The Best space heaters are winter’s rear guard, the last line of defense against goose bumps and cold feet. Though not a great way to heat a whole home, space heaters can be indispensable for a late-evening movie night, a workbench in a chilly garage, or the home’s odd corners that refuse to stay warm. And if you live in an apartment building where you don’t control the heat, they may be your only way to feel OK in January.
Even so, these little machines do bring about serious safety and reliability concerns, along with a need to be able to parse dodgy and opaque marketing claims. (For example, no matter what the marketing specifies, large space heaters usually aren’t more powerful or more effective than small ones.) So we turned down the thermostat and tested dozens of space heaters to find the ones that’ll warm you up as quickly, quietly, and safely as possible.
Alongside naming the top pick overall—the blessedly balanced and quiet Dreo Whole Room Heater 714—we also pinpointed which heaters are best poised to suit specific needs, from the best bathroom heater and a space heater that doubles as an air purifier to an option that’ll warm your towels. For those on a tight budget, the bare-bones Honeywell 360 Surround often goes on sale.
Looking for more ways to tailor your air? Check out our guide to all things that improve your indoor air quality, as well as our specialized guides to the Best Air Purifiers, Best Humidifiers, Best Fans, and Best Dehumidifiers.
Updated November 2026: We’ve added a new Honeywell model (HHF365) as a pick, heaters from Lasko and Amazon Basics to Honorable Mentions, and information about a Dreo recall. We’ve also updated links and prices.
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This Dreo is the best answer to what I’ve been looking for in a space heater ever since I started testing them. I want simple things: the promise of safety, with reliable tip-over and overheat protections; quiet and effective functioning; and the ability to use the full capacity of an American outlet to heat quickly and evenly around the room. I like a remote control, but if I lose it, I still want to be able to use the heater. I also like precise digital-temperature control, with a thermostat that actually works. I also don’t want to hate how the thing looks, considering it’ll be with me all winter.
The Dreo Whole Room Heater 714 checks these boxes better than any other heater among the dozens I’ve tested in the past two years—with thoughtful design touches that make it possible to actually like the thing. It’s a nice modern update on the classic fan design, able to oscillate not just side-to-side but also up and down. The counter-spiral grill, similar to competitor Vornado’s models, creates good heat distribution around the room. And while it’s not silent, it’s still quieter than my refrigerator on high fan speeds.
The thermostat works, a strangely rare quality among space heaters. This model is successful, I suspect, largely because its bipartite design allows the temperature sensor to be isolated from the heating elements. Huzzah! Other nice touches include buttons whose beeps are mutable and digital screens that dim themselves. The housing is satisfyingly cool to the touch. The heater also remembers its settings from previous use, so you don’t have to reprogram it each time you turn it back on. Oscillation is silent, with no squeaks, and the brushless fan is whistle-free.
It’s not perfect, of course. I’d like the ability to set a shutoff timer, and the on-device controls are a bit hard to see and close to the floor. There’s also one hot spot on the exhaust grill: the exact center where the Dreo logo sits. (Vanity is a vice!) Still, this is a great little heater. —Matthew Korfhage
Update November 2026: Dreo’s HSH015 space heater was recalled on October 29 for overheating. It looks similar to this heater, but as of press time, this model, HSH034, has not been recalled. We are closely monitoring the situation.
Kansas-based fan and heater company Vornado offers a dizzying array of heaters that look visually similar: an oblong plastic box with a circular whorl on its face. This can make shopping a bit difficult, but there are good reasons the Vornado is wedded to this design. It’s wonderfully effective and quiet, with some of the most even heat distribution I’ve seen among any devices on the market. (The quietest and best fans available at any given time are often also named Vornado.)
The Vornado TAVH10 has a remote, two heat settings, a fan-only setting, and a timer so you can set your heater to shut off after you go to sleep or turn on when you wake up. My favorite aspect, though, is that on low heat, this thing is beautifully silent—less than 40 decibels. That makes it much quieter than any previous digital device I’d tested from Vornado.
