As the winter months continue to roll on and lower temperatures become more frequent, you may start to notice that one part of your home, office or apartment is a little bit cooler than the rest of the space. The JS Mini Heater may be an inexpensive solution to heating up a cooler part of your living or working space. I have had the JS Mini Heater with me for about a week and will share my thoughts about the heater as well as some precautions.
Design and Ease of Use of the JS Mini Heater
A “Jet”-Like Appearance
When you think of your average space heater, I’m sure most of you either think about large black heater with visible grills or smaller white plastic devices that look somewhat childish in nature. The JS Mini Heater is neither; it looks more like a jet engine propellor than either of the former. This ceramic device would not look out of place in a living room complete with home theatre equipment.
Very Simple Controls
The heater’s simple white matte design has only two buttons/switches and has gorgeous grills on both the back and the front. On one side, there is a very sleek knob that allows you to select between a fan and two levels of heat (drawing 600W and 1000W respectively), a “Fan” and an “Off” position. On the back, below the air inlet, is a smaller knob that allows you to toggle on/off the JS Mini Heater’s oscillation.
The JS Mini Heater In Use
Using the device is about as easy as the controls on the unit. The JS Mini Heater has an operating range of about 300 square feet. I currently live in an 800 square foot high-rise apartment and essentially this means that the device can heat up the living room quite easily. For students, this heater may be the perfect solution to solve the issue of a drafty dorm room or older bedroom. For a larger home, you should seek to use this device for a single room. The heater’s oscillation mode will help focus the heating in a wider area. In addition to a heater, this device doubles as a cooling fan.
However, this device’s footprint is quite small at about the size of a tin of coffee on its side (16.3 cm x 15.2 cm x 18.35 cm or about 6.5″ x 6″ x 7.25″). This means that the heat that emanates from the device will initially be quite focused before the space begins to warm. The oscillation of the device will help to spread the heat, but only so much.
The JS Mini Heater: A Cautionary Tale
Before running to your local Best Buy store to pick this heater up, you may also want to consider some of the precautions to having a heater like this in your home.
Built-In Safety Features
Like many other heaters on the market, this one is built with safety in mind. From a construction standpoint, this device is made using a V-0 ceramic material that is flame retardant. This means that if this device were to catch fire, the burning will stop within 10 seconds as long as the device is vertical. Additionally, this heater has three neat safety features that will prevent the device from catching fire in the first place. First, the JS Mini Heater has a built-in “tip-over” sensor on the bottom of the unit. If the unit were to ever tip over and this button was not being depressed any longer, the device would shut off. Second, the unit has an overheating thermal cut off sensor that will prevent it from getting too hot. Third, the heater has a sizeable indicator light that will let you know when the heater is active.
Cost of Electricity
The safety features may ease part of your apprehension, but you should also prepare your wallet for the cost of using a device like this one. As mentioned previously in this review, this device has two heat settings, a setting that draws 1000W and another at 600W. The lower setting will draw as much power as a modern, energy-efficient washing machine and the higher setting is comparable to using a high dryer. Running this heater for a few hours won’t cause a huge addition to your bill, but running this device for extended periods may change your electricity bills. For each hour of use, this device could run up your electricity bill by 6-10 cents. If you use it while working in your home office for forty hours a week, this device could cost you an extra $16/month.
Be Careful During Use
Beyond electricity, I wanted to warn potential users of this device about two things that they should be aware of. The first is that even though the device claims to not emit any odour or fumes, the unit that was provided to me for review did emit a small smell even after hours of total run time. This may dissipate after more hours of time in use, but you should not plan to place this device within an arm’s length (or a nose length, rather).
The second warning about this device is around heat generation. The matte plastic around the air outlet can get extremely hot to the touch after a short period of use. If anyone were to touch the device without knowing, they would likely be temporarily hurt by the device. Generally speaking, adults intuitively would not touch a heater after prolonged use, but the design of this heater may be disarming for younger folks. Use with caution.
A Futuristic Heater For The Home/Office
The JS Mini Heater is a great inexpensive unit for a smaller space once you have taken in the appropriate cautions about electricity use and safety. Its cooling fan also means that the device can also double as a coolant in the warmer months of the year. For more information about the JS Mini Heater and other heaters like this, check out Best Buy Canada.
