PureGuardian H1250 Review

The PureGuardian H1250 is a good machine with a full suite of features and a good amount of humidifying power, but it can't match the overall performance of the Levoit LV600HH, which is often available for less.

Performance Comparison

The PureGuardian H1250 was a solid all around performer in our testing, which landed it towards the top of our overall scoresheet. In the sections that follow we discuss all of the individual tests results that make up that overall score.

Humidifying Performance

The PureGuardian H1250 was one of the most powerful models we tested, scoring an 8 out of 10 in our humidifying testing. This was behind only the Levoit LV600HH. The PureGuardian H1250 was actually the first model in our testing to achieve 45% humidity, doing so in just 22 minutes. This bested the Levoit by a full 8 minutes. The Levoit, however, did achieve a slightly higher maximum humidity, 68% versus 65.8%. What really resulted in the Levoit getting a better score was it humidistat, which was accurate to within 2%. The PureGuardian H1250's on the other hand, was only accurate to within 5%.

Bottom line, we gave the Levoit a better score because it was slightly more powerful and slightly more accurate. However, Those differences are minute enough that we doubt anyone would be able to notice them during real world use. So if you're looking for a powerful humidifier, don't count the PureGuardian H1250 out just because it's the runner up.

Ease of Cleaning

The PureGuardian H1250 is also fairly easy to clean, earning a 7 out of 10 in this metric. This was just behind the top scoring Honeywell models. The opening of the PureGuardian H1250' water tank is 2.75 inches. This is slightly larger than average, and lets people with smaller hands get a sponge in there. If you have larger hands you may need to use a long brush. The instruction manual gives clear directions for doing a white vinegar soak to get everything sterile. It took us 15 minutes of scrubbing and clean-up to get everything sparkling, which was about average.

User Friendliness

The PureGuardian H1250 was again a first runner up in our user friendliness testing, scoring 7 out of 10. It has a full range of features, from a self-regulating humidistat to an off timer, and even a nightlight. The control panel is slightly arcane when you first look at it, with only symbols rather than any words. You also must use a single button to scroll through desired humidity levels if you want to use the self-regulating feature. However, after a quick read through the manual or a little bit of use, the control panel becomes fairly intuitive. If you're really concerned about user friendliness we think the Levoit does do a better job of navigation through its set of features, and offers a convenient remote control to boot.

The PureGuardian's water tank is somewhat large, so it may be hard to fit in smaller sinks, but the large opening makes filling easy, even if you have to resort to filling it from a cup.

Operating Cost

The PureGuardian H1250 was in the middle of the pack in terms of operating costs, earning a score of 6 out of 10. It was one of the more power hungry models we tested, using 0.02 kWh of electricity per hour. However, combining this with its reasonable list price of $100 brought its estimated lifetime cost to just $153. The most comparable model we tested in terms of functionality and performance was the Levoit which racked up an estimated lifetime cost of $159, so we would say this is par for the course.

Value

The PureGuardian H1250 lists for $100 and offers lots of power and high level performance. We feel this is a fair price given its performance, but we think you still get a slightly better value from the Levoit LV600HH, which lists for $20 more and offers slightly better performance.

Conclusion