It's also gentle in its heating, pushing out air almost imperceptibly to the opposite corner of the room. This is the result of Vornado’s whole-room “vortex” technology, which is essentially a spiral grate that’s counter-rotated to the movement of the fan, creating a column of coiling air that pushes to the far corner, then scatters around the room. This does underscore the importance of how you situate the heater in your room: It needs to have an unbroken line to the opposite wall or corner. If you don’t want to notice your heater at all but still feel warm, this is the heater you want. —Matthew Korfhage
Oil-filled radiators like this Dragon from De’Longhi are a different beast from the resistive heaters that make up the rest of this list. The Dragon contains a reservoir of temperature-stable, diathermic oil that circulates within the radiator. The oil takes a little while to heat up, meaning it may be an hour before the temperature stabilizes in a room. But once the Dragon achieves this baseline, the large thermal mass means that the heat stays stable and even. There are trade-offs: The device is huge, at 2 feet tall and more than a foot deep, and its entire surface gets quite hot to the touch.
So why would you prefer it to other options? It is utterly silent, for one. Anecdotally, oil-filled radiators seem to dry out the air less than a fan-blowing ceramic. And its stability of heat for long periods makes it a good pick for bedtime. The hot oil inside the radiator keeps emitting heat even after you’ve turned it off, which means you can turn it on an hour before bed to warm up the room, then shut it off before you go to sleep and remain toasty. (The Dragon also has a timed shutoff function.) Additionally, the antifreeze feature makes it a great tool for greenhouses and basements: You can set the Dragon to turn on whenever the ambient temperature reaches 41 degrees Fahrenheit or lower. —Matthew Korfhage
Honeywell is renowned for its bare-bones, reliable heaters (and fans!), and this is a 2026 update to the HHF360 ($35), our previous pick for Best Cheap Heater and one of the North Carolina–based brand’s most popular models.
It’s mostly a visual refresh, now with a recessed handle, vertically oriented control knobs, and a more uniform cylindrical shape. It still features the same critical safety features as the HHF360, like tip-over protection (that even triggers when you pick up the device), overheat throttle, and flame-retardant plastic. It’s also got some additional safeguards not typically seen at this price point, including two overheat trip switches and a sleeved and soldered heat connection.
The 360-degree heating function is still there, with the vent on top encircling the unit, allowing it to heat large rooms quickly and evenly compared with other heaters at this price point. Plus, the plastic grate doesn’t get overly hot.
As befits this price, however, there is no digital display, no remote, no oscillation, and just two analog dials: one for High and one for Low (illustrated by heat-wave squiggles), and a thermostat that doesn’t show specific temperatures. It’s also quite loud—even louder than Amazon Basics’ $21 staple. However, safety is paramount with space heaters, and because this heater is more efficient than Amazon’s, you’ll have it running less. (It also has a three-year warranty to Amazon’s one-year.) —Kat Merck
A cold bathroom in the morning feels cruel and unnecessary. But a space heater on the floor can feel reckless in a room with a bathtub. A fixed wall unit, mounted away from the shower, is perhaps the most sensible solution to early-morning shivers. This slim-profiled Dreo offers IP24 certification against splashes, plus the same ALCI plug you’ll find on your hair dryer to prevent shocks. The heater’s app-enabled smart function means you can turn it on from the warmth of your bed and bask in the glow of a warm bathroom by the time you arrive.
Bathroom aside, Dreo's wall-mounted heater is also great for your home’s other cool spots that lack convenient floor space. It can heat a midsize room within 15 minutes, though even heat distribution depends strongly on central wall placement. Other helpful phone-app features include usage tracking over time, Alexa voice compatibility, and button-push calibration of the thermostat—a feature you'll need. The thermostat on this unit fares better than earlier-generation devices from Dreo, but it still sometimes gets confused by light breezes or the device’s own heat source.
Installation is pretty straightforward, provided you’ve hung a framed picture before. But make sure to mount the Dreo high enough to be out of reach for curious youngsters. While the housing stays cool, the heat exhaust vent can get hot to the touch. —Matthew Korfhage
Dyson heaters are tall. And Dysons look cool, if a bit discomfiting—like a droid without a face. Either way, they do lots of things. The Hot + Cool HP1 is an app-enabled air-quality sensor, a HEPA and carbon air filter that continually filters small particles from the air, a hygrometer, a mostly accurate thermometer (see below), a cooling fan … and, yes, a classic resistance heater.
