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Every home that uses heat should have at least one good humidifier on hand. That unplaceable feeling of staticky, irritated dryness could be banished forever so long as you find a machine you like using and don’t mind cleaning. It’s that latter point that separates a great one from the merely good enough.
Humidity is important, not just for comfort but for health. “When the humidity is low, dry environments cause skin to lose moisture” says Dr. Melissa K. Levin of Entière Dermatology. “And that can then subsequently affect the skin barrier, leading to dryness, flakiness, and other irritation.” And it’s not just your external organs that are affected. Chad Kranak is a professional opera singer who attended college in Colorado for his singing. There, he quickly learned the value of all the humidity he’d taken for granted back home. “I was just always parched,” he says. “I didn’t have the necessary fluids on my vocal cords to make sound.” But he quickly found a solution in the form of a warm-mist humidifier, which he used every night to help his throat recover from the dryness of the day. “I think there was maybe like a night or two where it wasn’t working or something and I would notice it immediately.”
But not all humidifiers are created equal. Both Kranak and Levin cited ease of cleaning and maintenance as the main factor in what you should consider while shopping for the right one. After all, in order to fully serve their purpose, you’re meant to be running it 24/7, stopping only for refills. So any amount of grodiness gets amplified manyfold throughout your home’s ambient atmosphere if it’s not dealt with proactively. With that in mind, I set out to find a number of options to suit every need and budget that are capable of moistening your home’s air while being easy to clean and, ideally, nice to look at.
Update on December 10, 2024: Checked stock and updated prices for all products.
What we’re looking for
Capacity
You want something that’s going to last all day between refills — or at least all night. To that end, we’re looking for a capacity of at least three-liters or, better yet, over one gallon. Smaller options can be fine for specific applications — like bedside aromatherapy. But most people are better off going bigger, because that typically also means the hole for accessing and filling the reservoir will be big enough to stick your hand inside in order to get at every nook and crevice that mold or mildew could possibly take root in. You might be able to get away with a smaller-capacity model in a compact bedroom for use only at night, but the minor difference in footprint size is not typically worth the tradeoff of potentially running out of water in the middle of the night.
Type
There are good arguments to be made for evaporative and warm-mist humidifiers, but for most people, ultrasonic is the way to go. These humidifiers operate in near silence by vibrating a small pool of water until it vaporizes and is able to be dispersed out of a spout and off into your home’s atmosphere. The biggest downside to this approach is that anything that’s in the water will also go into the air, including naturally occurring minerals from your tap water and any residual dirt, grime, or funkiness that makes its way into — or grows inside — the unit. That’s why it’s so important to clean it regularly. “Not daily, but every other day,” according to Dr. Levin, adding that “weekly is the max.” As for the minerals, particularly mineral-heavy tap water can cause white dust to settle onto surfaces near the unit’s spout. You can get around it by using bottled water or reverse-osmosis-filtered water. Some units also come with optional cartridges that can mitigate this effect.
Warm-mist humidifiers work by heating water until it becomes steam, which is nice in cooler climates since adding humidity into already cold air can make it feel even colder. But even in these instances, we’d recommend turning up the thermostat over the additional and unnecessary risk of burning small kids or pets with steam. There’s also the lesser but non-zero risk of fire hazard anytime you’re combining continuous heat and electricity with materials like rugs or upholstery.
Evaporative humidification works by blowing air through a wicking medium that is moistened from a reservoir. If you’ve ever hang-dried your clothes in your apartment and noticed your skin was feeling extra dewy while this was going on, it’s basically the same thing. The downside here is that it requires a fan to work, which can be loud. Also, over time, the wicking material tends to attract dust bunnies and other debris from the surrounding areas that look so gross that it makes you never want to use the machine again once you’ve seen it. But the biggest advantage to this approach is that it’s impossible to overhumidify a space because the surrounding air has to be dryer than the wick in order to suck the moisture out of it (this is why air-drying clothes in a tropical climate can take so long, despite the heat and sunshine). As bad as dryness can be, overhumidification carries its own risks. “I grew up in Bangkok,” says Dr. Levin. “So the humidity factor there is usually 80 to 90 percent. And when you’re in these high-humid environments, you can get heat rashes, you can get fungal overgrowth, you can get excessive moisture and oil production.”
