These Humidifiers Add Moisture Into the Air During Dry Seasons for Better Sleep and Easier Breathing (2024)

When seasons change and temperatures drop, the cool, dry air can wreak havoc on your sinuses and skin. This can be exacerbated when your home’s heating system dries the air even further. But you don’t have to suffer chapped lips, nosebleeds, or cracking skin. If the air in your home is persistently dry—or you just want to combat the occasional cold—a great humidifier can do a lot to improve your air quality and health.

The Best Humidifiers

• Best Overall: Levoit Classic 300S Humidifier
• Best Value: Levoit Dual 200S Smart Humidifier
• Easiest to Clean: Canopy Humidifier
• Most Affordable: Raydrop Cool Mist Humidifier
  
• Most Settings: Levoit LV600HH Humidifier
  

Do I Need a Humidifier?

Using a humidifier in your living room or bedroom while you sleep can prevent dry sinuses and chapped hands and lips, as well as decrease static electricity. Unlike whole-home humidifiers installed by HVAC contractors, these units are easy-to-use and affordable but still effective in adding moisture back into the air.

Winter may be the primary season you use your dehumidifier because heating systems drive moisture from the air, but air conditioner use in summer can cause dry air, too. Aside from your sinuses, low humidity can also dry out your wood furniture, floors, paint, and wallpaper.

While there are many benefits to humidifiers, dirty ones can become a breeding ground for germs, bacteria, mold, and mildew, so make sure you have plans to clean out the water reservoir regularly. Many humidifiers require weekly cleaning and daily refills, though some of the best models have design features that make this maintenance easier.

Cool-Mist Versus Warm-Mist Humidifiers

Cool- and warm-mist humidifiers both add moisture to the air effectively, but cool-mist humidifiers are safer to use around children because they don’t release hot steam. Cool-mist humidifiers can be used all year round and can help relieve cold symptoms, while warm mist humidifiers can come in handy on a chilly winter night and can help reduce bacteria and germs.

Ultrasonic Versus Evaporative Humidifiers

Ultrasonic humidifiers use high-frequency vibration with fans to produce a fine mist, and are much quieter than traditional humidifiers. Evaporative humidifiers use wick filters and fans to release actual water vapor into the air. They’re cost-efficient and work well in arid climates, but might not be the best choice for larger spaces.

Size and Capacity

Choose a humidifier that best suits the square footage of the room that you need to bring more moisture to. Small humidifiers are more ideal for small bedrooms and offices, while large humidifiers work well for expansive areas like open-concept rooms and entire-home humidification. Check the square footage recommendation of the humidifier before purchasing, because proper sizing will help ensure efficiency and effectiveness.

The water tank capacity is also an important consideration. Humidifiers with higher capacities can run longer between refills, so you can use them overnight. Choose a humidifier with a water tank that best matches your room size and frequency of use.

How We Selected

We recommend these humidifiers based on a slew of hands-on tests, as well as extensive research on the models we haven’t tried yet. For the models we tested, we used hygrometers to measure humidity in different rooms and monitored them throughout testing. We tested in both closed rooms, isolated from air currents in the house, as well as in larger rooms with more airflow, open to adjoining rooms.

For all of the models we recommend, we considered ease of use, efficacy, water tank capacity, and how easy they were to clean to determine the best.

We tested the Levoit Classic 300S humidifier to confirm its efficacy and convenience during dry and cold weather months. It leverages ultrasonic technology using high-frequency vibration to create a fine mist, and distributes it with a quiet fan. Thanks to its huge, six-liter tank, the Classic 300S can run for over two days on low. When needed, refilling is a breeze—its top-fill design, with wide mouth, made it easy for us to add water.In our tests, the tank lasted 55 hours before needing a refill on low, 30 hours on medium, and about 18 hours on high. On auto mode, the humidifier averaged needing a refill about every 24 hours.

The Classic 300S has three mist levels: low, medium, and high, as well as an auto mode that allows you to set a target humidity. In auto mode, a built-in hygrometer will alert the unit to turn off once the air reaches 5 percent over that target. However, because the built-in hygrometer is located near the mist, it’s not a super accurate or reliable indication of your room’s overall humidity. We’d recommend either setting auto mode to a slightly higher target humidity, placing the unit in an open area with good airflow, skipping the auto mode feature and using the app instead, or just letting the humidifier turn off once it’s run out of water on another setting.

About that app—we used it to set modes, timers, and to create schedules to turn the humidifier on and off. We could also view the current humidity, as well as set up voice control through Alexa or Google Assistant.

