VIVOSUN Small Space Mini Dehumidifier, Ultra-Quiet Auto Shut-off Dehumidifier for Grow Tent, Bedroom, Bathroom, RV, Closet

Original review -- 2023-12-23I have a very tiny bathroom that doesn't have a vent. There's a chest-high window in the shower, but my neighbors can easily see through it. Fine for men, less fine for women.I'm a bit of a home automation freak. I hooked up a humidity sensor over the shower head and a fan in Home Assistant, so the fan automatically turns on when it gets humid enough (otherwise nobody remembers to turn on the fan). This was better, but it was still too humid. Enter the search for a small, smart dehumidifier.(I'll note that I'm going to try and tone down how technical this review is, because people don't need all of the details. Sorry for my fellow nerds, but you should be able to figure out what I'm talking about.)There's a decent selection of smart dehumidifiers out there, but none of them fit my needs. Here are the factors that led me to this dehumidifier:1. The type of dehumidifier* Desiccant* I actually had a desiccant-based dehumidifier that I borrowed from an unheated outdoor shed. The desiccant dehumidifier works exceptionally well out there because it's too cold for anything else. In a warm, hot environment, it's way too slow. It hardly changed anything.* Thermoelectric/Peltier/dual-semiconductor* Even less effective than my moderately sized desiccant dehumidifier. They're great if you need to slightly lower the humidity of a small space and you want no moving parts.* Compressor based* What this dehumidifier is. Works like your air conditioner, and it's the only kind that makes sense for a bathroom.2. Connectivity* I want this thing to be smart. I want to be able to have it automatically turn on when the humidity in the shower gets above 60% for at least 5 minutes. I want it to continuously run until 2 hours after the humidity drops below 60%. This will reduce the number of on-off cycles the dehu has to go through, which should make it run longer. Additionally, dehumidifiers generally have kinda crappy humidity sensors. Even if they're good, they're not measuring the humidity _in my shower._ With a smart dehumidifier, I can fix both of those problems in a cheap and easy manner. There's a $15 smart humidity sensor in a little 3D printed bracket attached above my shower head.3. Size* Most smart dehumidifiers were either for large spaces (4000+ square feet), or they were too wide and too deep (I needed something that would take up the smallest amount of floor space. Looking at you, 30L Midea Cube).* Of the small smart dehumidifiers, the vast majority were thermoelectric. See point 1.As far as I can tell, this is the _only_ smart dehumidifier that has a small footprint, uses a compressor, and is smart. I almost didn't buy this thing because the only other review for the smart dehumidifier in this Amazon listing says this:"Zero stars. Total p.o.s."I'm glad I decided to get it anyways. From a mechanical perspective, this thing has worked perfectly. I'll update this review if anything changes (I've only had it for a few days). I made sure to let it sit upright for 24 hours before using it, which is _critical_ for any compressor-based dehumidifier (or refrigerator, or air conditioner). You're very likely to destroy your dehumidifier if you don't do that. It's not a manufacturing issue, it's just a common thing with anything that uses a compressor like this. Once I powered it up, I took a shower. Sure enough, it pulled a bunch of water from the air! It also did this far faster than my desiccant dehumidifier (which will now be going back out to my unheated shed). The tank didn't leak, which is nice. A bit of water seems to pool on top of the tank, but it's not a leak hazard (since it's right near the hole that the dehumidifier fills the tank through). It just means that you need to be a bit careful when you take the tank out. I kinda hate the touch controls (I like real buttons), but I won't be using them. The water tank is on the back of the unit which is annoying, but the wheels on the bottom make it easy to move around.Now, onto the smart stuff. This dehumidifier uses something called Tuya to provide the smarts. Tuya is a Chinese company that makes it easy for companies to hook up microcontrollers to dumb appliances, making them smart. Tuya runs stuff in the cloud that those microcontrollers hook up to. Tuya also offers an app that hooks up to that cloud, which lets you control your dehumidifier or lightbulb or whatever from anywhere you are. I used the app for a bit and it worked perfectly. All the controls were available and I didn't encounter any issues for the 20 minutes I used the app. Tuya is pretty good at this whole smart device thing at this point, and I'm glad Vivosun decided to use them instead of designing their own software.So the app and the cloud stuff is great and all, but it also means that if your internet goes out or Tuya's servers go down, then you suddenly don't get to remotely control your smart stuff _at all_. Plus, information about your house is leaving your house! It's probably not a big deal if someone knows how humid it is in your bathroom, but I'm a private person and I don't want information about when I'm showering to leave my house. Luckily, there are projects out there that let a computer on your home WiFi talk to your Tuya smart device directly, without going through the internet at all. This is what I did, with a free, open-source piece of software called local-tuya. That software needs to be updated to support a specific device and the Vivosun dehumidifier wasn't supported. I'm a software developer and a big sweaty nerd so I was able to do that (github.com/make-all/tuya-local/pull/1441). Now that I've done this, the dehumidifier works _fantastically_. It turns on _instantly_ when I want it to turn on, and it turns off instantly when I want it to turn off. All of the controls work flawlessly. None of this is necessary and you can just use the app, but for people interested in Home Assistant and local-first control, this is the small dehumidifier for you.So, in conclusion, I really like this dehumidifier. It works well, and it's literally the only one I could find that meets my requirements in 10+ hours of searching. It's not for everyone (it's for small rooms or possibly grow tents), but it was exactly what I needed for my problem. I'd highly recommend it!I'll provide an update to this review if I run into problems or my feelings change later on.