It’s nifty. Though priced accordingly, the HP1 is the most sophisticated home atmospheric management tool I know. It heats the room evenly and quickly, has no exposed elements or blades, cleans easily, looks kind of fun, and remains cool to the touch.
Just note that, as with all Dysons, there are quirks: If you turn the fan setting up to 10, it sounds like, well, something got turned all the way up to 10. (It is, however, quiet at more reasonable wind speeds.) It doesn't come with paper instructions, and while the temperature readings are mostly accurate, the thermostat reads at the device, meaning it tends to land a few degrees high unless the room temperature equalizes. The most troubling quirk is that there are no temperature-control buttons on the device or the app (at least if you live in the United States). This means if you lose your remote, you won't be able to adjust the temperature until you get another remote or connect your device to a smart-home system like Alexa. Luckily, the remote is magnetic and can stay affixed to the machine itself, but woe betide folks like me with ADHD who’ll wander off with the dang thing anyway. Buttons, please!
Anyway, this Dyson is on sale a lot. Buy it when it’s on sale. —Matthew Korfhage
Ceramic heaters like this model from Vornado aren’t my usual pick for whole-room heaters. But for a personal heater, the wildly fast heat-up time of ceramic elements brings me from bone-chilled to toasty within minutes—or even seconds—of turning on the machine. A ceramic heater is basically a small, heated ceramic plate with a fan behind it. Beyond heating up quite fast, they can focus heat intensely and rapidly on the short path right in front of the vent, making them great for fast foot-warming but less great for distributing heat evenly and efficiently around a room.
That’s what makes this Vornado VC-01 such a welcome surprise: It’s a personal ceramic heater that can also be useful (but not as good as our top pick) for heating a full room—a feat that my previous pick for the best space heater for foot-warming, the Lasko Ellipse ($70), could not accomplish. It’s hardly a quiet heater when the fan’s blasting on high, but longer-range capability adds some nice versatility if you mostly need a personal heater but sometimes have company on the couch.
Set the little VC-01 on “personal” mode, though, and it’ll quietly deliver heat near-immediately, warming the space directly in front of the heater by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit, even on the low setting. In fact, it’s so effective at close range, even at the lower, 750-watt “personal” setting, that if you don't keep it at least 3 feet away from you, you may swelter.
Vornado’s excellent safety features, including near-instant tip-over shutoff, mean that if you knock it off a desk or couch-side table, it’ll already be powered down by the time it hits the floor. But note that, like all ceramic heaters, this one gets painfully hot at its vent, so I’d never recommend it (or any ceramic I’ve tested) around kids or dogs unless you’re nearby and paying attention. —Matthew Korfhage
Tower heaters don’t warm up a room faster or better than compact models, but the tall options do have their merits: A larger surface area makes for a cooler surface, and the controls tend to be more accessible. After three cold seasons without incident, this low-key conical Dreo Solaris 718 has won me over, despite its nonzero resemblance to a Dalek from Doctor Who. It’s among the most wondrously silent heaters I've tested, nearly inaudible at its lowest setting and still restrained at full steam.
The Solaris heats quickly and distributes its warmth nonchalantly about the room. Its housing stays approachably cool. It rotates without groans or squeaks—a surprisingly rare quality among towers. Alas, the built-in thermostat is just as wonky as most other space heaters on the market, so you’re better off using the remote to choose among the Solaris’ five steady heat settings. —Matthew Korfhage
Are Large Space Heaters More Powerful Than Smaller Ones?
Nope! It may seem counterintuitive, but large space heaters don’t necessarily heat any better than smaller options. In fact, most space heaters in the US and Canada deliver about the same amount of heat, regardless of size. Space heaters top out at 1,500 watts, which is the highest safe operating load for a 15-amp household circuit. And aside from some low-power personal heaters here and there, most space heaters available are capable of 1,500 watts.
What’s more, electric space heaters are all pretty much 100 percent efficient at converting that electricity to heat. Whether directly or indirectly, nearly all of that energy eventually becomes heat.
