Optimus H-4110 9-Inch Dish Heater

Rating

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.

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.

It’ll take 5 of them to consume as much power as a standard, typical 1500 watt 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. 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. A 300 watt radiant heater will heat up an entire room just as fast & well 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 1500 watt or higher heater may strain, overheat, or overload your wiring more, & overheat the cord or outlet for regular or continuous use.

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.

QUOTE: “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.”

Reply: These ARE a heat dish & NOT a conventional heater, or more precisely, they’re a parabolic heater… which is a heating element with a parabolic reflector. They focus a beam of heat to a narrow area it’s pointed at. Like all of these types, some heat will still rise off the top of the heater too by convection too.

I consider these the safest types of heaters because they don’t get too hot & don’t make the house wiring warm or overload it at only 300 watts.

Rating

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

Rating

I already had three of these and I purchased three more when they went on sale again. These are the most efficient way to heat a small space. I use them to create a cone of warmth when it is cool but not cold here in the mountains. I think I can knock two months off of my woodheating season. Two months less woodsplitting, wahoo!.

I also use one in a bathroom to keep the pipes from freezing and they do a great job at that task. No freeze ups last year which is a great thing.

Rating

At the $15 price I paid, this was fair value but I wouldn’t pay more than that. Don’t let the appearance fool you. It’s not a parabolic heater which uses a gas-filled bulb like the Presto or the Soleus, it’s a reflective heater with a standard electric coil – this means it takes longer to heat up and its effective heating area is much smaller. I wouldn’t recommend this if your desired heating area is more than 15 square feet. If all you need is something close by your work desk or computer it’ll do the job – because the reflector doesn’t adjust upward it works better if you set it on something a foot or more off the floor.

Rating

There are a lot of reviews saying this thing is TINY, it’s not that small. It stands roughly 14″ tall and 10″ wide, and puts out well more heat than a traditional space heater of three to four times the wattage.

It’s very easy to use, no maintenance necessary, absolutely quiet, powerful, precise heat directionality, and heats up very quickly (within 30sec).

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The good: powerful, efficient, precise;y targetable, quiet, safe.

The bad: can be a bit bright to have facing you while you sleep, I just aim mine below eye level in my direction and let convection do the rest.

Rating

Bought five (5) of these nine-inch parabolic reflector radiant heaters and they work well in proper applications. Great space heater for small rooms. Point it towards you and it warms up surfaces, not the air. Regardless of how much you pay per kilowatt/hour, 300 Watts is much less energy consumption than a 750-1500 Watt oil-filled heater or similar. You can lower your whole house thermostat and use space heaters to selectively add warmth when and where needed. This can work much to your benefit if your home has only one or two heating zones. Keep combustibles at least a foot away. The tip-over safety feature is a plus. The orange glow works well as a night light, too. Might I suggest a large dinner plate as the base to protect the surface it is placed on, especially the front.

Rating

This is a great personal heater for the money. Unlike other heaters, it stands up to being kicked, dropped, hit, stepped on, and still keeps working. Beware of light bulb heaters that claim to be more powerful and cheaper – the light bulb in those other heaters WILL burn out after a year and your heater will be garbage. Yes, a personal heater is one you put NEAR YOU. If you want to be heated from a heater that is 12 feet away, this is not the heater for you – but at less than 6 inches away, it is even too hot for comfort. this heater works just fine from about 3 feet away, and you can also keep your coffee cup in front of the heater and it will keep your drinks warm at the same time it is heating you!

Rating

I bought two of these and they work great. The dish nicely focuses their 300 watts of silent heat to warm you up to 6 feet away. Dish heaters have more “reach” in the sense that they don’t have to blow hot air all the way over to you, since they are basically heating with infra-red light (like the sun) instead of warm air. They only heat what they shine on though. Obviously 300 watts is fairly small, so don’t expect this heater to heat an entire room. Get a heater with 5 times and wattage and hence five times the operating expense in electricity if you want more total heat.

My one complaint about this unit is that the dish can be only aimed anywhere from level to partially upwards. Very poor design considering a likely use is to put the heater on a surface above you and have it shine at a down angle, such as onto a couch or a bed. Personally I don’t want the heater on the ground where stuff is likely to come into contact with it. But fortunately a little modification with a small saw on the plastic body can be done to open up the angle some and allow it to shine at a down angle as well.