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The Honeywell heater arrived packed within its own box within an Amazon box and was well protected. Getting started was as easy as plugging it in. All the features have little icons on the heater but you may need to review the instructions once to understand the icons. Pluses: the heater begins to warm immediately. Even the low power setting seems to generate heat for a small room. The oscillating feature is virtually soundless. The timer turns off the heater within a few minutes of the setting. Minuses: While the temperature display is very easy to read, the actual temperature setting is like a toy. The heater does cycle off close to a setting but the displayed temperature is not very accurate. Also the temperature resets to 75 when the unit is turned off so your desired temperature must be reset every time the unit is turned on. Also, every button that is pressed creates an annoying "beep" that I cannot seem to turn off or decrease. Overall, this is a good basic heater suitable for smaller rooms.
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I'm using this heater to help regulate temperature swings in an over air-conditioned office. You would expect that having a thermostatic control would direct the heater to switch on and off as required to maintain a narrow range around a preset temperature. With this Honeywell, comfort requires manual switching because the thermostatic temperature control functions poorly. When the heater reaches +1-2 degrees above the preset temperature, the fan and heater element shut off and the thermostat should then be monitoring room temperature to determine when to restart the heater, (at least that's how it's supposed to work).Reality is: once the thermostat triggers the Honeywell heater to shut off at a preset 72 degrees; the fan stops immediately and the displayed temperature quickly rises about four degrees. As the unit cycles off there is no airflow over the temperature sensor so the thermostat is no longer sensing room temperature; it's actually sensing residual radiated heat from the unit itself. As the office A/C kicks in, actual room temperature drops from 72 to 66 but the Honeywell heater display shows 76 and won't cycle on because its temperature sensor is still responding to residual heat in the heater. At this point the thermostat was set at 72, the Honeywell temperature display shows 76, and the actual room temperature was 66. The only way to restart the heater at this point is to reset the Honeywell's thermostat to 78 or above. As the heater cycles on, the fan restores air circulation past the internal sensor and the temperature display indicator quickly drops from 76 to 66. Now the heater won't shut down until room temp reaches 80 degrees because it was necessary to reset the thermostat to 78 to get the heater to cycle on when the actual room temperature was 66.
This heater isn't a 'set it and forget it' affair. I found my office was consistently too cold, then too hot. This demonstrates a latent design defect where the temperature sensor is either located too close to the heater element, poorly shielded, or worse. Most thermostatically controlled heaters I've experienced, address this issue by continuing to run the fan for a couple of minutes after the heater element shuts off to dissipate residual heat and equalize internal heater temperature with room temperature so the thermostatic sensor is accurately tracking ambient room temp. I've already had two of these heaters, so it isn't a defective unit, its a defective design.
Your choices with this heater are 14 degree temperature swings with thermostat function, or switching the heater on and off manually. A remote control would be greatly appreciated since manual operation is necessary for temperature control. Note that competitive units INCLUDE a remote; my recommendation is to keep shopping until you locate a heater with a remote. (Ironic that a company that made its reputation for thermostatic controls can't make a thermostat function properly in a space heater.)
I'd speculate that similarly priced, thermostatically controlled space heaters would likely function as poorly as this Chinese-made Honeywell and I wouldn't be surprised to find they're all made in the same factory. In my opinion a remote control would be an infinitely more desirable feature than a poorly executed, wonky thermostatic control.
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