Vicks Filter-Free Ultrasonic Humidifier, Recommended by Pediatricians

Overview : My wife and I live in a 2,000 square foot apartment and have had this humidifier running full blast for 24 hours a day for almost a week and it works great!! We put the unit in a central location in our place and it’s perfect. (This was an upgrade for us, the previous humidifier we had was cheaper and was difficult/annoying to clean and somewhat noisy. It wasn’t a Vicks brand.) The Good : This unit is much quieter and SO much easier to clean than the non Vicks brand we had before. The directions for cleaning this humidifier in the manual are very confusing and VERY different from videos you can find online that Vicks makes. I follow the video and ignore the manuals cleaning instructions. The amount of cool mist is quite plentiful and eases our dry skin and airways. (No more breathing discomfort in the mornings.) The tank holds enough water so we can run the unit at full blast for over 15 hours before a refill. I’ve read reviews about how it “leaks water all over”. I think that what the person may be referring to is the condensation that happens if the mist falls onto a surface such as a table or dresser. We’ve overcome this by either placing a washrag just in front of the unit on the table or setting the humidifier close to the edge of the dresser so the mist falls down allowing it to dissipate without coming into contact with anything. (We don’t have kids so there’s no worries about it getting accidentally knocked over.) The complaints about the sounds seem misunderstood. Yes, the unit makes noise; humidifiers do that. The sounds come from 3 different functions. 1) The motor that makes the unit work…. it’s a low-ish humming sound. 2) The bubbling created by the transducer (the round mist producing thing) 3) The periodic bubbling sound of the water moving from the tank into the reservoir leading to the transducer. Having used a cheaper non-Vicks unit for the past 3 winters, this unit is by far superior in keeping these sounds to a minimum. (I’m a very light sleeper and none of these sounds bother me one bit.) There is a place to put a scent pad; it came with 2 Vicks vapor pads. I experimented with putting a few drops of essential oil onto a piece of tissue and used that instead…. it worked well. Please watch the video I made to go along with this review. The Not-So Good : I can’t think of anything so far.

I have gotten back into keeping house plants and I have started off with some big challenges -- a Vanda orchid (roots are exposed to air, from which they collect moisture), a sundew (carnivorous plant requiring high humidity), and air plants (many of which I've killed from letting them get too dry). It was becoming obvious that I would need a real humidifier, not one of those little aromatherapy mister things, so I ordered this. After using it for about a week, I am quite happy with it. I have this in a small-ish bedroom (I keep the door shut to keep my cats away from the plants and away from my pet birds, who are also in the same room). You can definitely tell the room is more humid than the rest of the house when you open the door. I keep the dial on about halfway, so the area with the light is pointing straight up. At this rate, with the unit on only during the day (well, about 17 hours per day), I have to refill this every 2-3 days. So the water lasts a fairly long period of time. Of course this will vary based on your dial setting. Right in the middle, as I said, you can feel the humidity in the room and you can actually see the mist coming out. (I have it right under the window near which I keep my plants, but you can feel the humidity in the opposite corner of the room.) This unit is very quiet. You can't hear it over my parakeets and finches. I don't think it would be at all difficult to sleep while this was on. It is quieter than the air purifier in my own bedroom I run for white noise at night. The cord is a reasonable length. I didn't read the instructions before starting this up but it doesn't seem to matter, I was able to operate it with no difficulty based on my experience with other humidifiers. I have this elevated on an upside-down Sterilite box with a curve in the cord down from the outlet, to prevent condensation from getting to the outlet. I haven't really had any problems with condensation at the humidity level I'm using, but it pays to be careful. One awesome thing is that the opening on the bottom of the reservoir is huge compared to other humidifiers. If you have small hands (I do!) you can fit your whole hand down in there to clean the unit out. If you are going to store this for an extended period of time, do dry it out first so you don't get algae growing in it, though. I am not using the aroma pads because my unit is just being used for plants. But that option is there if you need it and I will say that eucalyptus aroma mist at night is useful for gently assisting breathing if you have clogged sinuses. Overall, I'm very happy with the purchase. This works well and is easy to clean.

Works great, was very helpful when both my boys got sick.