So if space heaters share basically the same power and efficiency capacity, why are some 1,500-watt heaters advertised for small rooms and others for large rooms? This likely has as much to do with marketing as science. Pretty much every ceramic, electric-coil, and positive-temperature-coefficient (PTC) heater has about the same amount of juice and, thus, the same ability to heat a room … at least eventually.
What differs among heaters is how and where the heat gets distributed and how quickly. All other things being equal, a heater's efficiency mostly focuses on whether it puts the heat where you want it to go.
What Are the Different Types of Space Heaters?
All electric space heaters essentially do the same thing: They take electricity off the grid, usually 1,500 watts of it, if you're in the United States, and turn that power into heat.
The vast majority of space heaters, including ceramic heaters and PTC heaters, are electric-resistance heaters. This means they run an electrical current through something that creates resistance: maybe an electric coil or maybe a specially designed ceramic. This quickly turns electricity into heat.
Most space heaters use a fan to disperse this heat out into the world, where we all live. These forced-air convection heaters tend to be the fastest at quickly raising the temperature of the surrounding air. The air then heats you. While this variety heats quickly, it can take quite a bit of electricity to warm an entire room.
Oil-filled radiators, in contrast, heat oil that circulates inside the device, which then emits heat to the surrounding room. These tend to heat up more slowly than electric-resistance heaters, but they offer even, lasting heat and are very quiet. These radiators operate on the same principle as steam radiators in buildings with a boiler room. And just like steam radiators, they can get hot to the touch.
Radiant heaters, such as infrared heaters, operate much like the sun or a campfire: Rather than heat the air, they directly heat objects or people by radiating energy in their direction. Infrared devices heat the air only indirectly, via the objects they heat. The glow is immediately palpable as warmth, but you’ll need to be in the path of the radiation to feel it, much like the feeling of being in direct sunlight versus the shade. Likewise, the thermometer might not immediately register the warmth you perceive. Infrared heaters tend to be superior for providing warmth without expending much energy, making this type common in large, lofty spaces or outside on a patio.
Though they deliver heat differently, both infrared and oil-filled heaters are subject to the same wattage limitations as electrical-resistance heaters and share efficiencies.
The same is not true of heat pumps, a newer technology that’s expected to provide the next generation of household heat. Heat pumps don’t use energy to create heat. Instead, they move heat energy from one place to another. Accordingly, they require far less energy than other space heater types. But household systems are costly to install, and while more affordable window and portable heat pumps are ramping up, they’re not yet broadly available.
Are Space Heaters Safe?
Yes, but also definitely no.
Space heaters are much safer than they used to be. Modern space heaters are heavily regulated, especially regarding exposed heating elements and automatic shutoff switches to prevent overheating. But all heating devices require caution, and so do all devices that pull a lot of energy over long periods.
The vast majority of residential heating fires start with actual fire—specifically in fireplaces and fuel burners. But portable heaters, including electric space heaters, accounted for more than an average of 1,600 fires per year in the US between 2020 and 2022, according to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). These fires were associated with an average of 70 deaths and 150 injuries annually during that time period.
So, treat your space heater with the caution and wild skepticism that it deserves. See WIRED's Guide to Space Heater Safety for a full rundown of how not to start fires or cause other hazards with the machines. That guide follows recommendations from federal experts at the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) and the CPSC, as well as the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM).
But for the short version:
Don’t leave a space heater unattended. "Unattended” includes sleeping, y’all! Might we suggest a wonderful down comforter instead? When possible, safety experts also recommend you don't leave a portable heater running unattended in a room with a baby, nor a person with mobility issues.
Plug your heater directly into the outlet. Don't use extension cords or power strips with space heaters, lest you build up too much electrical load and risk a fire.
Don’t plug another appliance into the same outlet or circuit as the space heater.
Place a space heater only on the floor or on a level surface. Heat rises. You don't need to prop up a heater on an unstable chair or table. The exception is the rare heater designed to be mounted on a wall.
Keep your heater at least 3 feet from flammable objects. This includes bedding, drapes, furniture, clothes, papers, and books.
Keep space heaters away from water and dampness, whether in bathrooms or in moist basements prone to dripping or flooding.
