Air-O-Swiss U650 Digital Warm & Cool Mist Ultrasonic Humidification Review

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After having an infant addition to our family, I began looking for a humidifier especially with the Winter season fast approaching. I was looking at function, maintenance parts and prices as well as build quality and design. I didn't like how the various humidifiers looked like too quirky, too plastic-looking, too generic.

Then this Air-O-Swiss U650 caught my eye. It had an elegant design and shiny white colour that would fit any contemporary home. It reminded me of our Rabbit Air purifier in both elegant design and price. If I were to add this to our home, it wouldn't be an eye sore.

FEATURES:

1. Digital Display. Easy to read display even from afar to spot check it's current setting.

2. Sensitive Touch Controls. No need to press oddly raised buttons. This one sits flush on the unit for a seamless and simple design.

3. Simple Amber Lighting. No multi-coloured tacky lighting. This reminded me of the old German car lighting that was easy to see and read. At night, you can dim the backlight for a non-annoying soft light.

4. Hygrometer. This is one of the reasons why I chose this unit. Unlike the cheap humidifiers that just keeps on spewing moisture into the air. This unit will alert you of the current humidity level in your room/home. From there you can make a sensible judgement if you still want to introduce more humidity by raising the desired level.

5. Auto Mode with an "Intelligent Temperature Compensation". Humidity levels change when the temperature changes. You can't just expect to keep on maintaining a certain level when it's not advantageous and healthy. By setting the unit to auto mode, it calculates the desired humidity level based on the current temperature. No need to second guess what level you should be at throughout the whole day.

6. Cool/Warm Mist. Both have it's pros and cons depending on the current condition and season. You'd want a warm mist on cooler days and a cool mist on colder days.

THOUGHTS:

Like any humidifier or product that involves water for that matter, you'll need to know how to best maintain the product to keep it functioning as expected and prolong the life of the unit. For this specific Air-O-Swiss humidifier, there are two parts to replace:

The Ion Silver Stick that eliminates bacteria in the water and is expected to be replaced yearly. Expensive, but at least just done annually.

Demineralization Cartridge that needs quarterly replacement depending on the usage of the unit. If you use tap water, this is important to prevent any white dust due to hardened minerals to form in the water. Upon first use, you will need to soak this cartridge in water for 24 hours. The work-around is to use distilled or reverse osmosis water. That way there are no minerals in the water and you won't need this cartridge at all. Of course the cost is now buying distilled water versus buying another part. Choose your poison. If you have a reverse osmosis filter for your home, then that is even better. You save on buying this part and you are helping keep the product in the best shape ever.

Although I'd love to have this unit be more compact and slim, I guess it's necessary to be this bulky to prevent frequent water refilling for at least a day or even days. Where I reside, it rains quite often so there is enough moisture in the air at times. Since the unit is able to read the humidity levels in the air, it won't operate unless needed. This in turn helps eliminate the water tank refills.

If you were to invest in a humidifier, skip the novelty of the others and the guessing game of humidity levels in your home. This will do the job. Quite elegantly, I must add.

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My experience with this humidifier is pretty much like the review "Beware" by MrJ.

This product is way overpriced and required more maintenance than I expected. It sure does look good with the high-tech display but that's all it has comparing to other humidifiers that cost many times less. For me, I have a need to use the humidifiers all Winter long every year. So, the decision to purchase this expensive Air-O-Swiss humidifier in hope that it can do better, last longer with less maintenance (because of Demineralization cartridge). Well, I was wrong. It made no difference with or with out the cartridge filter. I get even more white dust from this humidifier than any other humidifier I've used. The design flaw makes it hard to put the water tank back in and it drips a lot when remove it to refill every time. After the purchase of this A-O-S U650, I ended up using it a lot less than other low cost humidifier, which, btw is the Honeywell HWM-950. I like this Honeywell product a lot due to its low cost, easy to clean, and it works just like the A-O-S U650 if not better. It usually goes with "You get what you pay for" but NOT in this case. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS AIR-O-SWISS U650 PRODUCT.

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The highlights, which for me justified splurging $200+ on a humidifier, were supposed to be the humidistat, the demineralization system, the antibacterial defenses, and the high capacity.

I ended up disappointed with 3 of those 4 features:

The humidistat doesn't work. It was stuck at 35-40% even when the humidity in the room got to 80%. Total joke. Perhaps I should have tried exchanging the unit, but based on other reviews I concluded this is likely a design defect and not worth the time to keep trying replacements.

