BONECO U700 Whisper Quiet Top Fill Ultrasonic Variable Mist Humidifier for Large Rooms with Self Cleaning Mode, Digital Display, and Auto Shutoff

This is only the 2nd humidifier I've owned, so I'm not an expert, but I have yet to find a flaw in its design. Would recommend!I live on the 3rd floor of an apartment, and once it started getting colder here, my fiance and I started having strange breathing issues. At first, we attributed it to whatever sickness happened to be plaguing the office where I work. After a few weeks, I started noticing that my symptoms didn't match other peoples symptoms and that whenever I would take a shower, I didn't have any problems breathing. Additionally, my fiance started complaining about being cold all the time, despite the thermostat staying fixed at a balmy 72 degrees. While watching the opening episode of Alpha House (no joke) I realized I needed a humidifier.I have previously owned a humidifier, honestly I don't remember the brand, but it was so horrible I had blocked out considering that humidity was the root cause of all our air quality problems. That unit worked by blowing air through this cardboard mesh that was setting in a tray of water. After about a week of use, the cardboard mesh looked like it was an experiment to see how many unique molds and bacteria could grow on one surface. Additionally, it only held about 1.5 gallons of water, and would take 2 days to use all the water up, not significantly impacting the humidity of the small room I was using it in. Additionally the fan was unbalanced, so it was surprisingly loud.Now that I knew what I did and didn't want, I set out on doing some research. I knew that if I wanted quality, I would have to pay for it. Based off the horrible experience I had with my last humidifier, I eliminated anything with the word "wick". That meant your standard "Cool Mist Evaporative" was out. I also didn't want a "Warm Mist" humidifier, because well, I already could put a large pot on the stove, and set it to a low boil. That basically narrowed it down to "Ultrasonic" humidifiers. After reading about "white dust" I almost gave up my search entirely, but pressed on, and realized that most of the higher quality ultrasonics humidifiers have filters built in that helped fix the white dust problem.After comparing and contrasting several reviews, I found most people generally like the Air-O-Swiss brand humidifier, and after finding this one, I decided to take a leap of faith. There weren't many reviews so I had no idea what I was getting into.I am so glad I purchased this humidifier. It has been running 24/7 since it came in the mail, and I have yet to encounter any issue. I have to refill it once a day, but its doing its job, and its doing its job well. Almost all of our breathing problems have gone away, and my fiance has lowered the thermostat to a much more comfortable 65. If you knew how many small wars have been fought over the thermostat, you'd appreciate just how much this thermostat has improved both our lives. The unit is practically silent, unless you press an ear against the bottom half of the unit, you aren't going to hear anything.The only thing I would recommend is ensuring that you place the unit in an area where it will have good airflow. Other reviewers have stated that the humidity sensor is incorrect, I don't agree. This unit puts out a ton of vapor, and if there isn't good airflow around the unit, it will overwhelm the sensor. Obviously if you put this unit in a closet, set it to 50% and run it until it shuts off, the humidity in the room on the other side of your house isn't going to be at 50%. One reviewer has recommended putting the unit in front of the furnace intake, and thats where ours ended up. We were moving it back and forth between our bedroom and kitchen at first, but we put it in the living room once (just to move it out of the way while we cleaned) and it hasn't moved since.

This is perhaps the best designed humidifier for your home. There is a caveat however, as you will have to be diligent about keeping it clean, and following the manufacaturer's directions for decalcifying and cleaning it at the required intervals, and you have to be willing to spend the extra money on the manufacturer's accessories which are required for maintenancing the unit. If you do that then you can expect it to last at least five years or more. It will help you remain healthy during the winter months. To avoid the issues cited by some reviewers, you must place it at least 3 feet above the ground. Also, simply use it on 'auto' and you will be less likely to have problems. And when the red cleaning light comes on, it is time to do the required maintenance. When you put it up for the spring/summer months to store it, be sure to clean and dry it out. Do all of this and you will be happy with your purchase.

REVIEW UPDATE: I have left my original review at the end of this review. This unit worked great for the first two months (this was the third unit as the previous 2 failed and Amazon replaced them) and then required maintenance. No big deal. I performed the maintenance and the unit started back up great and I immediately posted a positive review for this product on 2/20/2016. Now, today (five days later) I wake up and my room is in a fog at 72% humidity (when the unit was set to 50%) and the maintenance (de-scaling) light is on again. The unit ran all night long with half a tank of water that was humidified overnight. It should never have needed that much for an average night. I have 3 (yes, three!) temperature and humidity gauges in this room since humidity must be maintained at 45-50% humidity at all times. Now the unit still goes off when it's own display showed a lower humidity than the unity is set to. Amazon does not want to help with this issue so that is the end of the high hopes that I had for this unit. It goes back to Amazon and I am forced to find a replacement elsewhere (Pretty poor service from Amazon considering the huge amount of sales that I have transacted with them). ••• Original review: The third time is the charm. I REALLY wanted this unit to work! I had to send the first 2 back when they failed to descale or failed completely. I hope this company perfects these units because they are awesome! Unfortunately, I had to keep my complete packaging every time I ordered one to see if it would last. Finally, this third unit successfully made it through the descaling process. This unit works so well that I had to install a full-house carbon water filter (already have a reverse osmosis unit for drinking water). The reason is that this Boneco does such a good job it also sends out in it's ultra-fine mist all of the dissolved solids in the tap water out into your home that eventually create a fine gray film that is especially attracted to plastics. Great sized water tank. Great unit if you are looking for a humidifier that goes 3 to 5 days without a refill (depending on room/house size), is intelligent and shuts itself off when it runs out of water, shuts itself off when descaling is complete and monitors and maintains the humidity level you specify 24/7. The directions for descaling differ from the descaling packet and the manufacturer's directions. The base unit does get grungy after a while (always going to happen with any products that store water) so it's best to empty and wipe down about once a week just to stretch out the timeframes between descalings. I also use a long brush to clean the (what I would call) "mist chimney" since it also starts to get slimy after a while and should also by cleaned every week or so. These kind of things always happen with units that use water so you have to be committed to maintaining it. Still, it does not have any fowl odors like most humidifiers I've tried. I would have given 5 stars if the first unit worked this well. You can trust that Amazon will work with you to get a working unit should it fail.