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.

Ok so working with this item for several months... I find that it does not function very well at all... I have it in a small room, like h3xl4xw2 and it just cant not keep up. That's not the worst.. it shuts off and doesnt come back on.... the fact that it has an led style digital power button,under the lights you cant tell if the unit is on or off... by the time you realize it...your having to vent the hole room, lastly even when it is working I cant tell that it's actually on... the air movement is so weak... I almost feel as it is not working at all... I just bought a manual dehumidifier just because this has caused me all sorts of problems especially with mold. I want to curse this item... I was a fan of vivosun but it feels like all they do is take an item previously made and slap a name on it... as in this is not for a legit grow room... I tried placing in different spot I'm bigger rooms, smaller... it just doesnt seem to do what it suppose to do which is dehumidify... the best use for this thing is as a gauge for humidity because that is the best feature... it reads humidity very well...I have a separate meter for that and this items gauge and my other seem to be on point with each other. But as mentioned dont buy for a tent ... this is awful even in a small tent.

Wish it had a controller on it as do most of their products. Needs to be recognized by vivosun app.

I’m not seeing any drop in humidity, junk.I was too quick to judge, after some time this dehumidifier seems to be working adequately

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.

Works great in a small place. Very quiet.

I wish I had tested it before the return window. It barely removes any moisture from the air. The small tank fills in 3 days plus. I used it in my small 2’x4’x5’ grow tent for 5 days and then turned it off for 5 days. I used a humidity monitor and there was no difference from when I used it to when I didn’t. I had issues with Vivosun PH reader and Soil Ph/Moisture/EC reader both are total crap. I also purchased their grow tents and fan/filter combos and much more. I spent upwards of $1000 on their products and figured that anything that doesn’t need a battery or electric worked fine for the cheaper price. I will definitely not cheap out on the powered items again. Now I lost a lot of money to Vivosun and have to purchase better products and not cheap out. I tried to contact Vivosun but everything is through email and that is a complete nightmare. Zero stars on Customer Service as well. I will be leaving reviews on the other Items purchased and on the company itself. It’s supposed to have a warranty but good luck getting anyone to actually respond and make good on it. I don’t understand how this product had 4 stars this seems extremely unbelievable. Product sucked and Vivosun Is a scam.

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.