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However, it should be noted that very few electric heating systems are capable of beating the lower running costs of heating a whole home using a gas central heating system, so we’re still quite some time away from discovering the Holy Grail. Can you really feel the warmth emitted by an infrared heater? If you’ve got a cold room that needs a bit of a boost, the Princess Glass Smart Panel Heater is a smart way of adding comfort. Wall-mountable or freestanding, this plug-in heater has smart controls so that you can remote control it from your phone or use your voice.
On the other hand, halogen-equipped infrared heaters are much better at producing noticeable warmth almost immediately, since the halogen tubes glow red hot the moment you turn them on. This is the reason halogen is one of the most popular choices for patio heating. How we test infrared heaters that need to be heated. The panel heater has a carbon crystal heating element. The quality of carbon crystal is very stable and has accurate heating temperatures and power settings. Carbon crystal has a very even heat distribution across the product and so with the same size unit, less carbon crystal is needed meaning lower energy consumption. Not enough room to place a panel heater in the room? No problem, you can easily mount the heater to a wall by using the wall mounts. But if you want to use the panel heater in various rooms, just attach the feet to easily move the heater around the house. The panel heater has a carbon crystal heating element. The quality of carbon crystal is very stable and has accurate heating temperatures and power settings. Carbon crystal has a very even heat distribution across the product and so with the same size unit, less carbon crystal is needed meaning lower energy consumption.
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We then test the heaters in various rooms and locations around our home – a home office, a living room and a cold, poorly insulated room. For the panel and bar heaters, we put them behind a work desk to see how well they warm the legs and waist area. We then move the products to a typical sitting room position – the panels are positioned a couple of metres from our seating position, and we time how long it took for the infrared rays to reach us. We also time how long it takes for the heaters to reach full heating capacity. Finally, we also test each unit in a small but very cold room to see how effective they are at projecting heat across an exceedingly cold environment. If you want more control, then you need the HomeWizard Climate app, which you use to connect the Princess Glass Smart Panel Heater to your Wi-Fi network; it’s the same app as is used for the Princess Princess Smart Heating and Cooling Tower.
While some heaters benefit from smart controls, I’m not fully convinced here. Princess has covered all the basics, but remember that this device is about heating people directly, rather than the room. There’s less point in, for example, scheduling it to come on before bedtime if it’s not going to result in a toasty bedroom when you retire for the night. I wonder if the Smart Infrared Heater might benefit more from a movement sensor similar to the one used by Meaco’s Motion Eye 1.8kW. This would allow it to detect when you’re near, and switch on for a predefined time. Performance There’s no fan in this model, but warm air rising causes air movement, which I measured at 0.52m/s. It’s enough of a breeze to gently warm a room through, even if it’s not immediately felt in the way that a fan heater’s directional blast is. This means removing and refitting two screws, but on my sample one of them was seized – I stripped the head trying to remove it, and ultimately had to make do with simply resting the heater in one of the feet. There’s no handle to help move it around, although this is a light heater and my sample never got too hot to touch during use. If we find any major problems with how well the products function, they don’t make it onto our list. This model comes with two heat settings, 500W and 1,000W, a thermostat with a wide temperature range up to a maximum temperature of 65°C, and oscillation to spread the warmth far and wide around a room.In use this heater is true to Princess’ power rating, consuming a peak of 365W, and falling below 1W when in standby. Over 30 minutes’ continuous use it consumed 0.19kWh – less than half what I’d expect from a typical fan or convection heater on its lowest setting, and about 6.3p at the current 34p per kilowatt hour price cap. This plain-white, safety glass-fronted model from Herschel serves as a towel rail, too, and comes with two chromium towel holders that make it the perfect model for bathrooms. The Select XLS is IP44-rated for low-velocity water sprays, but it will need to be professionally installed.
Infrared bar heaters are another popular choice. These types are also usually mounted to a wall or skirting board area, but they’re not the most attractive. Finally, there’s the halogen or carbon option most often used for outdoor patio heating. These types of heaters are extremely efficient at producing direct heat, but the tubes do get extremely hot, so you will need to give thought to where you place them. Are infrared heaters energy-efficient? Use it in conjunction with the Princess app and you can control it from wherever you are, or use the built-in thermostat and the tiny onboard LCD temperature screen to set the best temperature for your room. Infrared heaters made with marble are fast gaining popularity, because of this material’s remarkable heat-retaining and distribution properties, along with the ability to remain warm for quite a while after being turned off. Some portable, stand-mounted models, such as the Klarstein HeatPal we review below, use raw, unpolished marble to help radiate the heat generated by the internal coil, while companies such as Elith produce beautifully polished slabs of high-quality marble with infrared coils behind them. Polished marble panel heaters aren’t cheap to buy or install, but they’re unquestionably the most elegant way to heat a home. The Warmlite is an exceptionally effective heater that isn’t too expensive to run – but, whatever you do, don’t dry your clothing in front of it.Given that the Kiasa is often mounted out of arm’s reach, you will be pleased to learn that it comes with a remote control. Alternatively, use the excellent SmartLife app to lower or raise the temperature or set a 24-hour timer.
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