Canopy Humidifier Review — Is it worth it?
You may have recently seen ads for the Canopy Humidifier all over social media. It’s marketed as a mistless humidifier that helps hydrate your skin. And they offer a filter subscription, which helps complement the unit. But is it worth the price? And do you really need the subscription?
We purchased a bedside Canopy Humidifier and put it to the test in one of our editor's bedrooms.
Our verdict
The Canopy Humidifier is an aesthetically pleasing, powerful humidifier that your skin will love. It delivers clean, humid air without the mist, and its parts are dishwasher-safe. Although it’s not a deal-breaker, it only has some of the functionality that the company promises. But as it stands, it currently is one of the few humidifiers on the market that’s easy to clean, produces clean air without requiring distilled water, and it doesn’t look like it belongs in a bedroom of a flu patient.
Why do you need a humidifier?
The Canopy humidifier stands out because its unique features make it a powerful purifier and humidifier combo. The ideal humidity level for your home is between 30% to 50%, according to Mayo Clinic. Since winter air generally hovers around 10% humidity, many people use humidifiers in the winter. Plus, humid air of around 40% can help reduce the spread of airborne viruses.
Why we like the Canopy Humidifier
The Canopy humidifier stands out because of its unique features that make it a powerful purifier and humidifier combo.
Mist-less hydration. The Canopy humidifier can hydrate a room up to 500 square feet without mist. That means instead of forcing mist into the air, Canopy uses evaporative technology to release hydrated invisible vapor.
Dishwasher-safe. All the humidifier parts that touch water can go on the top rack of your dishwasher. This is a game changer from old-school humidifiers that you had to handwash and use cotton swabs to get into all the nooks and crannies. Cleaning is a breeze.
Beautiful design. Unlike traditional humidifiers that make you feel like you're in your grandmother's house or a hospital room, this humidifier comes in multiple aesthetically pleasing colors like jade, blush pink, and lilac. And it looks great on a nightstand.
Clean air. The UV light disinfects the water to kill 99.9% of bacteria, mold and viruses. The remaining 0.1% gets trapped in the paper filter, in addition to any minerals or metals in your water. So while the Mayo Clinic recommends using distilled or demineralized water for most humidifiers, the Canopy humidifier is designed for any type of water, including tap, to produce cleaner and healthier hydrated air.
Doubles as a nightlight. The UV light has a soft glow that shouldn't interfere with sleep. And all the control buttons automatically turn off when your humidifier senses that the room is dark and it's time for sleep.
Aroma therapy. Skip the candles and use your humidifier to make your room smell heavenly. We tried 3 Sanctuary essential oil blends and 3 Ritual essential oil blends, which all smell incredible.
What we didn’t like about the Canopy Humidifier
The Canopy humidifier lacked several key features to make it the perfect bedside companion.
Does not turn off when it reaches optimal humidity. Although Canopy claims it is designed to "provide the optimal relative humidity in an environment" using embedded sensors, your unit will not turn off automatically. We put our unit on Auto, and it kept going and going until all our bedding was damp. Instead, Canopy means it will only lower the output if it senses the humidity is too high. But it'll only turn off when there's no water left. So now, we have a mini hygrometer to tell us the humidity in the room, which determines whether or not we'll fire up the humidifier.
Night Mode is limited. Night Mode increases the power (so your skin can wake up beautifully hydrated) and turns off the control lights when it senses low light. It activates when the unit is set to Auto and detects low light. Unfortunately, its light sensor is extremely weak. So unless your unit is directly in the sun or a lamp is shining directly on it, our humidifier continued chugging along at full blast when we weren't home.
Cleans the water, not the air. The UV light and paper filter disinfect the water in the tank. Unlike a HEPA filter that cleans the air, this humidifier only filters the water. Dust and debris in the air can still get caught in the fan of your humidifier, which you'll need to clean by shooting it with a compressed air can.
