Bionaire BCM646 Cool Mist Tower Humidifier

This is NOT a "cool mist" humidifier. When one thinks of a cool mist humidifier, you assume that it makes a cooled flow of steam from a nozzle, like you see in the department store floor models. That is not what this model does at all, there is no "mist". This model operates on the same principle as a "swamp cooler" or "evaporative cooler" that some of you may be familiar with, or even be using to cool your homes with in the summer. Basically, the water from the tank fills a tray at the bottom of the unit. The filter pads, which are actually wicks, rest in the tray and soak up the water. The fan pulls the air through the filter/wick from which the water will then evaporate, thus humidifying the air which passes through the unit. Simplified: A fan sucks air through a wet pad. So, no "cool mist", but it does increase the humidity of the air.

The drawback of using this method is that the unit becomes less effective the more humid the room gets, unlike a steam-type humidifier which will keep putting out the same amount of moisture until shut off. I guess one could look at it one way and say that the unit will not over-humidify a room, but it also means that if one desires a high humidity level, that level will be very difficult to reach.

So, the good things about the unit:

The unit has a small footprint, which is nice. It also has a decently sized tank which lasts a while for us. Like the previous reviewer, we also live in the Northeast, and I can tell you that right now in the Winter, it is VERY dry here. 25% humidity or so. We got this unit to improve conditions for both of us because we were waking up with dry throats, and to ease conditions for my wife who has intermittent asthma. The unit has 6 settings: Low/Medium/High and humidistat controlled Low/Medium/High. The humidistat will allow you to set the unit to turn off/on just like a thermostat for your heater when a desired humidity is reached. Under humidistat control using the low setting, a tank of water will last about a day and a half, which is pretty good for us. Some folks have complained about the fan noise on this model and it's silver sister model, but it doesn't bother us at all on low. I guess if you're used to a dead quiet room, it might be an issue, but we prefer a very small amount of white noise in the background. The unit comes with 2 extra filter pairs, which is nice (1 pair required in the unit).

The not so great things about the unit:

It must be on a completely level surface, or the water in the tray can spill. It is NOT a cool mist humidifier, as the name indicates. It has a little meter on the top that tells you when the filter must be cleaned. The indicator must be completely arbitrary or useless, I haven't figured it out yet. Sometimes it says the filter must be cleaned as soon as the unit is turned on and then indicates "good" after 5 minutes. Sometimes with a completely new filter and no water, it says they need to be cleaned. We just clean the filters once a week and call it good. The humidistat has issues with reading/indicating the correct humidity I've read in other reviews, ours seems to be OK. Just something to keep in mind. The nice large tank has no handle to hold while filling, and because of the length of the tank you'll need to fill it in your bathtub most likely. Because of the lack of a handle, be careful not to drop the tank as it is prone to cracking (as other reviewers have found out).

Overall:

We like the unit for the price. It does humidify the room, but not as well as a true "mist" or steam type of humidifier. The filters are a bit of a pain, but the high end humidifiers all have more expensive filter systems, so this one is cheap in comparison. The faulty filter meter is a negative, and the fact that the name is very misleading is a huge negative (-1 star for that alone). Don't get me wrong, we'd probably get this unit again, we just feel that the misleading product title (in our opinion) is bad for consumers; and there should be some design changes, such as a handle on the tank for filling. So feel free to buy the unit, just realize what your are really getting!

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