Pure Enrichment humidifiers

Sold on being easy to clean - a wide 3.5-litre tank you can get a whole hand into, which is a bigger deal than it sounds given that the narrow-necked tank is why most cheap humidifiers end up growing something. Pure Enrichment publishes its output as well as its runtime: up to 300 mL an hour, which is 1.9 gallons a day, twelve hours to a tank on high and fifty on low. That supports about 470 square feet, almost exactly the 475 it prints in its copy, though the spec table on the same page says 270. What you give up for the wide mouth is a sensor: there is no humidistat, so it runs at the level you set until it is empty, and in a small closed room that is how windows end up wet.

Pure Enrichment is unusually straight about runtime: it publishes a range, ten to twenty-four hours depending on the setting, rather than quoting only the flattering end. That one editorial choice tells you more about the machine than any spec - at the high setting a gallon lasts ten hours, which is what a gallon does. It is otherwise an unremarkable and perfectly competent $60 ultrasonic: no filter required, a mist dial, an optional nightlight, auto shut-off. The 500 sq ft claim holds only at the high setting, ten hours to a tank.