It’s a real shame and should be something that a firmware update would resolve. I think it’s using a generic Tuya heater firmware… but whether there’s a potential fix out there for this I wouldn’t know. My bodge in Home Assistant works pretty reliably though so far.

Thank you :)

Glad it was helpful!

You’re welcome

Did you get the Herschel XLS range for wall mounting or did you go for a different brand?

I've had mine on lots today! Don't forget to use my affiliate link in the video description if you do buy one though ;)

​@@SpeakToTheGeekTech It isn't available through that link I'm afraid 😔

I think Herschel Infrared are out of stock of that panel at the moment, looks like they'll have some on the 17th Oct.

The foot pedal could sort of play that role, yes. But my smart button turns the heater on for an hour, or extends that for an hour whenever it is pressed, making sure it’s turned off afterwards. With the foot pedal, you’d need to remember to turn it off! I’m not certain the bug is dangerous because the panel doesn’t seem to get hot enough to set anything on fire, and it’s low power too, but it would run your bill up a bit if it was turned on without your knowledge. As for the beep, because I’m right next to the panel it seems loud, but I am very sensitive to noise so perhaps I’m not the best judge of it! I put up with it because overall the panel gives a great heat for a low power in my study.

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech Thanks a lot for your quick replies! Having found the user manual online, it seems the panel has a "timer mode", so perhaps setting it to 1 hour plus switching it on with the foot pedal would emualte what you're doing with your very fancy automation scripts (which I am a bit intimidated to try, I must admit ! :)) As for the beep, I wonder if there isn't a way to stuff or obstruct the small speaker on the heater with a small piece of tape, or something alike :)

I’ll take a look, thanks

Yup you totally could do that, but if you’re doing that then there’s not much point in buying a connected panel. You can get standard free standing panels for a lot less money. Combine that with a smart plug, a temperature sensor and an automation in Home Assistant and you’ve got yourself a smart panel. But I would guess that most people buying a panel would just want a single unit that they can control from their phone with minimal hassle

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech You wouldn't be able to control the heat output without Tuya though. I was just thinking swapping the foot button would be a simple swap of only one item, but you're right that if going that route it might be more cost effective to do what you describe.

I won't dispute that at all, if your home is suitable for a heat pump and you can afford to install one then it's likely to be a lot more efficient. However I currently have a very old non-condensing boiler and work from home in a small study. In my specific situation, putting the boiler on to heat just this room costs a fortune compared to running this little heater.

You can do that, or you can use my automation and not need to buy anything else at all

Tricky to answer - my legs and I guess the lower half of my body is definitely nice and toasty, and I don’t notice feeling cold in the rest of me even though they’re not directly being heated. Because it’s a small room, the whole room gets up to a nice temperature after a short while. So to answer your question directly, it’s very localised, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem in keeping you warm! In that respect it’s no different to having any other sort of heater (like a fan heater) under the desk.

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech I see. My room is not very small so I am trying to just heat myself, and keep the room cold to save energy. But since it is on feet I guess I could still try to put it on the desk, or on a piece of furniture behind me, or try a variety of other configurations :)

@@MaximeLambrecht Did you try this in your bigger room? Looking to do the same so I wonder what you experience was :) Thanks!

@@javidavi Haha, so I got the panel, but currently in belgium we got a super weird warm autumn weather thanks to climate change screwing things up, so I just tried it once but didn't need to plug it back again :P I will try to come back here and tell you when I got to use it a bit more. From my quick test, the panel is surprisingly mildly warm to the touch, so I guess you need to use it over a slightly longer period of time (like 30 min- 1 hour) to get a warming effect.

@@MaximeLambrecht Interesting. Yeah, I had read that it does take a while for it to heat (contrary to what marketing material says that it's instantaneous). However, given its low consumption, I think it's ok to leave it on for a few hours.

I haven’t actually seen any myself in the wild but they would make a lot of sense for those sorts of venues. Easy to install, very low maintenance!

This portable heater isn't designed to heat a room so there's no official room sizing information for it - it's supposed to heat your legs under a desk. Having said that, in my small 2 metre x 2 metre (ish) study, the heater plus my computers keep the room very cosy. When I tried the small panel in my living room it wasn't very effective, but the larger 500W panel is. But, they're both considered supplementary heaters. If you wanted FIR to be your only source of heating in a room, you'd need to get a proper calculation done and the manufacturers will help you with that.