Read the manual. Manufacturers have good advice.
How We Tested and What We Tested
Testing space heaters involves answering a few key questions: How safe is it? How loud is it? How quickly and evenly can it heat a room?
During intensive testing of dozens of space heaters, I lived for weeks in a home with the thermostat set to a chilly 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
I tested how well and quickly each device heated a medium-size room (14 by 14 feet), and also how well it heated a small seating area in a larger, open-format space. To test each heater’s thermostat and also measure the evenness of heating, I placed thermometers at three or more locations in each room, including behind the heater.
I gauged the loudness of each device with a decibel meter at 3 feet away and verified power usage with a wattmeter. To understand whether the heater’s exhaust put out painful levels of heat, I used an infrared thermometer to collect precise surface temperatures. When in doubt, I put my own fingers on the line.
Finally, I tested safety features and basic durability. I looked at independent safety certifications, of course. But I also rudely knocked over each device to verify how its tip-over protections functioned and confirmed that the heater started working again when set back upright.
To test overheat protection, I smothered each device with an old sheet to see whether the device shut itself off or adjusted its power output to keep internal temperature low. In the event that the heater turned off, I then checked how soon it could turn back on, if it ever did. (Some heaters gave up, in permanent complaint!)
If any device fails the tip-over or overheat tests, I don’t recommend it. If it’s significantly louder than 50 decibels at 3 feet, I don’t recommend it. If the heater breaks during routine operation, I don’t recommend it. Maddening rattles and squeaks are also disqualifying.
I continually test my favorite models to track how they hold up over time and subject new heaters to this testing regimen to see if they can oust the current top picks.
Amazon Basics Ceramic Space Heater for $21: This was the least expensive heater we tested, and for the same price, you can choose a model that oscillates. It has tip-over protection and auto shutoff if it senses a temperature spike. Dials are analog, though this heater does have a light that glows when it's plugged in. At about 48 decibels on high, it was loud but not as loud as some other heaters we tested. It seemed to take ages to heat the 100-square-foot room it's designed for, so I felt like I always had it turned on. But if that doesn't bother you, it's a great value. —Kat Merck
Vornado AVH10 for $100: Vornado has an unholy variety of models that look quite similar but have different levels of loudness and feature sets. Some are built in America, some in China. In general, the models I’ve liked best are the ones that advertise “vortex action,” a fancy name for spinning a fan into a spiral grate oriented opposite to the action of the fan. This leads to a mostly quiet and nigh-undetectable column of warm air, directed out to the back of the room, where it scatters. The TAVH10, which is basically this model but with a timer and remote, is my current favorite, though if you need neither, you can save $30 and get this instead. —Matthew Korfhage
Vornado MVH for $75 and Vornado VH240+ for $65: These two devices are very nearly identical. The MVH is among the most silent, even in its heat, and reasonably priced space heaters available. However, the TAVH10 is a bit quieter, and its included remote and timer make it more attractive. This said, there are reasons to favor analog devices like these. For instance, you can regulate them with a temperature-controlled power outlet in order to get the most accurate version of a thermostat. —Matthew Korfhage
Lasko Ellipse Ceramic Tabletop Heater for $70: This little ceramic number from Lasko was the space heater I kept reaching for while testing dozens of other space heaters last year. It’s not the most obvious choice: It doesn’t heat a room evenly, its grill surface gets wackily hot, and the thermostat is an inside joke. I’m not sure I’d run it near babies or small dogs. And yet I still kept voting for it with my cold, cold feet. Why? Because this little thing can radically change my whole experience of life within about 15 seconds of turning on. It brings the heat, as they say, though mostly within an 8-foot radius. Within that manifold, it’s like living inside a hair dryer, which is more pleasant than it sounds. This previous pick for best foot warmer is still good, but it’s just not as versatile as our new top pick for personal heater from Vornado. —Matthew Korfhage