I bought this not for myself, but for my houseplants. With the heater on in winter, the ambient humidity levels inside dropped to around 20%. With this humidifier, I've been able to keep it at closer to 60% with it on at its highest setting. Maybe not as high as I'd like it, but it saves me from misting them all the time and works even when I'm not at home. It's really cool to see the mist come out instantly. I'm still not totally sure how it works and have looked it up. It's not heating the water as it's a cool mister. I didn't like the idea of boiling water that could get knocked over and the mold that the warm temperatures would promote. From what I've been able to gather, it works by vibrating the water very quickly, forcing some minute particles into the air in the form of mist. It's like magic and I don't think I'll ever get tired of watching it when it first turns on. As said, I use this on its highest setting and need to refill it every day. So that means it's using just a little more than 1 gallon every 24 hours. My advice is to use distilled or purified water only with it. Make sure if you use purified water that it is Reverse-Osmosis treated in order to remove hardness in the form of calcium and magnesium. The instructions say as much, because hardness in tap water will collect on the tank and make cleaning more difficult. Think lime scale. I suspect that hardness and accumulation of minerals might also eventually interfere with the micronizing of water particles (however that works), As per the directions, I clean it out once a week by using a sponge on the inside (my hand first very easily inside the opening) and letting a dilute bleach solution soak in it for 10 minutes or so. Maybe once a month I use a 50% solution of white vinegar for the soaking stage. This is a mild antiseptic (though not as effective as bleach) but mostly it's because the acidity will help dissolve any lime scale. Since I use RO water, there are almost no particles to build up on the parts so this is more just good practice. If you use only tap water in your humidifier, I'd suggest doing the vinegar soak weekly. I clean and handle the reservoir tank so much, however, that it has been dropped in the sink and now has a crack in the blue plastic. It has not leaked yet (fingers crossed) and the crack is near the top of the tank so is not in contact with water as often as the bottom is. I hope this doesn't become a bigger problem and I can't blame Vick's for this issue when it was due to my own clumsy handling. In the summer when humidity is high where I live, I pack this humidifier away. it won't come back out until autumn when we use our heater again. If you clean and maintain this thing as recommended it will run better, last longer, and won't introduce more mold spores into your home than are already present. Update Feb 2019 - I have noticed a little problem when refilling and replacing the reservoir that water doesn't always come down into the base. When this happens, it's because the water column is broken so even though you fliled it up, the humidifier may run dry if you don't clear the air bubble that is stopping the water in the tank from connecting to the water in the base. This happened to me once after I refilled the tank right before going to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I noticed no mist was coming out and the motor had been running dry for the entire night! The instruction manual clearly states not to allow the humidifier to run dry, but I didn't think it would be since I had just filled it up. Once I lifted the reservoir up and down a few times by its handle, water ran out of the tank and air bubbled up and the mist resumed. So it doesn't seem any permanent damage was done. So my word of caution to buyers - make sure that when you refill and replace the water reservoir, even if it is seated correctly don't assume water will actually run down into the base as it's supposed to. With the tank seated in position on the humidifier, hold the reservoir by the handle and move it up and down in place a few times until you see large bubbles come up. That will tell you water has actually left the reservoir tank and a continuous water column has been established between it and the reaction chamber in the base. Otherwise, an air bubble will result in cavitation which could damage the motor and moving parts.