Just to add, I've had the 220w heater on all day every day for the last week or two keeping my legs nice and toasty during this cold spell :)

What more would you like to know? I thought I'd covered everything. It's a great little under-desk heater in my 2m x 2m small south-facing study, and it was the only source of heating used in there for 2 winters. It can't heat a whole room any larger than that though. Even though I now have a heat pump, I have occasionally turned this on this winter in addition just to save heating my whole home in the middle of the day when there's only me in.

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech Hi, and thanks for getting back to me. I guess that what I am really interested in is why IR heating is more efficient than a radiator-based central heating system. It seems to me that the IR would be great for quickly making a cold area more useable for a short period. Once everything in the room is hot, I'd have thought that you would get exactly the same heat losses as with the radiator system. I am looking for an efficient way to heat a workshop while I am working.

Technically it is no more efficient than any other direct electric heating, so 100%. However, it's how you use it that matters! If you want to heat a space then IR heating is probably not suitable. If you want to heat just select objects or people in specific places in a room then IR is great because rather than emptying say 3kW into the air of a lossy workshop, you could sit in front of an 800W IR panel. If you're not moving from that same rough spot, you personally wouldn't notice any difference in comfort but you'd have used less energy to achieve that. So you are right, physics is physics but you can optimise where the energy is used.

They’re in stock direct on the manufacturer’s web site

If they’re not in stock on Amazon then they are on Herschel Infrared’s web site. I don’t know about their shipping policies to the US though, they are a British company.

Yes, all things being equal you are totally correct, and if you were swapping one for the other to directly heat a room then the same energy is used overall. But things are not equal in how they are used. Take the scenario of one single person sitting still in a large room and wanting to keep warm for an hour. With a 2kW convection heater next to them, most of the heat will be heating the room and the person may not feel the benefit of the heater during that hour depending on the size of the room. But put a 1kW (more than plenty for one person) FIR heater in front of them and they will feel the full benefit within a few minutes at a lower power output. Heat the person not the room and it can save you a lot. For full home heating there is no real saving I agree, but use them smartly and there can be.

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech Thank you for acknowledging my point. Regarding your point of 'heating teh person not the room': f you were talking about an old-fashioned 1 bar radiant heater, then that argument might make sense. But these radiant heaters are large pieces of wall-mounted furniture: they are a room-heating technology not person-heating technology. Unlike a radiant bar heater, they radiate their power in all directions including backwards! In a comparison with convector heaters I suspect the results would be pretty close, Best wishes M

The panels I'm reviewing are small portable heaters, to be compared with alternative portable heaters such as a plug-in convection heater, free-standing oil filled radiator, or a fan heater. The only one of those alternatives capable of beaming the heat straight at the person to provide rapid comfort is the fan heater, but that comes at a cost of a lot of noise which is no good to me while I'm working. Whilst I do briefly mention the use of FIR heaters for a whole home, I'm really not advocating their use in that scenario nor am I reviewing those - but as portable temporary heaters for people (not rooms) they can be an efficient way to provide that. (Edit to add another point :) ) - these FIR panels really do beam the heat forward. Whilst you can feel a bit of heat behind, it's just the warmth from the body and nearly all of the heat is projected straight forward at the front. I'd say any rear heat leakage is negligible with the panels I have. The wall behind my panel is cool whereas the wall opposite is warm.

I think it very much depends on your situation. I work from home in a small study all day most days. For me, it is so low powered that it easily runs from my battery or solar panels and means I don't have to turn on the gas boiler. Firing up the boiler for the day at the moment would easily cost me £3-£4 in gas. Assuming £3.50 a day, I'd only need to use my £199 FIR panel heater 57 times for it to break even. Very rough maths there I know but it's just to demonstrate that it can make perfect sense in certain scenarios. Plus I'm not burning polluting gas while using it too!

Actually I forgot to include the cost of the additional offset off peak electricity, but you get the idea

I’ve started reducing the volume a lot and being more selective about when I use it. I probably won’t stop it altogether though

That's good. Tried to reduce the volume a bit but then couldn't hear you properly. Thanks again for the content. I'm involved with a community shop in lochgilphead and we are looking at installing some of these.

There's plenty more where that came from...

Why thank you, you were my muse :)