Shark TurboBlade Cool + Heat for $400: WIRED reviewer Kat Merck enjoyed the customizable airflow of Shark’s original TurboBlade cooling fan (7/10, WIRED Recommends), which you can angle every which way. On cooling fan settings, these virtues remain true of the Cool + Heat version. True to its name, the Cool + Heat model also adds a 1,400-watt heater to the equation, with emphasis on “little.” The TurboBlade does not push air through its blade-like “wings” for heating as it does for cooling. Rather, it blows hot air only out of the small vent at the center of the device, whose aperture is only somewhat larger than some hair dryers. The versatility of heating and cooling is nice, and I especially love that the thermostat is accurate. Shark also automatically modulates its energy output to maintain temperature in a room, which helps to avoid the wild on-off swings of some less sophisticated heaters. But for such a small heater, the TurboBlade is quite big and loud. Even on low settings, the high-pitched jet engine whir never stops. Standing in front of it on high settings, my phone registers 70 decibels. So I’d recommend this for someone who predominantly wants to use the device as a fan. The heater is more of a secondary function. —Matthew Korfhage
De’Longhi Slim-Style Portable Panel Heater for $210: This electric panel heater is an interesting hybrid, with dual heat exhausts on each side but also a broad radiant heat panel. This makes for a middle ground between radiators and resistive fan heaters—heating a room much faster than a classic radiator would, but still maintaining warm radiant heat over time. That said, it shares a radiator’s main fault, which is that it’s painfully hot to the touch across a large surface. It still issues the same amount of fan noise as a fan heater, also. But it may be your choice if you need to heat up a space quickly and evenly and maintain that heat over time. —Matthew Korfhage
Dreo MC706 Fan and Heater for $170: Dreo’s innovative 2-in-1 fan-heater combination uses auto-shift positive temperature coefficient (PTC) technology, which moves the heater’s ceramic element aside to allow full fan airflow. Its 1,700 ft/m wind speed is a rarity among tower fans, let alone tower fan/heater combos. It’s not the strongest space heater, but it is sufficient, with five settings, 120-degree oscillation, and tip-over protection. Note that though it includes a remote, it has no smart features, and it does not work with Dreo’s app. —Matthew Korfhage
Dreo Bathroom Heater for $55: Like Dreo’s smart wall-mounted model I far prefer, this ceramic heater comes with an ALCI plug for safe use near water. I prefer to keep bathroom heaters away from the floor, but not all bathrooms have mountable wall space. This remains a possible, though not ideal, alternative, with a somewhat janky thermostat. —Matthew Korfhage
Vornado VC-02 Ceramic Heater for $130: Vornado put out two new ceramic heaters at the tail end of 2025. The less expensive, smaller, horizontally oriented VC-01 ($80) is WIRED’s top personal heater pick. The VC-02 is a bit like the 01 turned on its end and made into a tower heater. The VC-02 is, in most ways, a premium model, with more options in terms of power and fan settings. It’s even quieter than its sister model—in fact, it’s one of the quietest heaters I’ve tested, period. It has a thermostat that’s reasonably accurate. It’s also got a remote and the ability to swivel from side to side for full-room coverage. (It does not pivot up and down, though, the way the VC-01 does.) But while I like all these features, its tower-heater shape makes it less optimized than the VC-01 for up-close heating, which is what ceramic heaters do best. —Matthew Korfhage
Heatbit Maxi Pro
Heatbit Maxi Pro: The Heatbit Maxi Pro (5/10, WIRED Review) is a cool-looking, luxury-styled air purifier and heater with a twist: It offsets its energy use by mining Bitcoin. At the high energy rates and lagging Bitcoin price of 2026, the Bitcoin mining certainly wasn’t profitable. But it did offset the cost of heating with the device by about a third, and made onboarding quite easy for Bitcoin novices. The app and safety features are admirable enough. But the Heatbit is neither a quiet heater nor a great air purifier, and its Bitcoin mining might take most of a decade to make up the $1,500 to $2,000 price tag of the device. In the end, the Heatbit is a conversation item, something to show off to houseguests. But I couldn’t find a way to make it practical. It's also currently out of stock. —Matthew Korfhage
