VornadoEvap40 4-Gallon Evaporative Humidifier with Adjustable Humidistat and 3 Speeds

Awesome design. Very little to clean, rapid humidifying on high, quiet on medium/low, easy to refill+load, and intelligent (yet simple) humidistat. Overall a simple, functional device.A couple of things to note:With the forced air (A/C) fan circulating the house’s air, this model couldn’t keep up the humidity of a small bedroom. However, taping over the vents revealed exceptional performance: better than 10% increase in relative humidity per hour!Based on my observations of the humidistat behavior, this model uses something like vapor pressure differential (VPD), not relative humidity (which is good!). This means temperature changes that would erroneously affect relative humidity but not the “drying power” of the air don’t turn on and off the device. But you might get confused as to why it didn’t turn on overnight (when the house gets colder and the relative humidity drops but the VPD doesn’t change).To set the humidistat, you let it reach the desired max humidity, then slowly decrease the knob until the unit shuts off. No need for a fancy display :)My Apple Watch says <40 dB on low, <50 dB on medium, and <60dB on high (from a few feet away).Biggest critique is the drab appearance. I’d really like a less depressing aesthetic. A bluish green would give me a pleasant, endearing attachment, whereas this gray just makes me sad.Oh! And the gurgling can be kinda loud and unsettling. It sounds almost like a gentle knocking on the door. This would take some fancy engineering to avoid since the same principles that cause the glugging enables the easy fill, but I’d love to hear that reduced in a newer version

This vornado humidifier is truly a life saver. I had a levoit tower $150 humidifier that didn't make a dent in my extremely dry room. We have old radiator heating and a lot of exposed pipes and it gets extremely dry 20% humidity dry. For some reason the dryness was worse this year and I was struggling to breathe, wheezing, I couldn't get my Levoit humidifier to go above 30%-35% even running 24/7 on the highest setting. I decided to try an evaporative humidifier and after a few days of research settled on this one because of the fan and I thought it would reach a better range with my tall ceilings. Within a few hours of using it got my humidity up by 25%. I finally was reaching comfortable levels of humidity and could breathe like normal. I use distilled water as I have a water distilled machine, totally worth it, I haven't had to change the filters yet or dealt with any grossness. I fill 2 gallons at a time usually, and if I want to use less for a shorter amount of time I usually just fill one side instead of both.There is a learning curve to get the containers on without spilling. Instinctively we want to go slow especially because it's full of water, but you have to just lay the containers down on the grove and quickly put them in in one fast movement. Don't need to use force just go quick otherwise water will spill. Once I realized that I haven't spilled it at all or had any leaking issues.I keep it running once the water is done to dry out and dry the wicks. It does make a "glug glug" noise every few hours depending on how high you're running it but I don't think it's loud or bothersome, I barely noticed it at first. The fan sounds like a fan, not sure why it seems people expect it to be quiet, any fan on max is going to make some noise, it's no louder than any other fan I have really. It's not quiet but I don't think it's unreasonably loud, could take some getting used to if you're sensitive to these types of sounds.There was a smell initially, it was off-putting but I was prepared based on reviews. It was the wicks not the decide itself so think it's unavoidable with any wicks. It took a few days to go away but eventually did completely.I'm impressed and surprised by the simplicity of the whole thing really. I'm used to the Levoits that's a bunch of pieces and is a pain to clean, this thing is really simple but functions great. I'm so glad I made the switch. No hate on the Levoit it wasn't the only humidifier I've had but was the fanciest most expensive one and I definitely had higher hopes and expectations for it. Thankfully, this one succeeded where the other failedPhotos are1) the humidity level in my room after this current humidifier was off for a few hours when I wasn't home2) humidity level within 2 hours of turning on the vornado humidifier3) my Levoit humidifier, and even when it was running for hours on high I couldn't get above 34% humidity at most

I like this unit. Puts out lots of moisture, can operate very quietly on low as well. A few things - there is a series of "bang" noises every 10-minutes or so when the water tension is overcome by gravity and the water comes out of the tanks into the water tray below, sucking in air into the tanks producing a series of popping/banging sounds as the plastic container walls bounce back after losing the relative negative pressure. It sounds like somebody is knocking on my door.Got another unit and it does the same thing. So that unit'll be my outdoor balcony cooler (called a swamp cooler, works great in the desert.) So, I'm trying different things to negate some of the pop/bang sound as the air rushes into the container until it empties sufficiently to repeat (putting a semi hole-block using a rope with a knot in the container fill hole.) Nerding out on it. A challenge.The other thing is minor - wish the water containers had some kind of grip/handle that would aid in taking them down to fill. Other than these issues, I love it. Kinda slippery type of material, hard to get a hold of.It should be easy to clean etc. I put about 5 drops per gallon of bleach in the tanks to help keep the mold/mildew at bay. Seems to help and not smell like a laundry room.