Creí que este dispositivo me iba ayudar con la humedad de mi cultivo, pero no fue así. Es más para tu armario donde guardas la ropa, o lugares cerrados donde no haya ventilación. Pero si lo quieres para cultivo no te lo recomiendo porque todo el tiempo está entrando humedad por el ventilador y el motor de esta cosa tan pequeña no abastece. Los demás productos de Vivosun son muy bueno pero este ne decepcionó.

Not sure where to start, but I purchased a spider farmer dehumidifier (the 220$ one). I’m a huge spider farmer customer but their dehumidifier isn’t worth a crap! Would drop my RH from 55% to 50% if I was lucky, it’s leaked water and froze up!! Even though it was more expensive i decided to try VIVOSUNs bug dehumidifier, and im very pleased!! My tent would stay around 50-55% and im mid flower, put this bad boy in and it got my tent down to 30% quickly. Does NOT put off much heat at all, in fact my tent temp doesn’t even change with it in!

At first I was a little undecided if I wanted to buy this unit based on all the negative reviews I had read. Most of the people who had bought this unit, had bought this unit to do a job it couldn't handle. This unit was not intended to dehumidify bedrooms and closets or basements. This unit was solely intended to be used in grow tents. This unit performs as it should in the space I have it in which is a 4x4x7 Ac Infinity grow tent. In the instruction manual it's says: When the ambient humidity falls below 60%, the dehumidification unit will not be as powerful and this is to prevent the grow space from becoming too dry. You don't want to dry your plants out you'll kill them. Secondly, it says, when the ambient humidity falls below 15C or 59F or the RH falls below 40% the unit will almost stop extracting moisture from the air. This is exactly what you want in your grow environment. Now, depending on where you live and what your environment is like will determine if this unit will work for you. I'll explain: I live up north in Buffalo, NY during the winter months i'll use a humidifier when the ambient air is too dry and that is usually when the temperature is 0c or 32F now 35F I'll start thinking about dehumidification. However June, July and August my ambient humidity is killer like 80%-95% and above at times so this unit will not perform in a situation like that I'll need a much more powerful unit something that can move 22-50 pints of moisture a day. Or run a AC unit and this unit it draws little power anyway.To sum up this review remember this if you're looking to cool a room or a basement. This is the wrong unit it wasn't designed for that purpose. If that is what you are looking for then buy a dehumidifier that can cover 1500 square feet. This dehumidifier is only for GROW TENTS. I highly recommend this unit it does the job well great product. I hope this review helps who ever is in the market for a unit.

works as advertized

Doest seem to do much, I hooked this up in a 100x25 ish sqft room and really dont even notice its working, i have some larger ones that seem to work great and helps to keep temps down by drawing out the humidity but this doesnt seem to do anything, will wait and see how it does once summer hits but so far not very impressed. the % on the humidity meter just keeps climbing instead so wait and see i guess.

I advise people not to buy this dehumidifier. It says it can take the moisture out of an entire room, so why can't it take the moisture out of my 2x2x4 grow tent??? The humidity went up instead of down, so I took it out to make sure it wasn't a "humidifier" instead of a "dehumidifier". Vivosun did their customers dirty with useless "dehumidifier".

This "de-humidifier" is not at all very effective, even in the small 2' x 2' x 6' (tall) grow tent. It's a great size for a small space like this because it barely takes any space, but it just doesn't get the job done at all, so I'll be looking for a better alternative.