Humidistat
If you’re going to get an ultrasonic humidifier and you want to be sure you don’t over-humidify, make sure you choose one that has a built-in humidistat. It does what you think it does: maintain a specific, user-determined level of humidity by turning the mechanism off and on according to what it’s reading. “For normal, healthy skin, you look for an ideal range anywhere between like 40 to 60 percent,” says Dr. Levin. You can definitely experiment within that range to find what works best for you, but the important thing is to not go too far above 60 percent. That’s when the fungal overgrowth starts coming into play.
Dimmable display
If one of these is going in the bedroom, and it should, then you don’t want to be staring all night at an illuminated display. It’s not always easy to determine if you’re going to be able to fully dim the lights on any given unit from reading the spec sheet, but all of our picks have this feature.
Smart features
Many humidifiers are app-connected, but I didn’t bother installing any apps, and neither should you. I can’t think of any reason why being able to access my humidifier from the cloud would be worth giving away my own data.
Best humidifier overall
Capacity: 6L | Type: Ultrasonic | Humidistat: Yes | Dimmable display: Yes | Smart features: Yes
When I reached out to Dreo for advice on what to test, I had in mind a different model with a four-liter capacity that came highly recommended from other reviewers. But the company was adamant that this newer, bigger HM524S was the one to look at because it was new. While I am typically skeptical of such claims, I thought, Why not give it a go — I can always buy the smaller one if this one is a dud. To my complete surprise, this was by far my favorite ultrasonic unit out of all the ones tested.
In addition to nailing the table stakes as far as capacity, humidistat, and a dimmable display, its capacious reservoir is easy to refill from the top — and can be removed to bring to the sink if you prefer that route. There are few sharp corners to impede your dutiful cleaning routine and even fewer pieces to have to take apart. It produces a thicker, more robust stream of vapor than any other unit I tested that is also easy to direct in any direction you want it to go. There’s even an optional mineral-filtration cartridge as well as a separate little tray for essential oils if you want to enhance your home’s scent and vibes in addition to its ambient humidity. And even though I usually detest the LED ambient lighting features on these things, I have to admit that the way they’ve implemented it here with the light-up column in the middle looks pretty nifty when it’s on (which is almost never in my household). The only nit I have to pick is its lack of a warm-mist feature — one that I’ve come to love on my Levoit Oasis Mist unit.
That it does all this at almost half the price of some of its competitors is frankly astonishing. In all my years of reviewing home appliances, this might be the best bang-for-the-buck unit I have ever laid hands on.
Best humidifier with warm mist
Capacity: 4.5L | Type: Ultrasonic | Humidistat: Yes | Dimmable display: Yes | Smart features: Yes
I’ve had this unit for over a year now, and I’m pleased to report that it is still as good as the day I bought it, with no traces of mold (yet) despite my lackadaisical approach to cleaning (which is every time I can no longer remember the last time I cleaned it). Its best feature is what Levoit calls “Hotspring Mist,” which basically just lightly warms the water as it’s being vaporized. It’s a nice way to take the edge off the vapor without going the full scalding-steam route. Other than that, it’s basically every bit as good as the Dreo, except there’s no ambient LED lighting (which is probably for the better), it has a slightly smaller tank capacity, and there are no demineralization cartridges available for purchase. Dr. Levin likes her Levoit humidifier too. “It’s super-quiet,” she says. “It’s super-easy to clean, there’s an auto shut-off. It’s a great price point.”
Note that there’s a larger six-liter-capacity Levoit with the same featureset that works just as well and comes highly recommended. I don’t personally recommend it, though, because it is a pain to fill and clean. Refilling it requires you to take the reservoir off, which is already annoying. Add to that the fact that there are no fewer than four separate pieces, each of which have their own nooks, all of which need to be cleaned individually, I would much rather take the smaller unit and refill it more frequently.
Best easy-to-clean humidifier
Capacity: 4L | Type: Ultrasonic | Humidistat: No | Dimmable display: No | Smart features: No
Strategist senior editor Jen Trolio is a big fan of Carepod’s ultrasonic humidifier. “I would definitely put the Carepod in a similar class as the Canopy,” she says. She likes its design — it’s “shaped like a big white Rolo” — but the real selling point is an easy-to-clean stainless-steel reservoir. “It’s basically like a mini-stockpot that lifts out to fill, so it’s naturally less prone to germs because it’s stainless steel, and it’s dishwasher safe,” she says. (The only part that has to be hand washed is a small plastic oscillator; the rest of the reservoir can go in the dishwasher.) Since the humidifier is ultrasonic, there’s also no need to buy or replace filters. Got a bigger room? The boxier-looking Carepod Cube X50 is more expensive, but it covers up to 700 square feet.