Like with most small appliances, I did A LOT of research before buying this. More than I usually do. I ended up down a rabbit hole of cool vs warm mist health benefits, expensive models with sensors, and 2 days later I finally pulled the trigger on this, and 2 months later, I couldn't be happier. You get what you pay for, so although I think this is actually REASONABLY priced, you can't expect something to work just as well as something 2, 3 or 4 times as expensive. If you don't want to have to clean your machine frequently don't buy a filter-less. If you don't want to use trial and error to figure out which humidity setting works for your home and season, your gonna have to splurge on digital one. I felt COMPELLED to write this long review since after using this for 2 months, I'm upset that I ALMOST let some other reviews deter me. I have a hard time replacing objects in our home that I have a perfectly working alternatives, but since we have VERY hard well water, with both types of iron, we were flying through filters at an insane rate last winter, so I wanted something filter-less that was easy to clean. We live in central New England, with a woodstove as primary heat and a forced hot air furnace, and a fairly open concept 1100sq house (500sq main living space), and this model has been a godsend. This winter started earlier than normal, so my annual "sign" (waking up with a bloody nose) to find, clean, and plug in the humidifier came sooner this year. As soon as it arrived, I got the thing running on full blast for 3 days straight, and I realized why there are some mediocre reviews, and heres a few reasons to ignore them. 1) Not to lambast the other reviewers, but I dont think they understand how POWERFUL this model is for its tiny size. In fact, I think the even the manufacturer has undersold it. Our old humidifier could run on high for about 36hrs without having to be refilled, and this one barely makes it 15 all the way up, with a similar sized tank. That's A LOT of water you're pumping into the air, and that's where all these "leaking" reviews are coming from I suspect. On day 3 of full blast (hindsight math, about 6 gallons of water) the weather had been rainy and warmer, and that's when I came home to the machine "leaking". Aka I had made the house so humid the machine was covered, then dripping, condensation on the floor. The manual warns against this, BTW, that condensing can happen when you exceed 60% humidity. Without a digital read, I found that the INSIDE of the tank starts condensing a while before the outside, so I just turn the machine down until the next time we have the woodstove cranking. 2) The machine is filter less, so you have to clean the machine more often than filtered ones. That pink and white buildup is NOT mold, its whatever is left after the Hs and Os of H²O have evaporated out. So unless you're strictly using Distilled Water, even the most expensive household water system isnt gonna remove EVERYTHING else out, and what's left is mineral "scale". Filtered Humidifiers pull most of this out in the FILTER, so that's why you replace those and don't see it in the tank. Regardless, you should be cleaning our humidifier anyway, but the audacity to leave a bad review because after 6 months there's residue after not cleaning it is complete nonsense. 3) This machine is NOT noisy. Sure you can't hear a pin drop while it's on high, but despite it's high powered ability, it does far less gurgling than our old one, one that was already so quiet it never woke my super light-sleeping husband. It's SOO quiet that... 4) The auto shut-off DOES work, just not when the tank is visible empty. Because the machine is so quiet, and after the condensation debacle, I had been running it on about quarter power (so no visible mist), and I actually forgot about the machine for a couple days. I got home one night, noticed the tank was empty and it was still running, so initally I thought the reviewers were right about the shut-off feature. But when I shut it off and picked up the tank, I realized the reservoir in the base was still full of water, so I decided to do an experiment to test the auto shut-off. I turned it back on to full blast, and about 30m later the machine shut itself off. I picked up the tank and the rest of the water was gone. Not that I actually PLAN to forget again, but it's good to know when inevitably I do, the shut off works. 5) This machine is only SLIGHTLY harder to clean than my old one. PRO: The Tank has round edges with a large filling hole, big enough to get my hand and sponge in, and the easier to clean without corners. CON: The conical part is harder to get around (and clean itself) until I decided to use my wire handled bottle-brush to bend and shape around it and stuff down in to get to the bottom. So although I'm usually hard pressed to leave 5 star reviews on mundane necessities, this one deserves it, so save yourself and your wallet and do some trial and error in your home with this machine.

Bought this thing back in January to help add some moisture to the air after getting a septoplasty. I forgot how dry the air in Colorado is, and the nose surgery provided a painful reminder of just how dry the air is. I ran this thing in my office cube about 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, from January until around mid March. I brought it home when I started working from home due to the pandemic, and it started being run about 24 hours a day for another month or so. I kept it running in my bedroom (~12 ft²) with the door closed on about 50% power. After that, it sat unused for about 5 months or so as summer settled in. During this break, it did get kicked on a couple times when the skies had turned brown and red with smoke for about a couple of weeks. Northern Colorado wildfire season, gotta love it. September came along and it was starting to get dry again. I had recovered from my nose surgery, but the rest of me was not happy about sleeping in cold dry air. This thing got put back on 24-hour duty around the middle of September and has been running great since then (as of the time of this review, the middle of December). I had a brief scare when I thought the fan had died. Funny enough, it was while I was writing an initial review of disappointment that I looked at it and saw that the water tank was not fully on the base. I got up, adjusted it, and the tank clocked in to place and the fan kicked right back on. I thought I had worked the fan to death, but I was just an idiot. It's fine. I hope I don't come back later and report that the fan had died. Lord knows I'm going to be putting it through a lot of use during Colorado's wonderfully cold and dry (air) season. If the fan does die, I hope it's at least after 3 years of constant use. I'm probably not running like a normal person should, but it's still going, still quiet, and is keeping my bedroom nice and comfy.

