The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2019
Gree's Simu humidifier angles its mist at 30 degrees so it never drips condensation
Gree's ultrasonic humidifier Simu angles mist at 30 degrees to stop condensed drips and splits into three cleanable parts — Red Dot Award 2019.
Gree Electric (格力电器)
What it had to solve
Ultrasonic humidifiers emit a fine mist that commonly condenses around the outlet, forming water droplets that drip onto the floor — a known annoyance in the category. Gree's design also had to make filling and cleaning simple, keep intake air fresh, and show the user how much moisture the device is releasing.
How it works
Simu is a Gree ultrasonic humidifier whose design starts from the category's most common annoyance: mist that condenses into drips around the outlet and lands as water. Its fine mist is emitted at an angle of 30 degrees, a geometry that prevents condensed water from forming, and an LED display shows the output volume.
The rest of the design makes the product easy to live with. Simu is clearly divided into three components — upper cover, removable water tank and housing — which keeps the interaction simple: the tank lifts out for refilling and cleaning, and an odour filter sits at the lower air inlet.
Red Dot's jury found the elements coordinated in a particularly harmonious way and the operation intuitive, and Simu was among nine Gree products that won Red Dot Awards in 2019. The 30-degree mist angle turned a nuisance the whole category lived with into a solved design problem.
Why it lands
- Condensing mist was a known flaw of ultrasonic humidifiers, so changing the outlet angle fixed a complaint every owner recognized.
- A 30-degree trajectory stops droplets from coalescing at the outlet without extra parts, drains or electronics.
- Splitting the product into cover, tank and housing made cleaning visible and easy, which keeps a humidifier hygienic over time.
- The LED output display turned an invisible process — how much moisture is being released — into something the user can check.
What it did
The Red Dot jury praised the harmonious coordination of the elements and the intuitive operation, and Simu was one of nine Gree products to win a Red Dot Award at the 2019 ceremony. Chinese design media singled out the 30-degree outlet as the fix for the mist-condensation problem of existing humidifiers.
What you can take
A product's most annoying side effect is a design brief: Simu solved dripping mist by changing outlet geometry, and made maintenance part of the product's visible structure.
Since then
Gree's 2019 haul of nine Red Dot product awards in one ceremony positioned its small appliances as design players rather than commodity electronics. The award record publishes no sales numbers for Simu, so the case rests on the idea: one angle change removed a dripping problem the whole category had accepted.
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