The Canopy is marketed toward improving your skin health, but it’s still a serious enough humidifier to cover larger living spaces up to 500 square feet. It’s an evaporative humidifier that uses a fan to draw moisture through a paper filter, or wick, that sifts out contaminants in your water. Because of the way it works, we were never able to see any mist or vapor, but according to our hygrometer, it was certainly working.

We tested in a closed 150-square-foot room, starting at 47 percent humidity. After an hour, it was up to 52, and after two hours, it reached 55. In a larger 250-square-foot room open to the rest of the house, we were able to raise humidity from 37 percent to 45 and maintain it, over the course of a day, with the Canopy running on high. At that level, we had to refill the reservoir about every 24 hours.

The Canopy mitigates some of the downsides of caring for a humidifier with its embedded UV light to kill bacteria and mold in the water, but you can also put all the plastic parts in the dishwasher. The filter/wick, however, will need to be replaced every six weeks and, if you use the Canopy year-round, means you’ll go through about nine a year. The company offers a filter subscription that will save you a few dollars and help make sure you’ve always got one when you need it.

Levoit’s Dual 200S is an effective, reasonably priced smart humidifier, packed with features. With its Wi-Fi capability, you can set it up, monitor it, and operate it via a free app on your phone. Through the app, we were able to set modes and timers, as well as create schedules to turn the humidifier on and off. We could also view the current humidity, as well as set up voice control through Alexa or Google Assistant.

We found the Dual 200S could quickly increase humidity in small, enclosed rooms. It took us just one hour to go from 45 to 51 percent humidity, and then to 55 in the next hour. We also tested in a larger, 250-square-foot room open to the rest of the house. Our starting humidity was 38 percent, and we were able to hold an average of about 48 running the 200S on auto.

The reservoir has a wide opening on top for refilling, and while it’s easy to fill, we preferred bringing a larger pitcher to the humidifier rather than taking the reservoir to the sink. While the reservoir has a valve at the bottom that doesn’t leak, we always seemed to get a drip on the floor from the bottom of the tank where it touched the water. Admittedly, this is a minor complaint—and about the only criticism we really had.

This Raydrop humidifier is an affordable option around $30, though keep in mind that it isn’t much more powerful than some diffusers. But it is compact and narrow, easily fitting on most nightstands. Its capacity is almost a half gallon, which will be able to run through the night on low before needing a refill. It has a dial knob that can cycle through many settings between low and high speed, as well as an LED indicator to tell you when the water has run out.

Most humidifiers don’t offer a ton of versatility beyond high and low settings, but the LV600HH from Levoit delivers all of the customization you’ll need. It has both warm and cool mist settings, an auto mode with an accurate humidity sensor, an aroma diffuser box, and an adjustable light, plus a remote control and timer so you can set a schedule. Most significantly, its 6-liter reservoir provides the longest run time, from 20 to 36 hours for rooms up to 750 square feet.

This Levoit does have the same drawbacks as other ultrasonic humidifiers, namely that it has to sit on a table or shelf to prevent the mist from puddling on the floor. One Amazon reviewer also noted that it has several nooks and crannies that make weekly cleaning to prevent mold more of a challenge.

The MistAire can run for up to 16 hours on its low setting, and has a max of 25 hours of run time. The shape makes it easy to see when the water gets low, though it will automatically turn off when empty. It’s also a bit awkward to clean, but does come with a brush to help.

The ultrasonic technology allows the humidifier to run almost silently, and there is blue night light built in to add ambiance to your space.

The best aspect of this Designer Series humidifier is its inconspicuous build, which won’t be an eyesore in your living spaces, and that doesn’t come at the cost of quality. Like other ultrasonic models, it’s quiet enough to use in bedrooms, and you can adjust the tank light to off, dim, or bright settings to view the water level.

The mist control button allows you to scroll to find the perfect output, and the tank has a fairly wide opening despite the cylindrical shape for convenient filling and cleaning. If you’re on the fence between getting a full-size humidifier or essential-oil diffuser, know that this model also has a tray for you to add your favorite essential oil fragrances.

Another standard 1-gallon ultrasonic, cool-mist humidifier, the Drop is quiet enough to run in your baby’s nursery or kid’s bedroom at night. It has a dial for variable mist output control, so you can get the humidity levels just right. Though the humidifier doesn’t require a filter, Crane offers an optional one you can buy separately in case you have excessive minerals in your water that you’d like to filter out. And its droplet-shaped lid can rotate 360 degrees to send the mist in whatever direction you want.

You should be cleaning a humidifier like this about once a week, especially if it’s in a baby’s room. Keep that in mind, since the bottom-fill tank without a handle or wide opening may make refilling and cleaning a bit more cumbersome.