Vicks Filter-Free Ultrasonic Humidifier. #1 Brand Recommended by Pediatricians*. 1.2 Gal Ultrasonic cool mist humidifier for medium to large Bedrooms, Kids Rooms, and More. Use with Vicks VapoPads.

The media could not be loaded. Overview : My wife and I live in a 2,000 square foot apartment and have had this humidifier running full blast for 24 hours a day for almost a week and it works great!! We put the unit in a central location in our place and it’s perfect. (This was an upgrade for us, the previous humidifier we had was cheaper and was difficult/annoying to clean and somewhat noisy. It wasn’t a Vicks brand.)The Good : This unit is much quieter and SO much easier to clean than the non Vicks brand we had before. The directions for cleaning this humidifier in the manual are very confusing and VERY different from videos you can find online that Vicks makes. I follow the video and ignore the manuals cleaning instructions. The amount of cool mist is quite plentiful and eases our dry skin and airways. (No more breathing discomfort in the mornings.) The tank holds enough water so we can run the unit at full blast for over 15 hours before a refill. I’ve read reviews about how it “leaks water all over”. I think that what the person may be referring to is the condensation that happens if the mist falls onto a surface such as a table or dresser. We’ve overcome this by either placing a washrag just in front of the unit on the table or setting the humidifier close to the edge of the dresser so the mist falls down allowing it to dissipate without coming into contact with anything. (We don’t have kids so there’s no worries about it getting accidentally knocked over.) The complaints about the sounds seem misunderstood. Yes, the unit makes noise; humidifiers do that. The sounds come from 3 different functions. 1) The motor that makes the unit work…. it’s a low-ish humming sound. 2) The bubbling created by the transducer (the round mist producing thing) 3) The periodic bubbling sound of the water moving from the tank into the reservoir leading to the transducer. Having used a cheaper non-Vicks unit for the past 3 winters, this unit is by far superior in keeping these sounds to a minimum. (I’m a very light sleeper and none of these sounds bother me one bit.) There is a place to put a scent pad; it came with 2 Vicks vapor pads. I experimented with putting a few drops of essential oil onto a piece of tissue and used that instead…. it worked well. Please watch the video I made to go along with this review.The Not-So Good : I can’t think of anything so far.

Like with most small appliances, I did A LOT of research before buying this. More than I usually do. I ended up down a rabbit hole of cool vs warm mist health benefits, expensive models with sensors, and 2 days later I finally pulled the trigger on this, and 2 months later, I couldn't be happier.You get what you pay for, so although I think this is actually REASONABLY priced, you can't expect something to work just as well as something 2, 3 or 4 times as expensive. If you don't want to have to clean your machine frequently don't buy a filter-less. If you don't want to use trial and error to figure out which humidity setting works for your home and season, your gonna have to splurge on digital one. I felt COMPELLED to write this long review since after using this for 2 months, I'm upset that I ALMOST let some other reviews deter me.I have a hard time replacing objects in our home that I have a perfectly working alternatives, but since we have VERY hard well water, with both types of iron, we were flying through filters at an insane rate last winter, so I wanted something filter-less that was easy to clean.We live in central New England, with a woodstove as primary heat and a forced hot air furnace, and a fairly open concept 1100sq house (500sq main living space), and this model has been a godsend.This winter started earlier than normal, so my annual "sign" (waking up with a bloody nose) to find, clean, and plug in the humidifier came sooner this year.As soon as it arrived, I got the thing running on full blast for 3 days straight, and I realized why there are some mediocre reviews, and heres a few reasons to ignore them.1) Not to lambast the other reviewers, but I dont think they understand how POWERFUL this model is for its tiny size. In fact, I think the even the manufacturer has undersold it. Our old humidifier could run on high for about 36hrs without having to be refilled, and this one barely makes it 15 all the way up, with a similar sized tank. That's A LOT of water you're pumping into the air, and that's where all these "leaking" reviews are coming from I suspect. On day 3 of full blast (hindsight math, about 6 gallons of water) the weather had been rainy and warmer, and that's when I came home to the machine "leaking". Aka I had made the house so humid the machine was covered, then dripping, condensation on the floor. The manual warns against this, BTW, that condensing can happen when you exceed 60% humidity. Without a digital read, I found that the INSIDE of the tank starts condensing a while before the outside, so I just turn the machine down until the next time we have the woodstove cranking.2) The machine is filter less, so you have to clean the machine more often than filtered ones. That pink and white buildup is NOT mold, its whatever is left after the Hs and Os of H²O have evaporated out. So unless you're strictly using Distilled Water, even the most expensive household water system isnt gonna remove EVERYTHING else out, and what's left is mineral "scale". Filtered Humidifiers pull most of this out in the FILTER, so that's why you replace those and don't see it in the tank. Regardless, you should be cleaning our humidifier anyway, but the audacity to leave a bad review because after 6 months there's residue after not cleaning it is complete nonsense.3) This machine is NOT noisy. Sure you can't hear a pin drop while it's on high, but despite it's high powered ability, it does far less gurgling than our old one, one that was already so quiet it never woke my super light-sleeping husband. It's SOO quiet that...4) The auto shut-off DOES work, just not when the tank is visible empty. Because the machine is so quiet, and after the condensation debacle, I had been running it on about quarter power (so no visible mist), and I actually forgot about the machine for a couple days. I got home one night, noticed the tank was empty and it was still running, so initally I thought the reviewers were right about the shut-off feature. But when I shut it off and picked up the tank, I realized the reservoir in the base was still full of water, so I decided to do an experiment to test the auto shut-off. I turned it back on to full blast, and about 30m later the machine shut itself off. I picked up the tank and the rest of the water was gone. Not that I actually PLAN to forget again, but it's good to know when inevitably I do, the shut off works.5) This machine is only SLIGHTLY harder to clean than my old one. PRO: The Tank has round edges with a large filling hole, big enough to get my hand and sponge in, and the easier to clean without corners. CON: The conical part is harder to get around (and clean itself) until I decided to use my wire handled bottle-brush to bend and shape around it and stuff down in to get to the bottom.So although I'm usually hard pressed to leave 5 star reviews on mundane necessities, this one deserves it, so save yourself and your wallet and do some trial and error in your home with this machine.