7146 Travel Humidifier

Love this little thing. I reviewed several small humidifiers before deciding on this one. I have purchased distilled water to use in it to prevent mineral deposits. Distilled water is easily found at drug stores like CVS or Walgreens. It has an adapter to put in the top of a bottle of water, you remove the cap, insert the adapter and you just turn the bottle upside down and place on the dispenser. The adapter you put on the bottle has a metal ball that blocks the water from pouring out when you turn it upside down to place on the unit. I use a Dasani water bottle because it's a thicker bottle than some of the thinner cheaper store brand water bottles. I have it by my desk for work and the bottle of water will last about 6 hours on a low setting. It has a turn dial from off to full blast so it's very easy to adjust the amount of mist. The mist starts immediate upon turning it on. I did find that if I turn it up as high as it will go that it will make the papers a bit damp that are very close to it. I just turned down the dial a bit to lessen the mist and problem solved. Nothing gets damp now. When the water runs out it will have a red glow to let you know, but you would know looking it at as the mist stops. When working it has a lovely blue light. I've not tried it in the dark, but I imagine it would be a small glow, nothing bothersome for sleeping, no more than a digital clock. It came with a nice little bag to store it in and I really like the fact that it's not some big unit with a big bowl of water. It will be easy to store when summer gets here and the air is no longer so dry. The other type I considered was the one that sat on the top of a bottle and had a wick that went in the bottle. That just seemed to me like an extra step to deal with and there would be replacement wicks to buy. I've been using for a week, every day and no problems at all, love it, works great and my nose is no longer suffering from the dry air in the house due to gas heat and cold temperatures outside.

It was a very good choise, I have sjögren syndrome, and I do have to be in a wet place to sleep properly. I have to travel a lot, and I was looking for something that I can use to reduce my syntomes while I am in other city. PROS: It works, instead of the size of the machine, it reduce de dryness of the places near to it. That means that you have to place it on a table near the bed. It Is very small, so it fits in you travel bag without any problem. It's very easy to clean. It works pretty good, it's very quiet, and it doesn't flood unless you use a bottle larger than 500ml. It is very easy to use, you can use it worldwide without concerning about the electicity. CONS The light is very bright Due to the fact that is very small, you have to use it a mid level, because if you put it at the full level, you are going to feel that the bed is wet. ( I usually place the humidifier above some.big books and the issue is solved) Obviously it doesn't work all the night at full mist rate. ... That is all Some tips and suggestions: 1. Use a rigid plastic bottle, I know is very bad for the environment, but all does eco plastic bottles are horrible for this machine. 2. I dont know if it release white dust, I don care about that cause an use the humidifier at hotels, so I don't have to clean. However, when I use it at home, I have never noticed a lot of dust ( I use very pure water at home) 3. I haven't use the EZCal, I just use water, and cleane it hardly with a brush.

I purchased this because a friend had recommended it. What a great humidifier. I live in Hawaii so we don't have a problem with dry air. I purchased this to use to diffuse my essential oils into the air. It's compact, extremely, quiet, and does not leave a damp mess in the surrounding areas (unless you have this on full blast). This is NOT a home decor item but it gets the job done. It is meant for traveling and I love it! I put this on the lowest setting and a 17 oz bottle of water will last me an entire day. We actually forgot to turn it off when we left for work in the morning and when we got home, it was still full of water and filling my house with wonderful wild orange scent. My favorite part about this product is the adapter for the bottle. It's similar to a water bottle for rabbits. Theres a silver ball in there that holds the water in and only releases the water when it's sitting on the humidifier. I have one bottle with wild orange and on guard oils in it for days I need to energize and keep germs away. At night, I switch the bottle to one that has lavender in it to help us unwind before bed. I LOVE that you can just remove the bottle with no leaking and no mess! Note: If there is water already in the reservoir, do not leave the machine sitting without a bottle of water sitting on top of it. I was changing bottles and forgot to put another one back on, and it leaked water through the bottom of the machine onto the counter. Not a lot of water, but it leaked none the less. So, keep a bottle on it at all times, unless you're emptying it out to pack up. There is a dim blue light inside of the area where the vapors come out and it's subtle and works great as a small night light in a bedroom. I'm ordering more for different areas in my house and one for my desk in the office. UPDATE 4/12/13: My sister got one and her kids lost the bottle adapter. If you're in HAWAII, ALASKA, PUERTO RICO, or CANADA, you're SOL if you need parts. They dont ship to us NOR accept our credit cards. FRUSTRATING to say the least. The rep tried to find a location that could help us and Bed bath and beyond doesnt carry parts, duh. SO, hopefully you have a friend or relative within the 48 states that will buy it for you and ship it over. The rep also said to check HERE on amazon to see if the part is sold separately, and its not. For this reason, I'm docking one star.

