Humidifiers Reviews

Make sure this is the product you want. The cost to return this was 20% of original price plus shipping.

Very good customer service from the manufacturer, Plaston. I had a slightly older version of this humidifier that stopped working after about a year. When I called the company someone picked up the phone who knew all about the product. I sent them the broken humidifier and they sent me a new one right away.

Apart from the fact that my first one broke down, I've been pretty satisfied with this product. My old humidifier used expensive disposable wicks, which used to get filthy after just a few days of New York City air. With this one, you just empty the water pan and wipe it down once in a while. Once every month or so, you have to clean the discs. This can be a pain without a dishwasher.

...And I've owned many. I've tried the traditional "wick" humidifiers, steam vapor, ultrasonic, and even ones with pumps. None can compare to the convenience and reliability of the Air-O-Swiss, though.

Steam Vapor ran my electric bill through the roof (it eats electricity like crazy). Ultrasonic created white dust that got into everything, no matter how small the crevice (even got on the CD inside my CD-ROM drive). As for the one with pumps? Um, the pumps burned out after 2 months.

My traditional wick humidifier was the most reliable of my previous humidifiers, but wicks need constant replacement (which can get expensive if you live in an arid region like me) and their performance degrades as you use them more (eventually even with frequent cleaning, they will just not absorb water any more and the reservoir on your humidifier will frustratingly be full).

The Air-O-Swiss works like a wick-based humidifier, except instead of a wick it uses slowly rotating plastic discs (about a dozen of them)to increase the surface area of water-to-air contact. A fan facilitates the flow of air through the housing. It does a great job of keeping the air breathable, and thus keeps my associated allergies at bay, but it's also so quiet that I can't even tell it's on unless I put my hand over the inlets/outlets to feel the air flow.

The simplicity of its design lends to its reliability (it's just a fan and a motor to turn the discs very slowly). It doesn't have any wicks that need to be replaced, though it still needs regular cleaning (to get rid of mineral buildup). I've had it for about 3 months now and have had no problems with it. After trying so many different types of humidifiers, I was almost ready to just settle for my old wick-based humidifier (for which I was spending about 20$ a month in wicks). I'm very glad I discovered this humidifer.