Amazon Basics 1500W Ceramic Personal Heater, Silver

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This is a good heater for Amazon to slap its name on. My favorite feature is the one I thought I wouldn’t like at all which is the shut off when it’s tilted. Underneath the heater is a quarter-sized plunger that breaks the power flow when it slides out. It’s designed for people like me who tried to workaround or disable it with tape. Need a lot of strong duct tape or glue to succeed. So I tossed that idea because it didn’t stop the plunger from coming out at all and tape on the bottom made it tilt too. But, the instant shut-off also means I don’t have to touch the controls after setting it once. Just move the heater everywhere. Maybe it’s not what they planned but I can do this for the next 40 years without harming the heater. That plunger is a circuit breaker. Other great features are the 4 ft cord. Heat starts blowing within 3-5 seconds. Sometimes I wish it had a more obvious handle and a middle power setting at about 1000 watts. Other times, I’m happy it doesn’t. Heat output is pretty good. I’ve not used it above low setting or 750 watts. It has a cool surface, not cold or warm. It’s runs fairly quiet. No bells, whistles, rattles, or buzzing. At less than 3 feet away, it’s easy to talk using normal voices. The safety guidelines say it’s not for bathrooms which I think is true for most electronics. This is a good heater at a good price.

Heats up quickly and does exactly what it’s supposed to. A bit noisy compared to others I’ve had, but that’s not a show-stopper. Price very attractive.

LIke the title says, the heater’s enough if you need an office or work area locally in your house warmer. Maybe a garage or outdoor shed (although says indoor use on the back). Not enough if you have the heat go out or similar issues.

The money value on having your house 60-65, yet one room 70+ might work in some homes. The WWW tells me it takes ~ $0.20 to run per hour if your electricity is near $0.13/kWh. It should theoretically heat up a 15′ (4.5 m) room 5 deg F (~3 deg C, 18.3 C to 21.1 C) pretty quickly in 120 seconds. [1] Expect lots of divergence from the theoretical.

For a $25 (at time of purchase) heater it’s got a good build, with relatively sensitive tip-over detection. Would not be especially worried about leaving the house with it on, or accidentally kicking it over.

Fairly light, so no worry about dropping or moving. Can balance up in 6″ areas if you need heat at higher elevations for some reason (windowsill?) Would not recommend heater on stepladder or placed in attic (unless supervised by an adult).

Current draw is low and does not affect wall electricity, while some I have used will drop the lights momentarily when they turn on. May also be demons. House has many curses.

Perhaps mildly water resistant if you spilled something nearby, although definite gaps and would not want it near any serious water. A firehose will most definitely harm this product. Do not use in bath.

Have not tried fire, acid, or electricity resistance tests. Probably lightly resistant to all, although I would not put my tesla coil or Van de Graaff generator nearby. Could probably heat a scientist lab or stone workshop.

Appears to be made in China by the sticker, and looks like a few other brands I’ve seen repurposed as Amazon Basics. A common Amazon strategy, “find best competitor among _CATEGORY_ (ex: diapers)” -> “copy best competitors product”, “crush competitor in Luthor’s fist! (burn diaper industry to the ground)”

Does not appear to be visibly ethnically insulting, although it does look like an enormous yelling face with a bright red nose. Could probably quality for (D)iversity, (I)nclusion, and (E)quity. Actually, very grey, would likely work well in most government office structures.

Feng Shui of local area does not appear to be significantly changed. Still largely cursed. To be fair, product did not promise exorcism. The local entities quickly worked it into their malevolent minigames. I now mostly have yet another yelling maw to perdition. Several new AIs and LLM pattern recognition bots have joined the fray though, so it does spice things up. Although they still scream about the information superhighway.

Does not appear to be Alexa enable. No voice activated features that have yet been detected. Tests are ongoing.

Mild response to telepathy. Cars seem to talk more and yell about different subjects. Trees are still passive aggressive and controlling. Limited insect communication lately, may be impeding certain species. Fly attraction seems slightly reduced.

Feel a minor increase in my spiritual connection to Bezos. That or my search engine is corrupted by purchase. Either way, an unwanted incease in Lex Luthor Mech-Suit imagery. May return if increase continues.

Amazon stock ended a losing streak at time of purchase (1/17) and then entered a 12-day winning streak, followed by the largest single-day increase in the last 6 months. Bezos also sold $8,500,000,000 of shares shortly thereafter. Might be a correlation. Market performance has mostly been driven my AI stocks lately though, so your mileage may vary.

Do not recommend culling prior purchase history as form of market strategy, although LLM training campaigns are probably scraping it right now. Perhaps review will appear in future chatbot output. “ChatGPT, write me a review that sounds exactly like Gabriel P. on Amazon.” Expect voice synthesis, autotuning, and full-motion deepfake videos will follow shortly. “No, this is the Real™ Gabriel P., not the Social Media® Blue☑ version. My legions of fans will be incensed.” (actual fans forthcoming)

Math:
[1] Room heating – A 15′ (4.5 m) office should have 60 kg of air with 8′ (2.5 m) ceilings and 1.2 kg/m3 air density. A 5 deg F (~3 deg C, 18.3 C to 21.1 C) increase in local temperature for 60 kg of air should take 180,000 J (1000 J/kg/degC). [60 kg * 3 degC * 1000 J/kg/deg C] A 1500 W heater should theoretically take 120 seconds (2 minutes) to heat the office.

I got this for drywall and painting projects. The first room is 120 sq foot. Some basic putty and painting. The first time I set up the heater, it set it to low and set the thermostat to about half. After a couple of hours I noticed the hallway and surrounding rooms were starting to heat up because I didn’t close the door. The room itself was, at least, high 70s.

Pros
1. Small.
2. Heats fairly quickly (haven’t timed it) even on low setting.
3. Good tip over protection that doesn’t trigger too easily.
4. The grating gets really warm, but nothing too crazy. I’ve touched it a couple times and didn’t get burned.
5. Easy to use controls. Still haven’t read the instructions.

Tips
1. If you find it difficult to heat an area. Decrease the area first. I could use this to heat most of my 1200 sq ft. house if I really wanted. I would start with one room, then open it when it was warm enough. If you try to heat too big of an area at once, this probably won’t keep up.