Review: Add some moisture to your home with the Dyson Humidifier

I grew up in central Canada, so I know a thing or two about dry air. In the winter, when you had to run your furnace on high 24/7 or freeze to death because of the -40 temperatures, the air in the house would get so dry everything had a layer of static on it.

When I moved out to the West Coast I thought my dry air days were over. Living so close to the ocean, I expected a wave of humidity coming through my windows at all times. It’s definitely more humid out here, but it’s not always humid when I need it, and I discovered after I had kids that having access to a blast of humidity can be a really handy thing to have around.

There’s nothing worse than a really sick kid in the middle of the night, and my kids have had so many bouts of croup and sinus infections that I’ve lost count of the nights we’ve all lost sleep because of it. I had a small humidifier I’d pull out on these occasions and it really helped, but I’d be getting up frequently to add more water or move it around so it was in the most effective spot.

That’s why, when I heard Dyson had a humidifier on the market, I had to try it out. Every single appliance I’ve tried from Dyson has hit it out of the park in terms of design and effectiveness, and I knew I could expect big things from the Dyson AM10 Humidifier.

There are a few reasons why I’ve been so keen to try this humidifier: my youngest is 7 but he’s the king of croup in our house, and with winter coming I know we are going to be treated to a few bouts. We also have a house with electric heat, and it feels even dryer here than our last house.

When the Dyson AM10 Humidifier arrived at my door, I unpacked it and pretty much left it on for a week straight. Here’s what I found when I used it.

Appearance

If you’ve ever seen or own the Dyson Pure Cool Link or the Dyson Hot+Cool, you won’t be surprised at the design of the Dyson Humidifier. It has an oval shape similar to the fans and it’s also bladeless, but it’s slightly shorter, wider, and has a water reservoir on top of the base. As for colour, it comes in white or black.

Features of the Dyson Humidifier

Every fan Dyson makes is streamlined, safe for the entire family to use, and runs as smooth as silk. The Dyson Humidifier is no exception to this rule, and it also has a few other tricks up its sleeve:

• The Dyson Humidifier is both a humidifier and a fan, so you can use it in the winter as a humidifier and in the summer as a fan
• Unlike other humidifiers you need to constantly clean, Dyson Humidifiers use Ultraviolet Cleanse technology to kill 99.9% of bacteria in the water before it projects the mist into the air
• It has Intelligent Climate Control to assess your environment, so if you set it to automotaic it will give you the right amount of moisture for your room
• Uses the same patented Air Multiplier technology Dyson fans do, so your mist or air is projected across the entire room
• Bladeless design means its safe to put in your child’s room. If he or she tips it over or picks it up, it turns off
• Includes a remote control you can use to set the amount of humidity or velocity of the fan

Testing out the Dyson Humidifier

Setting up the Dyson Humidifier is so easy, you’ll be filling your air with a gentle mist in no time. When you unpack it you’ll notice it comes with a number of detachable parts. The bladeless fan/humidifier attaches to the water reservoir, and the water reservoir attaches to the base. They all click together like Lego, and you can easily pop off the fan whenever you need to refill the water.

That won’t be very often, because one of the most appealing parts of having the Dyson Humidifier at work in your home is that you don’t have to refill the water reservoir every few hours. It has a three-liter tank that will run for 18 solid hours before you need to refill it.

Once you’ve added water, all you have to do is push the power button and the Dyson Humidifier turns on. There’s a short 3 minute delay before it will start misting, and that’s because it’s running the water through an Ultraviolet Cleanse. You can’t see anything happening, but this is part of the process where it kills 99.9% of the bacteria in the water so it only produces fresh, clean mist.

This is a huge step up from your average humidifier, and until I tried the Dyson Humidifier I had no idea that the mist my humidifier was producing could also be spreading bacteria throughout the room. That’s a big deal if you already have a sick child and you’re using a humidifier to help him or her breathe. Without that Ultraviolet Cleanse, you could make everyone else in the room sick too.

When the mist starts, you won’t be able to actually see it until you turn it up a bit. You control the humidifier with the Dyson remote, so I set mine at 50 and watched it for a while. The bladeless design lets you run your hand along the fan so you can actually feel where the mist sprays out, but it doesn’t heat up or anything. That means it’s safe for little hands too. You could even put it on the floor of your kid’s room, because if he or she knocks it over or tries to pick it up, the humidifier will automatically turn off.

The easiest way to use the Dyson Humidifer is to hit the Auto button on the remote and let the Dyson do the work of assessing the room’s temperature and humidity. It can accurately determine just how much humidity you need and provide you with that. You can also use the remote control and set it to whatever number you’d like.

Just to test out how powerful it is, I put the dial to 70 and left it running while I went out. When we came home an hour later I walked into my kitchen and there was a cloud of mist. I was impressed because the humidity was so thick you could see it, and I’ve never had that with any other humidifier.

When it’s summer and you aren’t in need of humidity, the Dyson Humidifier also doubles as a fan. The only difference between the Humidifier and other Dyson fans is that this one will not oscillate, but it projects a room-filling stream of air so I don’t think I’d miss having it rotate.

You will have to clean the Dyson Humidifier occasionally. The manual recommends you do it on a monthly basis to remove hard water deposits, but that’s not difficult when you consider that you have to clean out other humidifiers almost every day.

Overall thoughts

Dyson, as usual, knocks it out of the park with the Dyson Humidifier. I love how Dyson will take a device you commonly use in your home and improve it to the point where you wonder how you ever did without those features, and that’s how I felt when I watched the Dyson Humidifier in action.

The fact that it produces a clean, bacteria free stream of water is a huge plus in my book, and I love the auto setting that takes all the guess work out of it. It also produces an amazing white noise sound that I absolutely love falling asleep to.

It’s cough, cold, and flu season again, so there’s never been a better time to check out the Dyson Humidifier, available right now on Bestbuy.ca.