Handy Heater Review: Personal Space Heater

Handy Heater is a portable personal space heater that has been advertised on television since about 2016. Read my full Handy Heater review, plus updated information for 2022.

About Handy Heater

Handy Heater is a plug-in space heater that supposedly heats up a room quickly which allows you to save on your heating bill. The product website was originally advertised at handyheater.com, which was registered in December 2015. That website has disappeared and returned between 2020 and 2022, but as of this September 2022 update it is once again live. Although the official website still sells Handy Heater  for $30, it can be found on Amazon for about $20 and in stores for $15-$30.

There have been several updated versions of Handy Heater released since 2016, which are discussed below.

The screen capture below shows how the official website looked in March 2016. The current website includes the same information with an updated design.

What They Claim

• Works with any outlet
• Compact and great for travel
• Quick and easy heat
• Digitally-controlled temperature settings
• Automatic on/off timer
• 350 Watt Energy
• Heats up to 250 sq. ft.

Handy Heater Review

Handy Heater is an electric space heater which can heat a room up to 250 square feet. Featuring a digital timer and temperature control, we are told that plugging Handy Heater into any outlet will warm any room and save money on a heating bill. Space heaters are not a new concept, and you can find a wide variety of these at department stores or other retailers with a wide variety of sizes and price options.

Handy Heater is quite small and offers a moderate 350 watts of power. Although the product can supposedly warm a 250 square foot room (the size of a standard bedroom), it seems more suitably sized for even smaller spaces such as a bathroom or a general work area aimed directly at an individual. You can find other space heaters with far more power for about the same price, such as the later incarnation of this product, Handy Heater Pure Warmth, which 1200 watts of power and that I compared to the original Handy Heater in 2021. That review is included with this article.

The assertion that Handy Heater could lower your electric bill may also depend on how and where you use it. You may be interested in this in-depth article entitled “Space heaters can dramatically increase your electric bill.”

Handy Heater was advertised in limited capacity in early 2016 before a full advertising campaign began later that year. It was added to Amazon in August 2016, and maintains an acceptable 4.1-star rating as of this September 2022 update.

For those interested in safety specs, Handy Heater is ETL listed. The bottom of the box also states that it “conforms to UL STD. 1278.”

Handy Heater does emit warm air which feels and smells like what you’d expect with a standard hair dryer. When you plug it in and turn it on, it defaults to 85 degrees with the speed setting on high. The temperature can be adjusted from 60 to 90 degrees, and the speed setting on high or low. There is a timer which can be set from 1 to 12 hours.

I found that Handy Heater did an OK job of warming the immediate area right in front of it. It kept shutting off when the room temperature was over about 65 degrees, even when the ambient temperature had not reached the temperature set on the unit.

What seemed worrisome at first is that the heating element appeared to glow red after the fan turned off. I thought that may have just been my unit, but others online have relayed similar experiences. After further investigation, I found that this is merely a red LED light within the unit, but this is not mentioned in the manual. The makers may want to address this concern, as others have also expressed the same reaction as mine regarding this issue.

Another strange function is that the high/low buttons don’t always seem to work. It’s as if the unit wants to reach a certain temperature and will blast high heat until it gets there. While I preferred the quieter low mode, it would often switch back to high mode on its own.

Overall, I feel that the original Handy Heater lacks the power to heat a small room adequately, although I did like the newer Handy Heater Pure Warmth, which boasts about 3x the power of the original. Be sure to watch my review of that product embedded in this article so you can see how it compares to the original.

Have you used Handy Heater? Tell me what you think in the comments below.

Updated September 2022