For a rig you live in, buy a compressor unit; the Midea Cube 20 Pint is the most practical of the two here. For a closet, a cabinet, or a rig in storage, buy the $24.95 Eva-Dry E-333 and skip the compressor entirely. These two categories overlap on nothing except the word dehumidifier. Scores weigh published specs, warranty, and price. We have not lab-tested these units.
Top picks
Top picks
Two categories wearing one name
A renewable desiccant unit like the Eva-Dry is a canister of moisture-absorbing beads. No cord in use, no tank, no noise, rated for up to 333 cubic feet, which is a wardrobe. When the indicator beads change color, you plug it into an outlet for roughly 10 to 12 hours to bake the moisture back out, then rehang it. It is measured in ounces of absorption per cycle.
A compressor unit is an appliance. The hOmeLabs and Midea units are rated at 22 and 20 pints per day and up to 1,500 square feet, they fill a bucket or run a drain hose, and they plug into the wall and stay there. A lived-in RV in a damp climate, with cooking, showers, wet gear, and people breathing all night, produces moisture at appliance scale, not sachet scale. That is the entire buying decision: match the tool to whether anyone is living in the space.
The lived-in rig: Midea vs hOmeLabs
The Midea Cube's design is genuinely clever rather than marketing-clever. The unit nests inside its own bucket for storage, then lifts and twists up to sit on top of it in use, which is why Midea claims up to 3x the water capacity of a comparable slide-out tank (a claim it declines to back with an actual gallon figure). More useful for an RV: a continuous-drain hose is in the box, so you can route it to a sink or bay drain and never empty a bucket. It states a 1-year warranty, the only compressor unit here where we could verify the term. Two catches: it weighs 33 lbs, and midea.com would not display a price when we checked, so the cost is whatever your retailer says. One more thing worth knowing: there is no 22-pint Cube. The line is 20 and 50 pints, so a listing advertising a 22-pint Cube is mislabeled.
The hOmeLabs 22-pint undercuts it at $189.99 on sale ($209.99 regular) with Wi-Fi control, and its 22-pint rating is nominally higher. The problem is its future: the model was flagged sold out and missing from the main hOmeLabs collection when we checked, and the lineup points to the 25-pint Wi-Fi at $239.99 (rated up to 3,500 square feet) as its successor. It looks like a model being phased out. Buy it at a discount with open eyes, not as a long-term plan.
All three, side by side
| Midea | hOmeLabs | Eva-Dry | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | - | $189.99 sale / $209.99 regular | $24.95 single; $45.95 2-pack |
| Key spec | 20 pints/day, up to 1,500 sq ft | 22 pints/day, up to 1,500 sq ft | 333 cu ft, cordless desiccant |
| Capacity | 20 pints/day | Up to 22 pints/day (30-pint under the 2012 DOE standard) | - |
| Coverage | Up to 1,500 sq ft | Up to 1,500 sq ft | Up to 333 cubic feet |
| Tank | Nested lift-and-twist bucket; Midea claims up to 3x more water capacity, gallons not stated | 0.8 gallon (site copy found via search) | - |
| Drainage | Continuous-drain hose included | - | - |
| Weight | 33.07 lbs | - | - |
| Warranty | 1 yr | - | - |
| Controls | - | Wi-Fi | - |
| Type | - | - | Renewable desiccant; cordless in use |
| Absorption | - | - | Page claims up to 13 oz per cycle; older Eva-Dry material said 6 oz over 20-30 days |
| Recharge | - | - | Plug into a 110-120V outlet, roughly 10-12 hours |
| Indicator | - | - | Color-changing beads signal when a recharge is due |
| Best for | A lived-in rig with a drain point for the hose | A lived-in rig, if you can still buy one | Closets, cabinets, and rigs in storage |
| Score | 7/10 | 6.6/10 | 6.3/10 |
The storage and closet case
The Eva-Dry E-333 is the unit for everything the compressors are wrong for: hanging in a closet, sitting in a gear bin, riding out the winter in a stored rig. It costs $24.95 ($45.95 for a pair), needs no power while working, and the beads tell you when it is spent. One honesty note: Eva-Dry's current page claims up to 13 oz of absorption per cycle, while its older material said 6 oz over 20 to 30 days. We cannot reconcile those numbers, so treat the capacity loosely. At this scale the discrepancy does not change the decision; either figure is closet-sized.
What we would skip
Buying any desiccant unit expecting it to dry a lived-in rig; it will quietly fail at a job it was never rated for. Paying full price for the hOmeLabs 22-pint given its apparent phase-out, when the 25-pint successor costs $30 more with current availability. And buying the Midea from any listing that will not show a landed price, since the manufacturer will not anchor one for you.
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Water filters, sewer hoses, and the other unglamorous equipment that keeps a rig livable.
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