Product rating: * (out of 5)
Pros: Sleek, thermostat, LED temperature display, 16 hour limit for timer
Cons: VERY VERY LOUD
The Bottom Line:
Since the fan is so loud, I would only recommend this for use in industrial areas. And only if you really need the temperature readout.
Since the fan is so loud, I would only recommend this for use in industrial areas. And only if you really need the temperature readout.
Background
I just moved to a new apartment where my main heater is in the kitchen. To keep me warm at night I had small space heater someone gave me, but it had no thermostat or timer, so I usually wind up pretty hot when I wake up. I was out at dinner one night, when I noticed the restaurant was using a Lasko Tower Heater (#5115). After that I knew I wanted to get one. I went out to a hardware store and picked one up, but as I was about to pay, I saw the Bionaire Tower Heater. For some reason, I thought the Bionaire was a better brand so I purchased that instead.
Appearance/Design
The Bionaire Tower Heater looks very sleek with smooth lines and a "pedestal" extension. It came unassembled, but it was very easy to add the extension on the bottom and then put on the base. At the top of the heater, there is a space to put the remote when it's not in use. Pretty thoughtful. The front has a metal covering. The only difference between my model and this one I'm reviewing was that the casing was black.
Operation
The heater was fairly simple to use. I plugged it in and it beeped to acknowledge power. LED display showed the current temp. Pressing the power button would cycle it through HI, LO, AH (Auto-high), AL (Auto-low), and OFF. With HI and LO, you can't set the temperature, but with AH and AL you can. There's also a button to toggle the oscillate mode. Pressing the temperature buttons will bring up the timer where you can tell it to shut off is X amount of hours, or turn on (when pressing while it's off) after X amount of hours up to 16. Pretty cool feature.
Unfortunately, as feature-laden as the heater was, the fan was very loud in operation. I laid in bed wide-eyed wondering to myself how anyone could even use this heater. There was no option to adjust the fan at all! It sounded even louder than my air conditioner fan! After trying to convince myself that it's not really that loud and to try to treat it as white noise, I shut it off and used my old small heater. I returned it the next day for the Lasko.
Conclusion
Great design, lots of features, but execution doomed this product. People won't use this if the fan sounds almost like a kitchen hood vent. I'm very surprised no one at Bionaire thought otherwise and stopped the product from going out.
Recommended: No
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