The Best Infrared Heaters

The dual heating system is the reason to buy this one. Quartz infrared warms you directly, almost immediately, while the PTC ceramic side pushes warm air out to fill the rest of the room. This Old House reviewers note that quartz infrared heaters reach noticeable warmth in two to three minutes, far quicker than oil-filled radiators. You get that quick hit here, plus the steadier background warmth a single quartz tube can't manage on its own.

The thermostat covers 50 to 85 degrees, with high and low settings, so you can park it at 68 and let it cycle. Dr. Infrared rates the unit at 1,500 watts and 5,200 BTU on a standard 120-volt outlet. The 72-inch cord matters more than it sounds. In older rooms with one awkward outlet, that extra length is often the difference between good placement and a heater stuck in a corner.

Then there's the humidifier, which is the part owners tend to mention first. Real Simple points out that infrared heaters don't blow air the way forced-air ceramic models do, so they circulate less dust and dry you out less. The cool mist here goes a step further. If you wake up with a raw throat every January, this is the feature that makes the DR-968H worth choosing over a plain quartz console.

Safety is handled the way it should be. You get tip-over protection, overheat protection and a 12-hour automatic shutoff. That combination matters more than any spec on the box. The National Fire Protection Association reports that heating equipment plays a role in roughly one in seven home fires, with space heaters a leading contributor. A heater that shuts itself off when a kid knocks it over is doing the single most useful thing a heater can do.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It's heavy. At 23 pounds it moves between rooms, but you'll carry it with both hands, and it isn't something you'll shuffle around casually. The cherry-finish cabinet also reads as furniture from about 2009. In a modern room it stands out, and not in the way you want.

The PTC side means a fan, and a fan means noise. It's a low hum rather than a whine, and most people sleep through it, but this isn't the heater to buy if you want a silent nursery. A far-infrared wall panel is the quieter answer there.

The humidifier is a second appliance bolted onto the first. You have to refill it, and you have to clean it, or it turns into a problem instead of a feature. Dr. Infrared also lists this as indoor use only, so don't plan on it for an unheated garage or a covered porch.

Picture a small bedroom where the dresser, the nightstand and the closet door already fight for space. A 22-pound cabinet on the floor isn't happening. This unit is 4 inches deep and 9 pounds, and it mounts over an outlet so the cord hides inside the housing. Nothing dangles, nothing gets kicked, and the room looks like it did before you bought a heater.

The app control is genuinely useful, not a gimmick. You can turn the office heater on from bed and walk into a warm room. Popular Mechanics lab testing found WiFi-enabled infrared heaters, including this Heat Storm model, held their thermostat within roughly one to two degrees of the set target. That's tight enough that you can pick a number and stop fiddling with it.

Heat Storm says the grill stays safe to the touch and the wall behind it stays cool, which is the reassurance parents ask for first. Tip-over shutoff is included even though a mounted heater has little to tip. You also get a physical remote, so the heater still works normally on the day your router doesn't.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

This version ships without feet, so it's a wall unit or nothing. You're drilling into drywall, which some landlords care about and some don't. Check your lease before you check the studs.

Owner feedback on the WiFi setup runs hot and cold. Pairing goes smoothly for plenty of people and turns into a long evening for others, usually on crowded 2.4 GHz networks. Budget an hour and don't do it at bedtime.

At 1,500 watts it's still one room's worth of heat, and mounted high on a wall it warms what's in front of it. If your goal is an open-plan living and dining space, a console on the floor spreads heat more evenly.

Most of what you want from an infrared console is here for a lot less money. The thermostat runs from 59 to 86 degrees and holds your setting, high mode uses the full 1,500 watts, low mode drops to 750, and an ECO setting sits between them. Add the 12-hour timer and the remote and you've got the same daily routine as pricier cabinets, minus the humidifier and the dual-element system.

The timer is the part worth planning around. Each press adds an hour, up to twelve, so you can set two hours at bedtime and let the room coast. That's a better habit than leaving any heater running all night, and it saves you the electricity you'd otherwise burn while asleep under a duvet.

Safety covers the basics properly. Tip-over shutoff cuts power the moment the cabinet goes over, and it resets once you stand it back up, though you'll have to switch it on again by hand or with the remote. Overheat protection is built in too. There are dual USB charging ports on the housing, which is odd on a heater but handy on a nightstand.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Owner feedback is more mixed than it is for our top pick, mostly around long-term durability and the occasional thermostat that reads a couple of degrees off. It's the trade-off you make going cheaper, and it's worth keeping the receipt and the return window in mind.

It weighs about 22 pounds and has no dual heating element, so it warms a room more slowly than the DR-968H and doesn't push heat as far. Comfort Zone doesn't publish a square-footage rating, which tells you something about how it performs in a big open space.

A space heater is usually the ugliest thing in a nice room. This one isn't. The cast-iron-stove silhouette, arched frame and operational door look deliberate next to a bookshelf, and the dancing flame over the ember bed does the job a fireplace does in a living room you can't put a fireplace in.

The flame effect works without the heat, which is the feature that keeps it in the room year-round. Run the heat in February, run just the glow in June. That matters because a heater you have to haul to the basement every spring is a heater you'll eventually stop bothering with. This one earns floor space in a den or a bedroom twelve months a year.

The heating side is honest infrared quartz. Duraflame notes that it adds warmth without making the room feel excessively dry, which lines up with the broader point that radiant heaters don't blast air across your skin the way forced-air models do. If your family fights over a too-dry living room every winter, this is a gentler way to warm it.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Take the 1,000-square-foot claim as a ceiling, not a promise. 5,200 BTU is a normal 1,500-watt output, and in a drafty, high-ceilinged great room it'll take the edge off rather than heat the space. Treat it as zone heat for the chairs near it.

It's 19 pounds and 23 inches tall, so it's furniture rather than something you carry upstairs. There's no wall-mount option and no WiFi, and the controls are simpler than what you get on our top pick. You're paying partly for the look, and that's a fair trade only if you want the look.