Best hybrid air purifier and humidifier
Capacity: 3.8L | Type: Evaporative | Humidistat: Yes | Dimmable display: Yes | Smart features: Yes
If the fact that the Dyson PH03 costs $900 offends you, just keep scrolling. But if you have the money to spend, live in an apartment where you can’t modify the HVAC system, and need both humidification and purification in your home (and also a fan), then this thing is actually worth considering. If you are considering it, then know that even at a distance, the luster on the plastic exterior is clearly of a higher quality than what you’d find on even a $350 air purifier. The color OLED display (which can be turned off) is also a nice touch that makes it feel like a premium product over the simple LED displays on the rest of our picks. It humidifies by drawing water from its one-gallon/3.8-liter removable reservoir over a HEPA filter that purifies the air that runs through it. The filter needs cleaning about once a month, which the machine reminds you to do, and replacement every so often, which it also reminds you to do. There are a number of negative user reviews, but most of them have to do with the app being bad. Just don’t use it! There is truly no need. It even has its own dedicated remote that magnets onto the top for safekeeping.
Does the Dyson work? Yes. Quietly, smoothly, luxuriously. It even shows its work on the OLED screen, which, as I discovered while vaping one day, turns red when it detects elevated levels of PM 2.5 in the air and counts down the PPM pollution levels as it kicks the fan into high gear: 145, 141, 137, etc. It’s very nice. Is it worth $900? That depends.
The Dyson is a hard sell from a bang-for-your-buck perspective because for the price of one of these bad boys, you could buy several nice humidifiers and purifiers and fans and still have money left over for a fancy cocktail. But combining all of these things into one small footprint means you don’t have to find surfaces to place three separate devices. And because it purifies and moves air around, it’s useful all year. Only you can decide if that’s worth the premium over buying each of these things separately — or if you want to spend even more, you can get the PH04, which adds formaldehyde filtration.
Best humidifier for aromatherapy
Capacity: 2.5L | Type: Evaporative | Humidistat: No | Dimmable display: N/A | Smart features: No
Canopy’s Bedside humidifier was designed from the ground up to sit on your nightstand and become a part of your nighttime routine — it even runs off of USB-C power. If that’s what you’re using it for, then it’s perfect. While we usually recommend ultrasonic models for their silent operation and greater output, that output can be a little much if it’s sitting on your nightstand right next to your face while you sleep. The Canopy’s gentle fan is not too loud, and it comes with a cute little aromatherapy ceramic tile with a matching tray that you can drip your favorite essential oils onto, or you can use the bergamot-forward scent blend that comes with it. It’s a nice little touch that makes the whole experience feel a little extra special. The biggest downside of evaporative humidifiers is having to regularly change out the wick and remembering that it needs to happen, but Canopy makes it easy to subscribe to all the parts you need at the cadence that you need them. Although version 1.0 had a small reservoir opening that made it impossible to stick your hand inside for thorough cleaning, the 2.0 version has a larger opening that addresses this issue — in addition to a quieter, larger fan — and is constructed using more antimicrobial materials.
Best humidifier to buy in a pinch
Capacity: 4.5L | Type: Ultrasonic | Humidistat: No | Dimmable display: N/A | Smart features: No
Let me be frank: There is no reason to buy this thing if you can wait a few days for one of our other picks. It’s as good as any other for humidifying a space, but unlike the others, it makes a consistent burbling noise that can be quite irritating. There’s also no display to dim — though the ambient LED lighting can be turned off. The stream of vapor that comes out the top on the highest setting is not quite as strong as the Dreo’s or the Levoit’s. But it’s good enough. You also don’t want it to be too strong because it doesn’t have a humidistat. You have to manually turn it on or off — though it will automatically shut down if it’s empty. As I said, every other option on this list is a better pick. But if you need a humidifier now within driving distance, this thing is better than the others I’ve picked up in the past when faced with this same situation.
Our experts
• Chad Kranak, opera singer
• Dr. Melissa K. Levin, dermatologist at Entière Dermatology
• Jen Trolio, Strategist senior editor
Some more air-freshening products we’ve written about
Additional reporting by Chris Stokel-Walker
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