Any room heater you purchase has several important tasks at hand. Obviously, it has to heat the room, and heat it well, as quickly and inexpensively as possible. It has to be safe, too, and, ideally, should look like it belongs in the room. A smart heater has to accomplish even more—it should use smart home features wisely, so you didn’t download an app just to replace a remote control. It needs to pair easily and remain connected. That there are so few companies in this space makes sense—it’s a high bar to pass. I think the Smart Envi heater by eHeat is doing an admirable job with a few key functions, which is why if you’re in the market for a space under 150 feet, I recommend you purchase this one, and you do it while it's still on sale for 30% off, which ends tomorrow, Nov. 30.
Of course, not a lot of spaces are smaller than 150 square feet: a smallish bedroom, perhaps a bathroom. In my case, it was a small dining room that was still just a smidge too big, at 200 square feet. While the Smart Envi model I tested was a 500-watt heater for these small spaces, they are a few months away from shipping a 1000-watt version called the Smart Envi MAX, specifically for 350+ square foot spaces; there’s no reason to believe it will be less functional than its smaller brother.
In most cases, an ancillary heater is going to sit on the floor and snake a cord behind it to the outlet. It’s just another object in the way—a pain to navigate around in a small space. Smart Envi is a large, flat heater that is wall mounted just above the baseboard close to a 120 outlet. It has clean, simple lines and minimal buttons and digital output. The unit is not small. While it does hug the wall, the 20x22” footprint is substantial, though it only has a two-inch profile, so it’s not a traffic issue. While you can’t buy it in any other color than white, it will certainly be less obtrusive than any other tower or heater on the floor. I loved that you could stow the slack of the cord in the unit itself, so it looked nice and neat.
I will admit that since it required installation, I let the Envi sit in the box until it was cold enough that I needed it. That procrastination was unwarranted, however; installation just involves mounting two clips on the wall either into studs or with the anchors included. Plus, the packaging itself is a wall template—you simply place it against the wall, mark your holes, and place your clips. All told, installation was eight minutes with a power drill.
The care and commitment carried through to the app. Clean, clear menus make it absurdly easy to control your heater, and it has features that transcend it being a remote-control replacement, without overwhelming you like some other heaters do. Everything in the app is important, easy to utilize and clear to control. Set a goal temperature for the heater to maintain. There’s a child lock, freeze protect, and various settings for the digital display. A pale blue nightlight can be turned on and off, and you can set a timer for the heater to go off.
The smart stuff is the other options: the ability to group your heaters so you can control them together, as well as a scheduling tool to allow you to set multiple schedules for turning the heater on, off and to various temperatures. I set it lower overnight, since I’m not in the room, and ask it to come back to the high 60s in the morning. What especially impressed me was the geofencing feature. The Envi app allows you to set the location, and how big a circle you want around your location. I chose .2 miles. Then you add members of the geolocation, such as all the people in your home. Then you tell Envi what temperature to maintain when you’re outside the circle, versus when you’re inside. Using your phone’s location, it’ll determine whether you’re in the circle or not, and based on your settings, what temperature to hold. Really, the only downside was I couldn’t figure out how to tell the app if my dog was home, since when I leave, I’d prefer she not become a pupsicle.
The Smart Envi works with Google Home and Alexa, so turning it off and on is also as easy as shouting into the air for your voice assistant to turn it on or off. This also means it can be worked into automations in your hub. Note that it does all of these marvelous things through wifi and bluetooth, but no Thread or Matter support.
I didn’t honestly expect much of this 500-watt heater. To put things in perspective, most heaters are 1000-1500 watts, and I recently reviewed the GoveeLife Smart Heater Lite, which is for approximately the same size space, and it was 1500 watts. In fact, the room I used it in, my dining room, which hosts the front door and is given to drafts, is usually freezing in winter. However, it has been downright pleasant for the last few weeks, sticking to the 70°F heat I tasked the Envi with.
I’m not sure how it does this. I’m so suspicious that each time I pass the unit, which sits next to my front door, I feel the grill to see if it’s still on, and then I check the independent thermostat in the room to make sure I’m not dreaming. It barely feels like there’s hot air coming out, but it’s certainly on—and the room is warm.
Eheat, the company that produces the Smart Envi, says this is due to a dual-stack convection technology that brings cool air from the floor through the heater and stacks the heating tech inside, which more efficiently facilitates heat transfer out the top of the heater. There are no fans, no noise; the convection somehow is heating the room with only 500 watts.
The lower wattage is so important: People without central heating often don’t have great electrical, either. Old homes, old wiring. 1500 watts is a huge strain on a circuit, and so you often can’t run more than one heater in your home—or a heater and your microwave. A 500-watt heater isn’t just going to be dramatically cheaper to run (eHeat says it costs four cents an hour; I’ve yet to verify this on my end), but it’s also more likely you can actually use the heaters in more spaces.
If I had to find a con, and I’d have to stretch to do so, it would be price. These units are expensive for heaters when you consider most tower heaters cost around 100 dollars. The 500-watt version is $249, and the upcoming 1000-watt version is on pre-order for $319. I’d imagine, however, that this cost would amortize over the course of one winter in energy savings. As of this writing, they are still on sale until 11/30 and at 30% off, they are a legitimate steal.
