This Humidifier Turned My Bedroom Into a Misty Oasis (for Me and My Plants)

You moved your mattresses off of the floor, and swapped out that Landlord Special™ boob sconce in your foyer for a Noguchi pendant lamp. You prepped a go bag, cleaned and polished your sex toys, and now you’re ready to hit the apex of your best adult self by investing in a humidifier that can solve the other 78% of your problems. Meet the TruSens N-200, the Cadillac of humidifiers and my most blessed, first-born son:

For context, I’m a 31-year-old who lives in Brooklyn and dreads the arid cold of winter—and not just for my nose, throat, and skin, but for my plants (monsteras love a mist). But if I was going to do the humidifier thing, I knew that I didn’t want to get an amateur machine like the one I had when I was a kid. I’m a taxpayer now. I wanted a veritable tank that could pull its weight, and crank the mist for hours and hours.

The TruSens N-200 seemed to fit the bill. It had a 4-star average rating on Amazon, contained an additional water softener, and sports a powerful filter that promised to last an entire New York City cuffing season for four months. I’ve had this baby for about three months now, and the following are my honest notes on how it’s affected everything from my skin to my sleep cycle.

What was rad

The N-200 was bigger than I expected—about the size of my nephew at 16 months—and easy to assemble. Instructions came on a single sheet of paper for first time setup, and there was also a more extensive pamphlet (which is also available online) for FAQs and maintenance.

For scale, here is the humidifier by my 5 foot tall skeleton. Photo by the author.

Once it was ready to go, it made a sound like one of those smart gadgets in the mysterious “my husband came home from work” TikToks that finds my FYP at 2 a.m. Immediately, the screen calibrated the current humidity level of my bedroom—a dismal 20%—and displayed it on the humidifier’s screen. I used the remote control (also clutch, for those who want to never leave their bed) to crank the mist level up to the highest setting. The sweet spot for humidity in your home is between 30% and 50%, which explains why I was waking up in the middle of the night with a blood-crusted nose, dry lips, and a dry cough, and why I aimed to hit around 38%.

The remote control. Photo by the author.

The result was a room that felt not just like a spa, but a fantasy. The gentle humming and soft mist of the N-200 was almost transportative, and made me feel like a disaffected widow dancing on the moors of Scotland. By the time I was winding down for bed, I felt like I was at the Spirited Away spa, and when I woke up the next morning I had a noticeably less-dry throat and a bedroom with the climate of a Costa Rican jungle.

Fast forward to February: It’s 7 degrees Celsius in New York City, Rihanna hasn’t yet danced her way into our hearts at the Super Bowl, and the vibes are, as one friend puts it in the group chat, “rancid cold AF.” Not only has my N-200 become a fixture of my daily routine, providing happy mist for happier plants in my bedroom that crave a little more moisture, but I notice that I’m no longer coughing like a 50-year-old miner. Not that I’m making any medical claims, but I can say that the 1.3-gallon tank has fueled my life, and my capacity for relaxation.

Here’s a picture of my sad, yellow monstera on day one of using the humidifier:

Photo by the Author

… And here it is after a few months, looking healthy and refreshed.

Photo by the Author

What was tricky

Look, you have to clean this baby once a week or suffer the consequences of breathing in bunk air that accumulates bacteria and mold. But that’s just the price you pay for getting swathed in Enyacore mist, and TruSens guides you through the very easy cleaning process; just soak the water chamber and basin below it in distilled white vinegar for half an hour, rinse with water, and wipe clean.

TL; DR

If you’re serious about getting a humidifier that can make a noticeable difference in your bedroom or living room, the N-200 is absolutely worth the price tag. Who wants to be re-filling their humidifier’s water chamber all day, when you could get a svelte gallon-sized tank such as this? Why would you ever opt for a humidifier that doesn’t come with its own remote, or one that doesn’t have the ability to give you a reading on the current humidity levels of your space?

My love for the N-200 reminds me a lot of my love the Loftie alarm clock (TL;DR: It’s a minimalist digital alarm clock/ambient noise machine designed to “help you break up with your smartphone”), because it transcends its primary function of humidifying your life, and becomes the kind of über relaxing everyday home tech essential that makes winter—and all of its arid bullshit—that much more bearable.

It’s been months since I started using the N-200, and I would be very bummed if I had to go back to my WFH grind without its gentle hum and soothing mist in the background. Simply put, I can’t imagine another New York City winter without it.

The TruSens N-200 Humidifier is Available at TruSens and Amazon.

The Rec Room staff independently selected all of the stuff featured in this story. Want more reviews, recommendations, and red-hot deals? Sign up for our newsletter.

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