Lasko Design Series 16" Ceramic Space Heater: It's a fact that short space heaters work just as well as tall space heaters to heat a room. However, most of them aren’t much to look at. This little ribbed cylinder, however, sits on a plastic faux-wood tripod base and looks more like a speaker or modern air purifier than a heater. I quite liked having it in my office during testing, and it includes all the trimmings—oscillation, digital thermostat, remote, digital display (which can be snoozed for bedrooms), and a timer. However, its plastic grate got extremely hot during testing, rendering it a burn hazard for kids and pets. —Kat Merck
Boldr Kelvin (Gen 2)
Boldr Kelvin (Gen 2): The Kelvin is a much different heater than the others on this list: It is a silent white or black panel that slowly heats up over the course of an hour, emitting what the company attests is far-infrared radiation, similar to those mail-order saunas you can find on Wayfair. The standard model tops out at just 450 watts, so the sell isn’t really that it emits a lot of heat. Rather, far-infrared feels warmer if you stand in front of it. It operates on the same principle as heat from the sun, warming surfaces (including people) directly rather than heating up the air. In the ideal case, this means you can feel more warmth while using less energy than a traditional heater. Its makers recommend it for those stubborn cold spots in a house. But I struggled with this heater. A wall-anchored heater offers less flexibility, and, in the shorter term, a radiant heater provides warmth only directly in the path of the panel, meaning it must be positioned with quite a bit of care to be useful. The Kelvin also uses up quite a bit of wall space, and must be located near an outlet. By design, its front gets quite hot to the touch—near boiling, in fact—and the device projects quite a bit of heat backward into the wall even after a second-generation upgrade to its insulation. It’s an interesting concept, with a smart app to track energy use, but the caveats add up. At $400, it’s hard to make it pencil. —Matthew Korfhage
Pelonis 16-Inch Space Heater and Pelonis 23-Inch Space Heater: Both of these towers heated up quite quickly. Both were also incredibly hot at the surface of their vents, with relatively little shielding from the visible heating elements. The 23-inch was significantly quieter than the 16-inch, however. —Matthew Korfhage
Vornado Velocity Cube 5S
Vornado Velocity Cube 5S: This cube’s outer housing stayed quite cool, and the fan functionality is welcome. But its surface vent got a little hot, and the fan was a bit on the noisy side compared to other Vornados. —Matthew Korfhage
Vornado Velocity 5R Whole Room Heater and Vornado VHEAT: The MVH and TAVH line from Vornado are among the quietest space heaters I’ve tested. These were two of the loudest. The 5R topped 70 decibels, and while the vintage-looking VHEAT is quite lovely visually, it’s also a bit of a noisemaker. —Matthew Korfhage
Lasko MyHeat Mini: This little thing looked cute, and I thought it would be a nice desktop or under-table personal heater. But even with its low output at 400 watts, the vent got way too hot to want it anywhere near your laptop or papers. —Matthew Korfhage
Lasko 22-inch Oscillating Tower With Remote: This one failed our tip-over test when I knocked it over, blasting heat endlessly into the rug until it overheated and sent a burnt-plastic smell into the air. It did restart hours later, meaning this shutoff was a safety feature. But this tower’s a bit too tall and tippable to risk repeating these events often. —Matthew Korfhage
Honeywell 2-Position Heater: This compact, simple, analog heater was a nice enough idea, able to rest vertically or on its side. Lord, it’s loud when its fan is in operation, though. As of February 2026, this device is out of stock, but I’ll monitor restocks. —Matthew Korfhage
Honeywell Compact Ceramic Tower: This Honeywell performed well in terms of fast heat and safe surface temperature. Its fan wasn’t too loud, either. But the one I received had a maddening squeak each time the tower oscillated fully counterclockwise. —Matthew Korfhage
Vornado Sensa Cribside Heater: I loved the idea behind this Vornado Sensa Cribside Heater when I tested it: A space heater with an external temperature sensor, with, therefore, accurate temperature management (which is hard to find among space heaters!) But it’s disappeared from Vornado’s website, and has dwindled on retail sites. It’s no longer available on Amazon, but if you see it on sale at another site, I still like it. —Matthew Korfhage
Also tested but discontinued: Vornado VMHi600, Morento 26-cm Heater, Morento 40-cm Heater, Dyson HP07, many other models of Vornado before the brand’s late-2025 refresh. —Matthew Korfhage
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