The antibacterial system is marketed as "4 band". As an engineer I automatically assumed this meant 4 bands of UV radiation. But I was wrong. The unit does not have a UV lamp at all. What they meant by 4-band and is explained in the manual, is: the pre-heating, the silver sticks, the ultrasonic tech, and special treated plastic together are the 4 things that kill bacteria. Perhaps my fault for not reading the fine print, anyhow, I'm disappointed.

Yes the mist-making capacity is higher than that on cheaper humidifiers, BUT, the extra pumping power comes with severe downsides: 1. The machine does not shoot the mist high enough up in the air, so it tends to make the surface it's sitting on become soaking wet, unless you run it at reduced power. A competitor's cheap unit shoots the mist twice as high. and 2. The tank only lasts 12 hours, that too is unless you turn down the dial.

My goal had been to keep a room at constant humidity 24x7. The lack of a working humidistat coupled with 12-hour capacity at full power actually had the opposite effect of maximizing the range of extremes dry when tank empty and nobody home to refill; too humid when running, due to failure of humidistat to cause automatic shutoff.

The demineralization system worked extremely well. A competitor's cheap unit left a fine white dust everywhere, although it did a better job of keeping the room within a comfortable humidity level.

Honest reviews on Air-O-Swiss U650 Digital Warm & Cool Mist Ultrasonic Humidification

I purchased this item based on the great reviews I read about it. It worked all of 6 days before dying on me. If I'm lucky, the manufacturer will replace it or refund my money. We'll see. Meanwhile, I bought a replacement filter and replacement ion stick for when I would have had to change them. I'm out that money now.

EDIT: I contacted the manufacturer twice this week via email (I'm military and stationed in Germany, so calling isn't always an option for me), and I have gotten zero responses. Not only do I think the product is terrible, I think Air-O-Swiss's customer service is beyond terrible. I seriously recommend considering something else if you're looking for a humidifier after my experience.

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Contrary to popular perception, much of Colorado is as dry as a BONE. We have had mostly drought conditions in the Colorado Springs area for almost 15 years and that made it absolutely necessary to have a really GOOD humidifier. My requirement was complicated by my preference for a humidifier that could produce either warm, or cool mist. That made the quest quite difficult, and to put it simply, to my knowledge, nobody but Air-O-Swiss makes humidifiers that can produce either warm or cool mist. One thing that hasn't changed about Colorado is that it can be both hot and cold on the same day, so you definitely want both kinds of vapor mist, heated, and cool.

I went through two of the Venta Sonic VS205 humidifiers which I bought at an Ace Hardware store and although it produced an abundance of cool mist (even the cheapo's will do this), I never was able to get them to produce warm mist. I've never been able to get the store display moels of the Venta Sonic humidifiers to generate any warm mist, either.

So, off to Bed, Bath, and Beyond where I saw the entire variety of Air-O-Swiss humidifiers. I was like a kid in a candy store. They had all the humidifiers running in a separate section of the store and I could examine each as much as I wanted.

I finally decided to buy this pricy U650 model because of the filtration system, the disinfection feature, and the wide variety of control parameters the users can set. I had a 20% off coupon for Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and that sealed the deal.

I've had this humidifier for four months now and all I can say is that it is simply wonderful. I use it in a room that is roughly 22 feet by 16 feet and it keeps the humidity at exactly the point where I want it. The hygrometer is precise and consistent and literally allows you to set it and forget it without having everything get too damp. You can choose three different levels of vapor output, and on "High" this thing really put out a lot!

Maybe it's more the quality of our tap water in the Colorado Springs but I'm still using the same filter cartridge that came with the humidifier. They tell you to change it every two months, but that may not be necessary unless you live somewhere with really horribly mineralized water, like Phoenix. Just use good, clean water, and keep the humidifier clean (a monitoring system will tell you when to clean the nebulizer gizmo, and that is easy to do). One other thing: you may get a "false positive" that the unit is not working properly, and if that happens, try rapping the cartridge on the side of the sink gently on all parts of the cartridge. This kind of "shakes loose" the granules inside and breaks up any little clumps that may have formed. I have only needed to do this once in four months. Spend the extra money and get something that will make you happy. Life has enough other problems to worry about for you to have to be wheezing around in a powder-dry atmosphere.

One word of caution: don't have "slippery" hands when you refill the tank. The handle is mounted up top in the back of the unit, so after it is filled and you put the cap back on with the cartridge, you must support all the water weight from above on THE SIDE. I use two hands to do this. And I steady and position the bottom of the tank with the left hand while I hold the tank handle securely with the right hand. Cheers!