All dehumidifiers and airconditioners can pull water out of the air when the air is very humid. This water isn't very clean whilst in the air, as there is a lot of airborne pollution and bacteria in there. But with some simple treatment and filtering you could drink it. However the tray where the water collects is super dirty, it's always moist and collects all the nasties in the air and the water. Those places are breeding grounds for all kinds of bacteria and if it doesn't drain properly it's a real health risk. Legionnaires disease was named after some old folk got sick due to a faulty aircon system. So getting water from the air is one thing, cleaning that water is a whole other ballgame.
Keeping devices like this clean is a hassle and usually requires a lot more water than it ever produces, not to mention the cleaner (usually some chlorine based thing) that goes down the drain and pollutes the planet. And if you don't keep it clean, you have a major health risk. Often there are parts that are hard to get to, but get dirty anyways and are a pain to get to and clean properly. Especially since they need max surface area for the thing to work, but that means a lot of surface area to clean. And when that surface area is crammed into a small device, that means poor access.
Then there's the simple fact it costs a LOT of energy to pull the water from the air and then more energy to clean that. It's much easier to simply collect dirty water (for example ground water, surface water or even collected rainwater) and clean that water. This is just as easy to do as with the water pulled from the air, but without expending a lot of energy to collect the water. With a proper setup you can even put in salty sea water and get out clean drinking water. This works so well, most smaller islands get their drinking water from these kinds of setups that simply filter seawater (usually some kind of reverse osmosis setup is used).
The next issue is that these tiny devices are usually very inefficient due to their small surface area, where a large aircon system can pull out a lot of water with relative ease, these smaller devices can't. And if you already have the aircon running, these devices can't really compete and simply produce nothing at all. But let's say you have a pretty humid home and don't run an aircon or dehumidifier. Then the thing uses up a lot of energy, but pulls that water out of the air. But then what? Now the air is dry, so it'll pull less and less water out of the air.
Then there's the cost. As said these things use a lot of energy and you still need to clean the water after. This means the price per liter can be much higher than even bottled water. If the water you get from the centralized system in your area isn't clean enough, consider a setup to clean that, it will still be cheaper than the water this thing gets. Even in places where there isn't any water nearby and a central system isn't available, it's cheaper to ship the water by truck (either in large containers like a 1000L IBC, or with a tanker truck). This costs a lot of money, but is still cheaper than getting it from the air.
These kinds of devices have been around for decades and never work. It's a dumb concept to begin with and often the marketing is even dumber.
Bonus dumb points for marketing these things for arid poor areas for people who don't have any water. Those people don't have the money to buy them, don't have the money to run or maintain them. And they don't even work in arid areas anyways, since there is no moisture in the air to pull out. And just a friendly reminder, the only reason those people don't have water is because they are poor. Because they are poor, they can't buy water, and since this world runs on capitalism: If there is no buyer there is no product.
See, this is exactly why I hate to post about technology like this, but posts of this quality is exactly why we need articles like this posted, because this is amazing. Thank you!
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