**** UPDATE NOV 14, 2025**** Folks, I've had this machine shut off since Oct 1, 2025. It's been sitting here with water in it and I've been too dang lazy to empty it and put it away. I feel like I don't need it anymore since I've changed up my diet and my sinuses are no longer stuffy. So today I finally got determined to get this thing emptied and put away. But here's my point: Water has been sitting in this thing since Oct 1 (today is Nov 14, 2025) and there is still NO MILDEW ANYWHERE!!! I've even TRIED to see anything pink in here but it just doesn't exist. The photo today Nov 14, 2025 I took before I emptied the remaining water from it. See any pink? NOPE! Now why are so many of you seeing mildew in your machines? I think I know why.... you're putting tap water in it. I NEVER put tap water in mine. I ONLY put filtered water in it. Same with my Keurig... only FILTERED WATER – NEVER TAP WATER!! I took a paper towel to mine in & out and this thing looks as good as the day I took it out of the box. For extra measure, I put 2 paper towels inside the canister just in case I missed any moisture, but I don't think I did. I held the canister up to the light and it's perfect. The lower working part also looks perfect. DON'T USE TAP WATER IN THESE THINGS! ************************** I bought this unit the end of summer 2024 but just opened it May 2025. It's been running 24 hrs a day, every day, since May. I've been reading all these comments about mold and I gotta tell ya.... I turned this thing off today and decided to clean it for the first time but I don't see mold ANYWHERE!! My unit is perfectly CLEAN! I rubbed my fingers along the inside and feel no slimey film. There's no pink. I mean, look at the picture. It looks great! I never let one drop of tap water touch this thing except for washing it now. I only fill it with my Aquasana-filtered water. Could that be it? Whatever. It works great and has really saved my dry sinuses this year. I'm thinking about buying a second unit but am afraid I won't have the good luck with another one like I've had with this one. Plus jeeze, the price has doubled since I bought mine last year. I might wait but gosh I'm sorry there's so many of you that are having a mold problem. Get an Aquasana! Great drinking water, too!

I've owned this machine before but I needed to replace it. What I received has a piece that is broken, so whenever I need to add water it gets everywhere. Otherwise it works fine. The first one I owned didn't have that problem. About this model: GOOD: I find this model does a fantastic job putting a nice mist into the air, better than any other I've used. It's so fine it's barely visible, yet you can feel and breathe the difference. It runs very quietly and is the perfect size for a bedroom. I think it's not ideal for a larger space, but bedrooms are great. It's easy to control the humidity level and control the direction the most goes. I've never experienced water buildup on walls or ceilings, even when put on a high corner shelf to blow into the room. Used continuously on full power, one gallon of water will last 24 hrs. Lower levels a gallon can last 2-3 days. However it's not entirely user friendly when you need to add water or clean it. So... BAD: You absolutely have to use distilled water or water deposits will cause the valve to add water to be too difficult to open or shut. Basically, it'll rust shut. I don't really have that hard of water, yet chemical build up from water impurities (sediment deposits) gets all over everything and will ruin the machine. The instructions also specifically state to use only distilled water. Using those floaties with chemicals to fight that helps a little, but not enough. The machine will still gunk up rather quickly. Plus, they have to be replaced frequently. So really, you still have to use distilled water. When you pay almost $1 per gallon, running the machine costs approx $30 a month to run, just for the water. (Though I'm pretty sure power consumption is minimal.) (Though the floaties I find worth it to help keep slime and algae stuff from growing. The inside of the machine gunks up with slime very fast, it needs to be cleaned every few days without the floaties. But again, they need to be replaced every month at about $5 a pop.) Then there's the fact that it has to be taken apart in order to add water, then put back together to run. Having to do that every day gets to be a lot. Also, it's difficult to clean. The opening doesn't allow hand maneuverability and unless your brush is super bendy, there will be spaces you can't reach to clean off any slime build up. I've put soapy water in shaken it up and rinsed it out, but it's difficult to get all the soap out because where the whole is leaves a shelf for water to catch and not pour out completely. So, in conclusion, it works excellently. As far as it's purpose, it's the best in my opinion. But, it's expensive to run (about $35 a month for water and floatie), and it's quite difficult to maintain. P.S. the Vicks Vapor function I've only used once. It didn't seem very strong, the vapors were subtle. Also, the inserts don't last long and needed to be replaced several times a day. You're better off using an EO diffuser.

Me gustó que dura mucho tiempo, que llegó antes de lo esperado, que es más grande de lo que imaginé, dura muchas horas. Lo pedí para ayudar a mi hijo con una complicación de tos causada por el asma y la verdad a Sido una compra exitosa.

the mist generated does not seem to have any health benefits for better breathing

El artículo corresponde a lo descrito por el vendedor. Cumple con mis expectativas Es fácil de usar y de lavado en su interior. Excelente producto