Vicks Warm Mist Humidifier - Air Humidifier

After much research on a warm mist vs. cool mist humidifier, I chose the Vicks Warm Mist Humidifier with Auto shut-off. Actually, I had done my research (for home and small office) and narrowed my results down to the Crane (tear-drop one) and this one. While the Crane has tremendous reviews, one negative factor kept coming up: that it had many "fiddly bits" to clean, while the Vicks does not. So I was prepared to get the Vicks ... Just before I ordered the Vicks though, I was at a warehouse store and saw a Bionaire Humidifier on sale. Since I was there, I just picked up 2 without paying much attention - perhaps thinking that it was good just to grab something at a store instead of waiting for it to arrive online. I realized it was an Ultrasonic Cool Mist, but thought to give it a try anyhow. After ~2 days of running the Cool Mist most of the day, we noticed a white film on all our dark furniture in our home. Unfortunately, true to the nature of Cool Mist humidifiers, everything in your water becomes dispersed into the air (minerals, even potentially bacterial, fungal spores, etc) and we definitely saw the mineral "film" all over our bedroom. We switched to Reverse Osmosis (RO) water from tap water after that, which seemed to help a little bit, but it just seemed to take a few extra days before we still got a slight film. At my office, it took longer to observe the white film, but there is a different water source at that location. (THIS PARAGRAPH IS NOT ABOUT THE VICKS, BUT A COOL MIST ONE!) While cool mist humidifiers are easier to clean in the long run, the quality of water you put into the tank matters (if you are concerned about what may be dispersed into the air for you to breathe in). So I returned the Cool Mist ones and promptly ordered the Vicks Warm Mist on Amazon. The Vicks Warm Mist, as many people have pointed out, is more therapeutic in a cold, dry climate (such as Colorado). Since warm mist humidifiers boil the water, the water that is dispersed into the air is clean/distilled! There is no white film build-up anywhere (even after running it all day and/or all night for the past 3 weeks). The auto shut-off is necessary so that if the water runs out, the whole unit doesn't overheat. I run the humidifier in the office at night (with the treatment room doors open) when no one is there to properly humidify the office - while the Vicks can run ~18 hrs on low, it has run out of water before (I just didn't fill the tank completely thinking it would be good enough) and the auto shut-off has been helpful. As for cleaning, if you follow the directions and let the base air out when not using it (i.e. when my office is closed on the weekends, I drain out the water in the base & tank, keep the tank open [cap off] and the tank off of the base for the whole unit to dry), there really isn't a problem. While it is recommended to soak the base (heating elements) weekly with vinegar to remove any scale/build-up, I haven't had to do this yet after 3 wks of continuous use. We use RO water at home & at the office, so there is very little scaling on the heating elements. I plan to use vinegar once I begin to notice any build-up, of course. The only small negative is the built in "nightlight" around the dial. In an office during the day, the nightlight is insignificant. In a bedroom at night, however, the nightlight is annoying if one prefers darkness in the bedroom. It would be lovely to have an option to turn the light on/off, rather than just assume that everyone wants a nightlight attached to a humdifier! We cover the dial/light with a piece of thick paper everynight to mute the glow of the nightlight. Otherwise, the Vicks is quiet (there is always going to be sound from the water heating & occasional drip noises) enough & puts enough humidity (clean moisture) into the air for a unit at this price level. Is it nice to have a humidifier that has a humidity control (to set it to run until 40%, 50%, etc), or that is truly "whisper quiet," or that can run 24 hrs continuously? Sure! But those units typically cost 5x the price of the Vicks. So for what we were looking for at this price, this Vicks Warm Mist works superbly. Lastly, one of the tank caps came without the gasket/rubber o-ring to prevent the tank from leaking. We just tightened the cap on very tightly, but were afraid to crack any part of the plastic. I tried to go on Amazon to replace the missing o-ring, but after going through the options, it appeared as if I had to return the whole unit as the only "fix" for this. I didn't want to go through the hassel of shipping it back to Amazon for one missing rubber o-ring (& I didn't want to be without the humdifier in the middle of an extremely dry winter in Colorado), so I called Vicks about the missing o-ring. The o-ring is part of the tank cap, so they just sent me out a new cap+o-ring piece immediately. That is all we needed and we're good to go!