Dr Infrared Heater Portable Space Heater

I own 3 of these now. I finished my basement and the furnace doesn't quite keep the bedrooms warm enough during the winter so I bought one of these. I tested it in a large room, about 275 sq. ft, and it worked really well (all walls and ceilings are insulated). It was such a good heater I bought another one for another basement bedroom. And recently I bought one for an upstairs bedroom that can get a little chilly at night. Pros: 1. Excellent build quality. It's made of wood and feels solid. Inside the wood cabinet that houses the blower and heating parts is made of sheet metal. So it's a wood cabinet that houses a metal box, with all the components inside of that metal box. I point this out because aside from the buttons on the front to operate, there is very little plastic on this heater. The castors (plastic) work well and roll on thick plush carpet. The wood cherry cabinet might look a little unusual or dated to some people but it does look like nicer, in my opinion, than all the other cheap plastic space heaters out there. 2. Heats well. The little heater pumps out air pretty efficiently. It can heat our large bedroom from 65 to 70 in a few minutes. The little blower on it is quiet and doesn't cause problems for those sleeping in the room. They describe it as white noise, on the eco setting, which still heats the large room well and keeps it warm. 3. Features are great. - Has a timer that I believe maxes out at 12 hours - It has an actual thermostat (you can see hanging out the back). You can set the desired room temperature. 68 degrees F is the default out of the box temp. Push the mode and arrow down button at the same time to see current room temp. - Has different modes, eco, medium, and high. We mostly use eco for the cost savings and because it's pretty darn efficient. - Remote is provided is definitely, but see my cons lists 4. Support is available and mostly responsive. Good support is key in a quality product. While nobody should ever have to use it, it's nice to have it available. See my cons lists below for more on support but they have a responsive support team, even if it can be a little delayed. 5. Comes all put together, including castors. Just pull it out of the box and follow the instructions taped on the front of the unit to get going. Cons: 1. The remote - The remote is required to set the timer. This is the single part of this heater I think is poor design. What if the remote is lost or doesn't work? How hard would it be to add this functionality to the unit itself? - On one unit the remote stopped working. I contacted support and they took several days to respond. I had to email them again to see if they received my initial email. They did respond, and going forward communication was relatively smooth. They sent me a new remote, which didn't fix the problem. I lost communication with them again for several days when I reported this. They then came back and said I had to replace the main board on the unit. It's on the front of the heater. It's what the temp is displayed on and the buttons push into. Problem is you have to take the metal housing out of the inside of the wood box and take that covering off to get to the board. It wasn't too bad to replace. You really have to just remove about two dozen or more screws, swap out the board and put everything back together. They provided a relatively helpful video, though it's missing a few key parts. Like how the metal casing fits back together (corners overlap in some places and not others), and they didn't provide me with replacement zip ties, but I had some on hand. They did ask me before sending if I could do it myself and I said yes. I suspect if this repair makes you nervous they had some kind of alternate way to get it repaired for you. I figured this would save me time by doing it myself. It took me about an hour. Overall they backed their product and support did help me get the problem resolved. The cons here are the fact that it took about 3 to 4 weeks worth of emails and a board replacement to get it working again. The pros are they supported their product, and did actually respond, even if it said response was delayed sometimes. The remote has worked fine on my 2 other units. So I assume it was just a faulty board, which does happen in the world of mass production. 2. Support can be slow to respond - see previous con As a side note, I'm not entirely sure what safety features are available with this. I've never tested them. The front of the unit doesn't get hot enough to burn you if you touched it, but it is blowing out very hot air so that alone could potentially hurt little kids or pets, or be very uncomfortable. Usually these space heaters have a tipping feature that would turn it off. I haven't tested for this feature but I will and I'll come back and update this review. The thing is that based on its design being a square box on wheels it's not likely to be tipped over. The more common shaped space heaters like the towers or ones that sit on a small narrow plastic base and are top heavy are far more likely to be tipped over. UPDATE ON THIS: I tested it and it does have a tipping safety feature and will turn off. It's pretty quick to turn off and even when it's turned back up right you have to turn it back on. It still would take some effort to knock over, but it's nice to know it's there. Overall, I'd definitely recommend buying one, or three. I know they're more expensive than other heaters with similar specs and features, but the build quality alone should be enough for people to consider it. You'll spend more on this heater than others but it will also last you a lot longer. I suspect we'll have these for many many years.