Must let the unit run dry. Canopy recommends that you do not turn off the unit if there is still water in the tray. Instead, let your unit run dry — aka no more water in the tank or filter- before turning the fan off. And you should dry out your filter at least once a week. This prevents mold growth and prolongs the life of your humidifier.
A lot of marketing speak. We went back and forth with customer service a lot. When we asked them, point blank, whether the humidifier turned off when it reached optimal humidity, we got a paragraph response about its technology that beat around the bush instead of a "yes" or "no."
How to use your Canopy Humidifier for aromatherapy
The Aroma Puck goes on the top grate of your unit and comes with every aroma oil from Canopy. Put two to five drops of your favorite scent onto the puck and enjoy hours of soothing diffusing. The pucks are a good option if you switch your scent often and last about six weeks. Only use one puck per scent.
But if you have a favorite scent and want long-lasting diffusion for the entire room, go for the Canopy Diffuser. With the Diffuser, you can use a Diffusion Well, which holds up to 15 ml of aroma oil. Keep in mind that 5 ml of aroma oil should last you about two weeks, and Canopy recommends only using up to 5 ml a week.
We're not sure why the well holds so much aroma oil if the recommendation is only 5 ml at a time.
How do you clean the Canopy Humidifier?
You don't need to unscrew anything in your humidifier to clean it. We recommend cleaning your unit after you've run the humidifier completely dry and it has automatically shut off.
Unplug your unit.
Wash the tank, cap, and tray. They can go into the dishwasher on the top rack.
Clean out dust and debris from the fan inside the body of the humidifier using canned air.
Wipe the two metal rods on the bottom of the humidifier body using a damp towel.
Reassemble your unit.
How often do you have to clean it?
You should clean the dishwasher-friendly humidifier parts once a week. The fan and metal rods should be cleaned as needed, and you should replace your paper filter as needed.
But ultimately, how often you clean your Canopy Humidifier depends on how frequently you use it and your water and air quality. For example, when you see hard water mineral buildup in your unit, you should clean your humidifier. And you'll know you need a new paper filter when you see discoloration and it feels crusty (or when your filter light comes on).
How often do you have to refill it?
Canopy claims that a full tank will run between 18 to 36 hours, depending on the current humidity in the room and what setting you're running. We found this to be true. It generally lasted about two days on the lowest setting.
Should you sign up for Canopy’s filter subscription?
It depends.
The paper filter traps the minerals found in the water. The harder your water, the harder your filter works. And the faster it needs to be changed. But if you use a water filter, such as ZeroWater, which filters out all the minerals and total dissolved solids (TDS), you shouldn't need to change your filter often.
In other words, if you already use a water filter for drinking water, you might not need Canopy's paper filter subscription that delivers a filter every 45 days. While the subscription lets you skip deliveries as needed, that’s a headache we didn’t want. Instead, we would recommend buying a filter bundle if you can afford to pay upfront and have room to store the extras.
A filter subscription costs $10 a filter, while a bundle works out to about $12 a filter. And a la carte on Canopy’s website is $15 a piece, or $14 a piece at Sephora when you buy 2 (and you’ll earn Sephora rewards).
Keep in mind that the Canopy filters only absorb the 0.1% of bacteria, mold and viruses that the UV light doesn't kill. That's negligible, in our opinion. Similar to how antibacterial soap only kills 99.9% of germs. So we aren’t biting at the bit to change our filter.
Canopy recommends switching it out every five to seven weeks or when your filter light comes on, whichever comes first.
Do you have to use a filter?
Unfortunately, yes.
We came to terms with 0.1% of bacteria, mold and viruses that were left in our water being evaporated into the air and were ready to skip the filter entirely. We reasoned that regular humidifiers release much more bacteria than that, plus we used filtered water and had the UV light running. But after running the humidifier all night without a filter, none of the water evaporated. That means the filter is an essential part of the evaporative technology. And without it, you just have a vertical fan.