Clean Air Optima Humidifier with Ionizer CA-606 - Suitable 65m² - Ultrasonic Humidifier (1)

During the recent “Beast from the east” experience, the extra heat required briefly reduced my bedroom Relative Humidity (RH) to 27%; thus encouraging this, my very first venture into domestic humidification.So - if it humidifies so well, why only one star ?First and biggest irritation - it arrived with a 2-pin continental plug, with no warning about this on the product page. This doesn’t just irritate, it infuriates. Although naturally made in China, it’s from a Dutch company (taking a week from Holland), and it’s daft, not to say arrogant, to assume that every UK household will have a large stock of EU-UK plug converters - and thoroughly bad marketing to send out a product which is not immediately equipped for use in its destination country. Hopefully, when we are finally rid of the EC, it will become illegal to sell such products here. Badly-made Chinese converters are an extra fire risk.But that’s not all that made me cross. The water tank has a handle on the top to lift it out; but you have to fill it from the bottom - can you imagine trying to fill a 5L bucket with its handle on the bottom ? Because the bottom is sitting permanently in water, it drips everywhere when you lift it out.“Hold it by the handle on the bottom when filling”, the manual says. It’s impossible. As the manual also says, many people use these devices in a bedroom; but the tank doesn’t fit under the tap over my bathroom hand basin, so I had to fill it from the bath tap, which meant bending double over the bath to hold it, with potential risk of back injury. Even then, I couldn’t hold it by the hinged handle - and the body isn’t a grip-friendly shape or size, impossible for small hands.I’m a fairly fit 86, but not without problems; I can imagine other elderly or infirm folk finding filling it to be literally impossible. And if you’re thinking about filling it from another container, imagine one hand holding a 5 kilo water-filled container whilst the other holds the receptacle by a wobby handle which hangs down underneath it in. You can steady it with one hand it on a flat surface, but the filling hole isn’t capacious by any means, and a weak and slightly wobbly hand - one holding 5 kilos of water remember - is likely to send much of the water everywhere but into the hole.And then there’s the lights. I don’t mind illuminated screens in my bedroom, it’s full of them, and they don’t bother me. But they do others. The manual claims it dims whilst running; well, that depends on what you mean by “dims”; it still reflects off the dark bedroom walls - and it’s animated ! For Heaven’s sake, why ? What ergonomic purpose does that serve ? Two fat, bright columns on each side of the screen busily and rapidly expand and contract vertically the whole time it’s working, creating a constant flickering effect, visible on the ceiling in my case. After it turned itself off, the large temperature and humidity readings also flickered constantly, shifting rapidly between 20 and 21c, and 49 and 50%.Since I also run an air purifier in my bedroom, noise (which I personally have no problems with) wasn’t a factor, and I couldn’t detect any even close to it.At least the manual is a model of clarity and good English; but the print is tiny, about 1mm and the contrast not the greatest; if your bedroom is not brightly lit, you will need a torch to read it - and a magnifier, too, if your eyesight is less than perfect. Tiny font enclosed in vast areas of empty white space - to what end ?So with the bad news out of the way, I can end with the good news. I started it two hours before retiring, setting it to run for 9 hours, and to achieve 55% RH in a bedroom that was then at 37%. Two hours later, it had attained 43%. When I awoke, 8 hours later, it had turned itself off, presumably an hour previously, and the RH read 49%.On the second night, the bedroom had retained some humidity, and was at 41% when I started it. I was awake when it turned itself off at 5.30, when it had reached 54%. My bedroom is 18 square meters, with a higher than average ceiling. I detected no untoward aromas. The 5L water tank lasted exactly the full two nights, limiting the filling ordeal to every two days.But I so heartily wish I had examined, compared, and carefully considered the physical attributes and filling methods of both it and all its competitors before making a choice. Having since done so, I have found that the identical machine is being sold under several different names and cosmetic differences, and that others have complained about them. Few product pages disclose the filling method, and my advice would be, buy only from those that show top-filling.

We have used many humidifiers in the past. Only had this for a week or two so need to see how it goes long term, but so far this is the best we have purchased. The build quality is excellent and we really like the design and display. The 5L tank is ideal as it is large enough to last the whole night on a high setting, but easy enough to handle. Controls are easy to use and the stream that comes out at the higher levels is stronger than other models we've used. Even though this has a filter, we use purified water from a Brita jug to fill the humidifier as we have had others destroyed by hard water in the past and based on the build quality I expect this to last a decent number of years of daily use.

I had to send mine back after 3 months when I bough it....Dont get me wrong... its an amazing product and Clean Air Optima customer service is 5/5!The air feel cleaner and fresher, in the winter when humidity drops below 45% it keeps humidity above what ever level you feel comfortable, mine is between 45% and 55%. However if you feel like you want live in a rain forest or in the cold deserts of Mongolia you can easily raise to to anything from 10% to 100%! Just remember its a humidifier and not a dehumidifier.I live in a hard water area and after 3 months it stopped working... Clean Air sent me a new one and advised I will need to use soft water in order for it to last a long long long time!So I bought a water hardness tester:And the results are as below:London Tap water in my area is 270 PPM water hardness levelTesco Value Bottled water is 140PPMBrita water filter from tap water 50PPM (Brand new filter)Brita water filter from tap water 100PPM (filter is 3 to 4 weeks old)Am sure each area in London might have a different water hardness level depending on area and water supplier.That is based on my research and I suggest using your own results to determine what to do, and feel free to use my results as a guide.I currently use Brita filtered water to fill the tank up. Its annoying and tedious. Am only giving it 3 star because vendor customer service was great, otherwise would take it to 1 star for the product itself.

Very good product although the mist now smells a little musty.

Great humidifier with simple to use humidistat you can just set what humidity you want the room to be kept at and it will turn off automatically when it reaches selected humidity, So you can save money on electricity.Humidifier is extremely quiet and cheap to run.Gives you many options for example turn on/off ionizer, low mid high mist and warm or cool mist.No need for replacement filters or anything like that.Had this humidifier for over a year now and no problems occured yet meaning very reliable.The only thing is that if your water is quite old in the tank and you haven't cleaned the machine in a while the mist starts to have a SLIGHT musty smell (which I strangely quite like).But simply replenish the water tank with fresh water, clean the machine; I spray mine with 1/3 white wine vinegar to water and leave it to soak for about 10 mins once every 2 weeks or so and the slight musty smell clears.

I read reviews on every "mister" I could. There were not many views available for this unit. However, I liked the features, the ioniser, thermostat and heated mist. It was a bit more expensive. I took a risk on it.It turned out to be an excellant little machine. While the heated mist and ionizer do not seem to add that much, the basic controls and the thermostat work very well. The best features are the thermostat and the slow use of water. One tank lasted two days. I have no problem recommending this unit. It is also not obtrusive and sits in an area beside the bed. As some people reported on other units, this does not spew out so much water and soak everything.