UPDATE: I will be replacing this humidifier. It makes a loud buzzing noise. Randomly the water will seep out of the unit during the night so it sits in a plastic lid to catch water. And on the same setting, one day it will run out of water and the next day hardly use any at all. The first unit I had like this was a Walgreens product that was discontinued. This unit doesn't come close to the quality and dependability of that product. At this point I would not recommend this product even for travel. This is my second humidifier of this model, previously called Swiss-o-Air. I use it because of the convenience of using a plastic bottle of purified water. Heavy minerals and chlorine foul the unit so distilled or purified water is a must. There is one huge drawback to this unit - it does not have an auto shut off for low/no water. The unit will tend to grow a pink film is not dried out daily. It also has some other features that are unfortunate. It has a blue light that is on when it it in operation that is too bright. I have to carefully cover it with a cloth to be able to sleep. When it runs out of water the blue light flashes off and on several times and then turns red. If you are a light sensitive sleeper, this is like an alarm clock! So, use bigger bottle if you can find one. But this unit wins for portability. It drys out easily for packing, the leg supports fold in, it has an international adapter, and the water container is disposable after each use if necessary. UPDATE: We have been using this now for a few months. I would not recommend buying this for anything but travel. The mist is inconsistent no matter how you set it. The motor is already making a buzzing noise. The light is toooo bright, it literally can keep you awake. And, not the fault of the product, but the plastic in most brands of water bottles has become so thin that they can collapse under the minimal vaccum created with the connection so you can be awakened by the popping sound of collapsing plastic.

We bought this item to travel with our newborn about 2 years ago. It's great and I can't recommend Air-O-Swiss' customer support enough. They really stand by their products (We had a 7144 that was 3 years old that stopped working; completely out of warranty and they replaced it with a new one with purchase of a $50 warranty plan - this is a $200 humidifier). Pros: Completely silent Very light and easy to travel with Comes with it's own nightlight (this was perfect in the hotel room for my newborn and now 2 yr old) Does the job Price Customer Service Cons: None - maybe placement requirements? After two years of using this, it still works fine with the periodic de-scaling maintenance. It's a little noisier - I suspect the bearings in the fan are going, but we've used it everyday for two years, 10 hours a day. So think about that when you are purchasing a $50 humidifier. It's really pretty awesome. The only thing I would suggest is to raise it from the surface - use a small book or a box. If there isn't enough air circulation in the room, there is a chance that water will pool around the unit, and this sits less than a millimeter above whatever surface you place it on. In a hotel, this isn't a problem because there is a lot of air movement. Some people say the light is too bright. Well, if you're staring at it in a dark room, your eyes adjust, but I agree it's a bright light (just not that it's too bright). I am just not bothered by it. If you are, you can always use some black electrical tape and place it over the plastic popup dispenser that dispenses the mist.

I originally purchased one of these units in late April of 2011. After three months, the first unit's ultrasonic transducer failed or the mechanism used to turn it on when there is water in the unit failed. The warranty replacement unit has been working well until the last month or so when the fan started to make a little noise. The fan died overnight last night. I use the unit about 3 days a week, every other week. I am hoping that Air-o-Swiss will replace the second unit under warranty as well. Their warranty department requires you to pay shipping, so if they take the second one back, total cost is closer to $70 at this point for less than one year of ownership. It would be a really nice unit if I didn't keep having reliability issues. When it is working: Pros: 1) Relatively quiet 2) Puts out enough moisture to stop nose bleeds and sore throat in a Las Vegas hotel room 3) Small size Cons: 1) The blue LED is too bright in my opinion 2) When the unit runs out of water, it will sometimes rapidly cycle between running and not running. When this happens, the LED cycles between blue and red. This has woken me up when I forgot to refill the unit before going to bed. Update Sept. 2012: I have reduced usage of the unit in the hopes of extending its life, but the fan is going bad on the second replacement unit and I am out of warranty at this point. The unit is now too noisy to use while sleeping and I presume it is only a matter of time before the bearing seizes on the fan. I am out of warranty so I pulled the unit apart. The fan part number does not come up on the Internet nor is there any info on the fan model at the fan manufacturers site. I will try some light weight oil on the bearing to see if I can get some more life out of it. I am currently looking for a 24v DC fan to replace the one in the unit that is going bad. Hopefully I can find a $5 solution as I don't think I will be paying full price for another unit if I can avoid it. Update Nov. 2012: Air tool oil does not last long as a lubricant for the fan and is also far to fluid to stay in the bearing. After that failure, I tried packing some Redline CV2 into the fan bearing. I pulled the label off the fan and ran the fan while pressing the grease around the axle and bearing. The Redline is much more viscous than air tool oil, but less viscous than most grease products I have seen. The fan is slow to get up to speed when first started, but once it gets moving, it runs quietly. The grease also stays put around the axle and bearing rather than running all over the place. Not sure how long this will last, but it took 5 minutes and saves me some money for now.

