Optimus H-4110 9-Inch Dish Heater  Product Reviews

"I have three Presto Heat Dishes. They are invented as save energy Heat Dishes. I wanted have it every room like a bathroom and kitchen. But they are little bit too big for small area. I was looking for smaller Heat Dish and I found Optimus H-4110 9 inch Dish Heater. I expected they work the same as Presto Heat Dishes. I bought three of this 9 inches Dishes. They don't work as real heat dishes. They are not heat dish. It was conventional electric heater. They are imitations, just the Style is like the heat dish. They even don't have auto thermos. No energy saver. I am not using it after tried it for a few days. This item is junk, just waste of money."

"Just not warm enough. Thought it'd be a good under desk heater but it wasn't the case. Could be the radiant aspect of it not being able to penetrate sneakers and jeans. But since I prefer not to work naked, I replaced with a small ceramic unit that does the trick."

"Small, Compact, but does what it says... Perfect for small room or in the bathroom(especially when you get out of the shower)"

"At the low prices at the time, I bought 4 of them. Unlike a lot of radiant heaters that use a fragile glass, quartz halogen heating element, which are so bright it's like sitting in front of a bright yellow floodlight, or get dangerously hot, these use a durable nichrome & ceramic element that emits a very dim (but warm) red glow. This is the smallest, lowest powered parabolic heater I ever found. Low power has some advantages in some situations, saves money, & reduces pollution. There is no fan, so it's totally silent. Because it's only 300 watts, it does not get dangerously hot if nearby. But as with all heaters, you should use some common sense, like don't cover the heater or hang stuff over it, point it at curtains, or place it right next to bedding. I have one on a table about 3' away from the bed, yet I can feel the heat in bed on my face, about 7' away. It has a standard, tip over, cut-off switch for safety. This little thing is ideally suited as a desk or small area heater, but for it's low power consumption, it does put out a lot of heat towards what it's pointed at. Don't expect it to heat up an entire room like a 1500 watt or more heater. This heater only consumes 20% of the power. It will not be a suitable for your sole source of heat with the furnace off for a room or house if it gets near 0 degrees F outside. So buy several if you want to use these little heaters a lot to offset your heating bills. We've had a few windy nights in Buffalo where then temperatures outside dipped from the 40s to 30s F so far. With the furnace turned off, I turned 2 of these on, aimed at our seating area 8' away & instantly felt nice & warm while watching TV. After about an hour, we were more than warm enough, I shut one off, & left only 1 on... we remained toasty the rest of the night... but that wasn't a cold night for Buffalo yet. I turned one on in the bathroom too. It was instantly warm at the toilet & shower area where it was aimed. Consuming such little power, they have the advantage of being plugged in most outlets & circuits shared by other stuff without overloading or overheating the outlet or circuit. One can safely use extension cords & power strips with 1 or 2 of these. But I do not recommend using ordinary cheap, household extension cords commonly found in supermarkets & drugstores for these or any heater. Use a quality contractor or construction grade extensions if you must use one with these. It'll take 5 of them to consume as much power as a standard, typical 1500 watt heater. Using 2 of these, consuming a combined total of 600 watts, we were much warmer than using a very bright 800 watt quartz halogen glass-tube style heater. You save money because most people on the coldest days don't need to heat up the entire room nice & toasty, but only need to heat the area a lot where they're hanging out in. Thus, much less power is required to do it with these. Also, if you're in a drafty or poorly insulated older room, or one with high ceilings, your heat from traditional heaters may leak out fast or rise to the ceiling where you don't need it. Radiant heat feels warmer & is more efficient in those kind of rooms, by directing & concentrating the heat more towards the area it's pointed at. Parabolic heaters focus the infrared heat in a concentrated direction like a spotlight would, instead of blowing it all over a room, into corners, up to the ceiling, & under furniture. It's intended to heat up a specific area, couch, chair, bed, or a few people, not rapidly heat up an entire room. Parabolic (dish) heaters focus this heat to a tighter area than other reflective types. There's a lot of misconceptions & complaints about radiant heaters that simply are not true. They complain they do not heat up the whole room or as fast as other types of heaters. They weren't intended to, however a 300 watt radiant heater will heat up an entire room just as fast as any other type of 300 watt heater, & any 1500 watt radiant heater will heat up a room as fast as any other type of 1500 watt heater would. But you'll feel hotter instantly in the direction a parabolic heater is pointed at instead of waiting for the heater to heat up the whole room. The problem is people buy a 100-1200 watt radiant heater & expect it to warm up a whole room as fast & good as an over 1500 watt one would. A 1600 watt heater will heat up an entire room exactly twice as fast & twice as much as an 800 watt heater, & cost you twice as much in electricity to run. A 1500 watt or higher heater may strain, overheat, or overload your wiring more, & overheat the cord or outlet for regular or continuous use. With a radiant heater pointed at me during a cold raging winter storm blowing outside, I was able to lay around in shorts & feel like I was on a sunny hot tropical beach. There's a very good reason back in the 60s & before, parabolic heaters were very popular, & still are in Europe where heating costs are much more expensive... You can cheaply feel very warm & toasty instantly with these pointed at you, without wasting heat, energy, & money by making the whole room or house abnormally hot just to get your area comfy. Update: One reviewer said, "Could be the radiant aspect of it not being able to penetrate sneakers and jeans. But since I prefer not to work naked, I replaced with a small ceramic unit that does the trick." Nope, I believe it's because the heater is only a small, low powered 300 watt heater & your ceramic heater is probably 800-1650 watts. If you were to put an 800-1200 watt parabolic heater under your desk, you'd probably set your pants on fire. I feel this tiny heater through my sweatshirt at 5 feet away, but it's not as obvious as directly shining on skin. If the environment is very cold, 300 watts of heat will be better than nothing, as heat also rises from it just like a conventional convection or forced air heater will, as well as radiates heat in a specific direction. 300 watts of heat is not much, but saves a lot of money. They also don't get dangerously hot, which makes them safer around kids, pets, the bedroom, or unattended. These are designed to just take a the chill off a small area in a moderately cold environment. Like when you turn down the heat a little at night, when you get up in the morning, or like another reviewer & I mentioned... in the bathroom. They're so small, & draw so little power, I just move one under my desk when I need it, & plug it into the same outlet as the computer. My legs & feet stay warm, & some heat even rises up to the rest of me at the desk. Now that temps dipped into single digits (F) in my area I use 2 in the bathroom near each end of the shower/tub, & 2 on each side of the bed on tables when I'm gonna spend some time in there. But I leave at least 1 on in each room all the time, so I can keep the furnace turned down lower. In the living room, I keep toasty with a huge Lakewood 800-1200 watt parabolic heater if the furnace is turned down low. Unfortunately Amazon don't carry it anymore, so I had to buy that one somewhere else. I noticed they stopped carrying these little heaters too, just about the time all my friends wanted one. Why is it every time I find a product I really love, amazon either doubles the price or stops carrying it, but still carries the garbage everyone gives bad reviews for, for years? One of the reasons I originally gave a rave review for this product is 4 of them were delivered to my doorstep for about only 16 bucks each. BTW, these little heaters are solidly & logically built. So they should last longer & are safer than others of this type & price range."