Humidifiers for Bedroom, 2.11Gal 8L

So I thought I'd go fancy and buy a humidifier tower so I wouldn't have to make room on a table for a smaller one and so I wouldn't have to refill it as often (what can I say, I'm lazy and like convenience). Super excited to get it and set it up, especially since it's getting colder and the house is very dry. First thing I notice is it comes well packaged in a nice sized box. Nice. Then I take it out. The plastic water container feels cheap. But it also feels light. I'm hoping it's sturdier than it feels but appreciate the weight, especially when considering that it'll be heavy when it's filled with water. Now take into account that I've only had this humidifier for 10 days. I've kept in plugged in and filled but that is literally all it does. It puts water in the air. Done. The End. Nothing else to see here. "But what about all the fancy features?" you ask. Like the customizable humidity, the on/off/sleep function, the mist volume control, the UV, the timer, the essential oil tray, the timer? I don't really use the essential oil tray since I have a pet bird, but there is one available. The UV sterilization I have no way of testing and all I know it to do is turn on a blue light within the tower head where all the action happens. The sleep function works and it's a nice touch as I can sometimes be light sensitive when I sleep and displays can be super bright. Mist volume control is pretty straight forward: low, medium, high (or in this case 1,2,3). The timer I don't think I'd ever use since it's supposed to be automatic when it reaches set humidity. And therein lies the problem. It doesn't sense humidity well if at all. Right now I have the humidity set to 40%. On the display it reads that humidity is at 21%. And its said that pretty much ever since I plugged it in from day one. There was a time when it said that humidity was around 60% and for some reason it decided to change the output mist volume to 3 instead of what I put it on at 1. I have it in my bedroom (probably around 150sq ft) with the door closed most of the time so I would have thought the humidity levels would have gone up. When it read 60% I turned it off and plugged it back in and levels went back down to 21%. Which leads me to believe that the reader sucks or it is just my unit that is malfunctioning. The temperature readout I have no idea of knowing if it works well. I know the house thermostat is set to 69 degrees and it matches the readout on the humidifier so I assume it works? Did I mention that this thing gurgles? I know in the handbook it says something about cycling the water if the levels are low and whatnot, but sometimes it cycles when it has water. Otherwise it is pretty silent when its running....if it doesn't randomly gurgle (too much water pumped to reservoir where it humidifies so the water falls back down into the tank making a loud gurgle). In conclusion, for me, this unit sucks and I wish I would have just bought a cheaper one which would have accomplished the same thing or splurged for a better one with all the high tech features. I spent $85 on it....Honestly I will probably return it this week and just buy a standard humidifier for half the price. *UPDATE* Ok. I thought I'd finally give this an update. So I contacted amazon because I figured why keep something I'm not happy with. They gave me the good ole unplug and plug it back in solution, which of course didn't help with anything of the temp/humidity settings. They then told me to get in direct contact with the seller. The seller responded very quickly to my inquiry (within 24 hours) and helped me further understand the workings of this humidifier. Hopefully my understanding of this is correct but.... When you have the humidifier set on a certain mist volume (levels 1, 2, 3), it is set to continuously run at that output. It does not stop even if it reaches a certain point of humidity. If you want it to run automatically until it reaches a certain level of humidity, you cannot control the mist output. What I had assumed was that I could set a certain output which would increase the humidity of the room and when it did, the humidifier would stop when it reached a certain water percentage. That was why my humidity levels were not changing; because I guess the air never got saturated enough? I'm still iffy on why readings never changed for me as surely having the humidifier on 24/7 would place more water in the air than the air losing water right? I don't know. Here's the thing: when I changed it to automatic it would boost the output to level 3 and make the surrounding floor wet; when I adjusted volume output to level 1 or 2 readings never changed. There just wasn't a happy medium for me. Sure, maybe I could have placed the tower on a shelf to increase the distance of evaporation before hitting the floor, but that would defeat the purpose of buying a tower in the first place wouldn't it? I could have placed a fan next to the tower to move the mist before it hit the floor but that's just more electricity and clutter on the floor. I could have kept it at a certain output forever and just hope that one day the reading would change. At this point I asked the seller for a refund because it just wasn't working like I thought it would. They happily refunded me and let me keep my unit. I was fully willing to change my review to be a 3 or 4 star as the unit worked (although not the way I thought it would) and the seller responded very quickly. I thought that was gonna be the end of that. But..... Being the lazy creature that I am, I kept the unit plugged in and working because I figure it still put water in the air right? Even if it didn't have correct humidity readings and gurgled all the time etc. But a week or so passed and I notice that the towel I had the humidifier sitting on was not yet wet, but very damp. I also had it sitting next to my cat's water bowl and he likes spilling water all the time so I figured the cat just dumped the bowl around the humidifier. Foolish me. I removed the towel. Next day, water around the base of the unit. Luckily I was there to wipe it up. (We had just installed new floors and thank god they were waterproof vinyl and thank god I was there to wipe it up right away as I can't imagine how much money and time it would have taken us to replace the !brand new floors! if we had decided to install laminate or hardwood flooring.) So. It leaked within a month of use and I can in no good conscious recommend this unit. And I thought I should update this review as some people have found it helpful. Oh and if you are wondering, I did clean it (or tried to) but the top part of the unit is not very cleanable in my opinion. I kept stabbing myself on the sharp corners on the underside of the top part of the unit and the unit was too narrow that I couldn't clean all the way to the bottom where the water slime gathered. Maybe it would work better if I had some kind of narrow brush. Who knows? In conclusion, probably don't get this.