I love this little humidifier - so simple to use. The little blue light is beautiful, and it turns red when you're out of water, though you'll know anyway, because that satisfying foggy mist will no longer be shooting out, soothing your poor nose and eyes while you suffer in whatever dry atmosphere you're in. It's super quiet, and has a slight gurgling sound as the misting is happening inside the machine and and also when the pressure causes it to refill from the bottle. It's all very soothing to me, and most sounds usually annoy me to no end. I use about 1.5 16-oz bottles of water a day at my desk and dump out what I haven't used and dry it when I leave for the night. I haven't had any mineral buildup yet, but I've only used it for a week. There does seem to be a slight risk of the adapter not sealing perfectly inside your water bottle, so once all the initial filling is accomplished when you've turned your botte over, check the bottle for continuing little bubbles going up immediately - that stream of little bubbles means the seal isn't 100% and it will overfill your mister, causing it to stop misting and eventually will lead to overflow of the machine. Everywhere. :-) The every-once-in-a-while big bubbles are just it refilling itself, but those little bubbles right after you filled it mean trouble. It just took me one readjustment of the adapter and I only had to do it the one time so far; every other seal/fill-up has been perfect. I'm still giving it 5 stars because it works so well and makes me so darn happy. Sometimes I just stick my face right in the fog and smile; just be careful if you do that - this is water, after all, and the droplets will eventually collect on the fine hairs on your face if you have it shoved right in the mist for too long and you'll look like a maniac. I love this thing!

This is an absolutely fantastic little device. My office is quite dry and no matter how many times I have facilities fix the humidity issues they invariably switch to a different heating unit that doesn't have the correct steam settings. So time after time I wind up with a sinus infection from breathing in overly dry hot air. We're not allowed to have appliances in our cubicles so I figured they couldn't complain too much about a portable humidifier that was easily tucked out of sight every day. After being knocked out of work for a second time this month I decided to punch the button on this little device. Today is actually the first day that I've owned this humidifier but I'm already impressed. The construction quality is excellent and it feels very solid. In the box there is the humidifier, power adapter with US and European plugs, an adapter to fit into the mouth of a water bottle, a cleaning brush/tool, and a nice quality travel bag to store everything in. The humidifier itself is just a small block with little wing legs that swivel out for stability, and a vent that tips up for operation. There is a dial on the back that controls the amount of vapor this device will spew out. The adapter for the water bottle will fit into two different size bottle mouths, it does so by having a two tiered design much like a wedding cake. There is a little valve in the adapter to keep water from spilling out as you tip it over, and the valve opens automatically when the water bottle is placed into the humidifier. And, much like a water cooler the water will just gurgle down into the humidifier as the water level in the humidifier drops over time. I set the humidifier up on my kitchen counter and put a 500 ml bottle of Market Pantry water on it. The adapter fit very easily into the mouth of the bottle and it didn't spill a drop as I put it in place. I briefly wondered if it was broken as it didn't start up, until I remembered the dial on the back. I turned it on and a little blue light inside the reservoir came on and a constant stream of mist suddenly started flowing forth. After about two hours of use on max the humidifier went through roughly 250 ml of water. Note it is a rather cold/dry day here in Minnesota so dumping a cup of moisture into the air makes a big difference. I'm already so pleased with this humidifier I'm contemplating purchasing another for traveling and leaving this one permanently at work.

I bought this humidifier for my mom. She was unable to close her eyes completely and her eyes would dry out and become painful. She needed moisture when she was in bed during the night (and often during the day) and this one blew just enough moist air to help her eyes without making the room too humid. It was also easy to direct towards her eyes. We had two of them so I could leave one with her while I took the other home for cleaning. Cleaning was so much easier than any other humidifier I have ever used. I just disolved two tablespoons of citric acid into a cup of hot water, put it into a small, oblong Ziplock container, and put the humidifier in it, upside down. This perfectly cleaned any buildup. I bought both humidifiers in August of 2016 and they are still working, even though they are used every day, sometimes for 16 hours per day or more. The side panels have fallen off when my mom knocked them onto the floor but they were easy to reattach.

Wanted a portable humidifier and this perfectly matches our requirement. The product is as per description and serves the purpose.

Not bad, works, convenient, mist amount acceptable, noise level acceptable - I use it mostly during sleep so that I don't wake up feeling all dried up (I think it helps... it could also be just my mind fooling myself). The control for mist amount, although suppose to be graduate with that dial, could be improved... it's more like there are just three levels: nothing, a little, and all in, need to be almost as careful as cracking a safe to get the right amount that I want. Use filtered, or even better, distilled water if you don't want it to build up precipitation. The one star taken off (almost took off two): THE LIGHT! Oh I hate the blue light that can't be switched off when it's working! So bright and annoying for sleep-time use! Please listen to all the complaints and add a switch to it! Overall a nice little portable humidifier, would recommend to friends. I actually bought two, one for myself and one for my mom when she travels (AC could really dry up hotel rooms), but she never uses it as it is too noisy and BRIGHT for her liking. She's a light sleeper.

I bought this device because I spend my life (airline) in DRY hotels. The Beneco humidifier is very efficient and quiet. I use a bottle of 1 or 1 1/2 liter and it last between 7-9 hrs. It has a blue light quite bright but not agressive. I am very satisfy and I recommand it for any bedroom.

Use it at work for my office. My throat is noticeably dry when I don't. Work great and totally silent. Mist goes up a few inches then falls so don't put it to land right on your papers. Place it out to the side.