High humidity levels can wreak havoc in your home, resulting in dangerous mold and mildew conditions that can lead to unpleasant odors, damage to carpeting and furniture, and most importantly, serious health issues. With the 35-pint Midea Cube Smart Wi-Fi Dehumidifier ($249), you can maintain ideal humidity levels in spaces of up to 3,500 square feet with simple controls you can access on your phone from anywhere. It’s a bit more expensive than a traditional dehumidifier, but it did an excellent job of lowering the humidity in our test room, is relatively quiet, and offers a higher-than-average water tank capacity in an easy-to-store design.
Smart and Stackable
The Midea Cube is a two-piece system that includes a water tank bucket and the actual dehumidifier unit. As the name implies, it’s a cube-shaped device that can remove 35 pints of water from a 3,500-square-foot room in a single day.
What sets this model apart from other room dehumidifiers is its stackable design, which provides up to three times more water tank capacity than traditional models, resulting in fewer trips to the sink to empty the tank. The unit sits on top of the bucket, which holds up to 4.2 gallons of water compared with traditional dehumidifiers that have a tank capacity of around 1.5 gallons. When not in use, the unit can be nested inside of the bucket for space-saving storage.
If you don’t want to deal with emptying the bucket, you can use the dehumidifier by itself and connect a drain hose (included) or a garden hose to the pump inlet connector on the side of the unit (the hose must empty to a sink or a drain). Also on the side are a removable air filter and the power cord. Around back is the air intake grill, and there’s an air outlet up top.
The MAD35S1QWT unit has a white finish, measures 13.5 by 13.5 by 13.3 inches (HWD), and weighs 33.2 pounds. It has a handle for easy removal from the bucket, as well as several onboard control buttons and a status LCD that tells you the current humidity level and displays codes such as bucket full (P2) and unit not in place (Eb). The display also has Wi-Fi status and filter indicators and a bucket-less mode indicator. Onboard function buttons include a Power button, up and down arrow buttons for setting a target humidity level, a Fan Speed button (Low, High), and a Timer button.
There’s also a Fill Level button and four tiny indicators. When the water bucket is full, the dehumidifier turns off and sends a push alert to your phone. A full bucket contains more than 4 gallons of water and will weigh close to 40 pounds. If this is too heavy for lifting, you can configure a fill level from 1-4. The lowest setting turns off the unit when it reaches 2.2 gallons (24 pounds), the seconds settings stops at 3 gallons (30 pounds), the third setting stops at 3.75 gallons (36.5 pounds), and the forth setting is full. The bucket has a handle that makes it easy to carry it to the sink for emptying. It also has a clear plastic strip on the side that lets you see how much water is currently in the bucket, as well as two supports on the inside, near the top, that hold the dehumidifier unit in place while in bucket mode.
Under the hood is a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi radio for connecting the unit to your home network. The MAD35S1QWT supports Alexa and Google voice control, which allow you to turn the unit on and off and change humidity target levels and fan speed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t support IFTTT applets or Apple HomeKit.
It uses the same mobile app for Android and iOS devices as the Midea 8,000BTU U-shaped Air Conditioner and the Midea Duo Smart Inverter Portable Air Conditioner. The dehumidifier appears in its own panel on the home screen, which shows the current device status (on/off) and the current humidity level target. When you tap the panel, you’ll open a screen with a Target Humidity slider, two Fan Speed buttons, and a slider that lets you set the above-mentioned fill level (1-4). There are three Usage Scenario buttons that offer preset humidity targets and fan speeds for Sleep, Living Spaces, and Storage Room scenarios. Although the app is easy to use, we’d like to see a few more features including energy usage reports and a gauge that tells you the water level in the bucket.
Installing and Using the Midea Cube
I placed the dehumidifier in my basement, which is a little more than 900 square feet and susceptible to high humidity levels during the summer months. To get started, I lifted the unit out of the bucket, turned it 90 degrees so that the arrow on it was lined up with the arrow on the bucket, and rested the unit on the supports. I already had the Midea app up and running, but if this is your first Midea device, you’ll have to download the app and create an account.
I tapped the plus icon on the home screen, tapped Add Device, and selected Dehumidifier from the list. Following the in-app instructions, I plugged in the dehumidifier, tapped Next, and pressed the Power button for three seconds until the display read AP. I tapped Next, connected to the dehumidifier’s SSID using my phone’s Wi-Fi settings, returned to the app, and selected my home network SSID when prompted. I entered my Wi-Fi password, gave the device a name, and the installation was complete.
When I first powered up the MAD35S1QWT, it registered a humidity level of 75%, which was consistent with the reading from a Sensi Thermostat located in the same room. Within 30 minutes the humidity level dropped to 65%, and after another 30 minutes it was 58%. It took a little more than three hours total to hit my 50% target humidity level. The unit is quiet, but you will hear the fan when it is running at high speed.
Full water tank push alerts arrived instantly in testing. In addition, the MAD35S1QWT responded quickly to on and off app commands, as well as commands to change the target humidity level and fan speed. Likewise, I had no trouble using Alexa voice commands to perform these same tasks.
Beat the Humidity From Your Phone
Whether you’re looking to dry out a damp basement or you simply want to maintain a comfortable humidity level in your home, the Midea Cube Smart Wi-Fi Dehumidifier is a solid choice. It did an excellent job of scrubbing moisture from the air in our tests, and offers a unique stackable design that not only provides increased tank storage, but makes for easy space-saving off-season storage. The mobile app is easy to use and lets you control the dehumidifier with your phone from anywhere, though an in-app water gauge and energy usage reporting would be welcome additions. That said, it offers more functionality than most traditional dehumidifiers, making it a good alternative if you’re interested in high-tech dehumidification.
