water. I commonly press the off button the after the second night's use. If I forget to press off and fill the tank up on the third night, I noticed that since the machine is technically "on" (even altho there's no sound or motion indicating that), as soon as I put the filled tank back on the unit, it without delay starts working on the settings I last set it on.
11- I have yet to use the cool mist (since it's still winter) but I read that it actually helps to maintain (at the very least) or somewhat lower the room temp which is commodious in summer months.
All in all, I love this machine. By the way, on a few occasions when my older child necessitated me to sleep next to him until he fell back asleep (usually a nightmare woke him up), I noticed within 10-15 minutes that my breathing was VERY dissimilar in his room where the unit had been running for assorted hours into the night. No clogged sinuses or difficult inhalation. Once he was appropriately tucked in and I would go back to my room, within 5-10 minutes, my breathing would get adversely affected. That's how arid the air is in our house. So, that's why after 3 months of enjoying how well it's worked in the kids' rooms, my husband and I are looking forward to our own good sleep after just purchasing our 3rd machine.
195 of 201 people found the following review helpful.
The Engineer in me had a fight with the Consumer in me over this one. Read the review to find out who won.
By Alan P.
I searched long and hard to find a humidifier that would meet my needs. Unfortunately, I couldn't find one, so this is what I ended up with. Kind of harsh to begin out with, I know, but I'm just being honest. I wanted a humidifer, initial and foremost that was quiet, so I started looking at Ultrasonic Humidifiers. Ultrasonic humidifers are illfamed for emitting a white dust as they work which is genuinely dissolved solid homogeneous inorgani substances in the water. I did not see this as an issue as I will be using RO (Reverse Osmosis) water to fill it. Next, a Humidistat. Suprisingly few humidifers genuinely come with humidistats, even amidst the higher priced units. A unit with a humidistat will control the the humidity level of a room by perpetually measuring the humidity and turning the unit on or off based upon the preset user selectable setting, much like a thermostat does for heating and cooling. Many units plainly have Low Medium and High settings, or a good deal of variation thereof which makes it difficlult to control the humidity level with any precision.
I chose the 7144 for a few reasons, the Primary of which were the features talked with regards to above combined with the minimal footprint and refined and tasteful innovative look. The unit is somewhat quiet, though even when not working the fan runs. A fan is applied to propel the mist into the room making for a more effective introduction of moisture to the environment, nonetheless when the unit is at rest and not calling for humidity, I see no reason this fan needs to be running. This is both a waste issue as it is using energy and a noise issue as, even though the unit is somewhat quiet, the fan may still be heard when it is running.
The Water tank is undersized for the the unit. This humidifer is capable of outputting a generous amount of moisture, nonetheless if left to run at greatest or most complete or best possible output at continuous interval the tank will need to be refilled regarding each 8 hours. The tank is likewise awkward to handle and difficult to refill. While the tank conforms nicely to the asthetics of the unit, once removed, it has an odd shape to it which makes it difficult to refill. One can't merely place it beneath the sink and leave it to fill, it requires galore kind of shim, or assistance to keep it from tilting over, or even to keep the opening close sufficient to the edge of the sink in order to reach the faucet. I have win a victory over this issue by refilling it in the Kitchen sink and using a funnel to reach the faucet.
The last issue I have with the water tank is that it is a bit messy to remove. It is totally unlikely to remove this tank without dripping water all over the floor. When installed in the unit, the base of the tank genuinely sits in a pool of water making it wet. Once removed, the wet tank drips everyplace unless it is wiped down immediatly, or a great deal of such.
I've given the unit 3 stars for its' graceful look, beautiful fine mist, humidistat, and quiet operation, and dropped the 2 stars for it is wasteful fan and numerous water tank issues.
86 of 90 humans found the following review helpful.
A Better Humidifier
By try/star
This unit is much better than the evaporative type. I owned an evaporator for 2 years but it had difficultnesses with mold in the wicks and filter. Air-O-Swiss uses ionization, not evaporization, to put mist in your air. Ionization is more immediate and more efficient. It doesn't require a fan to do it's work, as all evaporitive types do, so it is quiet. For compairison, see the Essick Air 336-500 3-Speed Tabletop Evaporative Humidifier, this is an evaporitive type that I owned before buying the Air-O-Swiss.
The Air-O-Swiss is requiring little effort to clean, more effective and it looks pretty cool too! It seems that most air cleaner/humidifier makers don't care much regarding how the product looks in a room, but this one is sleek and subtle, blending well with my modern taste (I hate taupe/beige appliances, but that's me). Whatever it looks like, it needs to be effective, as this unit is. The higher price seems justified by the very utile controls (which are completely absent in for less models), the superior design and efficiency.
The unit has a good deal of settings and digital controls that grant timed use, heated or cool mist, and humidity control. It flashes a symbol to let me recognise when to fill more water. No need to keep logbooks when it comes to cleaning, a dissimilar flashing signal tells me whenever I need to do the simple descaling. It's easy to loose track of cleanings without this feature (who has time to keep notes on such a thing?).
All humidifiers need a lot of cleaning and filter replacement. The Air-O-Swiss alternate filters (for cleaning the water, replace when it comes to 4 times a year), the silver stick (needs alternate rarely, possibly once a year or less) and descaling packets for cleaning the tank (cheap and will have to be applied once each week or two). The costs for all of these are reasonable, perhaps more or less lower that the costs of the extra things necessitated for other units I have owned/checked out.
Do not neglect the replacement/cleaning processes. This unit, or any other brand, will commence to fail quickly if you do not keep up the maintenance. This is true with any humidifier, but the Air-O-Swiss manages to make these steps easy and comparatively hassle-free.
I would never go back to the evaporative type, the filters for them are much more expensive, they seem to mold no matter how conservatively maintained (a big problem for sensible people) and they use more electricity than the Air-O-Swiss. The Air-O-Swiss costs more to start, but consider having to buy the other, for less type, 2 years worth of alternate wicks, filters and descalers, then scrapping it all to buy this one anyway. This one is a pleasure to use and own. My counsel is to consider my experience and buy the more expensive, but much better, Air-O-Swiss.
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