Devola Smart WiFi Platinum 1.5kW Glass Panel Heater Review
A well-priced and smart convection heater.
Verdict
A well-priced and neat-looking convection heater, the Devola Smart WiFi Platinum 1.5kW Glass Panel Heater looks great whether it’s sat on the floor or mounted on a wall. Touchscreen controls, a remote and an LED display make this thermostat-controlled heater brilliantly easy to use, and there’s a smart app, too.
Pros
- Good value
- Remote control, touch controls and smart app
- Heats fast
Cons
- App doesn’t have a timer setting
Also available at Devola and Amazon
Key Features
- Heater typeThis is a convection heater, which works by heating the air in a room.
- EnergyUses a maximum of 1500W in normal mode, and half that in eco mode.
Introduction
If you want a cheap and effective way to warm a room, the Devola Smart WiFi Platinum 1.5kW Glass Panel Heater is a smart option.
It’s a combination of intuitive controls with app control. Wall or floor mountable, this neat-looking heater fits where you want it.
Design and features
- Smart looks
- Freestanding and wall mounted
- Controllable via remote, on-device controls and smart app
Finished in black glass, the Devola Smart WiFi Platinum 1.5kW Glass Panel Heater is a stylish and modern-looking convection heater. It’s similar in design and features to the Princess Glass Smart Panel Heater, only this version is slightly cheaper.
This model is designed for rooms up to 20m², but there’s a 2kW version for rooms up to 25m² and a 1kW version for rooms up to 15m².
Out of the box, the first choice is to floor- or wall-mount the heater. Measuring just 470 x 650 x 70mm, the heater doesn’t take up much space, so you can wall mount it without it taking up too much space or just screw the provided feet into place to put the heater on the floor.
Once plugged in, the heater has touch controls on the front. Hit the up/down arrows, and you can cycle through the power modes (frost protection, eco and full-power). Eco mode is useful when a room needs a gentle injection of heat; whereas full-power is better when a room is very cold.
Tap the settings button, and you can change the target temperature (the heater turns off automatically when reached) or set the timer (one-hour increments between one and 24 hours).
The large LED screen shows the target temperature as you set it, and then the current temperature otherwise. It’s a very handy feature and lets me see, at a glance, the temperature in the room.
There’s also a remote control in the box, which duplicates the touch controls.
This heater is compatible with the Smart Home app, which is compatible with a wide range of products from other manufacturers. Adding the heater here gives me control over the target temperature and the heating mode and lets me set a schedule. Oddly, there’s no option to set a timer from here.
Alexa and Google Assistant integrations are available, giving voice control over the heater. In the Alexa app, the heater doesn’t appear as a device with on-screen controls, which means that it can’t be used in automations, say turning the heater on when motion is detected and off when motion is no longer detected. That’s a shame.
Performance
- Heats quickly
- Silent in operation
Powering the Devola Smart WiFi Platinum 1.5kW Glass Panel Heater on, I measured its power usage at 1443W in full-power mode and dropping down to 731W when on Eco mode.
It only takes a few minutes for the heater to warm up when turned on. On first use, there was a chemical smell that went away after a few minutes and didn’t return.
Taking a thermal photo of the front, you can see how the heat spreads. While the heater is hot to the touch, it’s not as hot as an infrared heater gets. The touch controls remain cool enough to use at any point, which is good if you want quick control and don’t want to find the remote control or app.
As this is a convection heater, the primary heat comes out through the grill at the top, warming air that passes through it.
Turning it on in my well-insulated office, I found that it took just over an hour to increase the temperature from 18°C to 21°C. Running the heater all day, I found that it used a total of 1.42kW to keep my office warm for the entire day. That’s around 38p for the day to heat the room, which is just over 40% more than using the Aeno Premium Eco LED Smart Heater infrared heater under similar conditions.
That’s down to the differences in how the heaters work, with infrared heaters more efficient, requiring less power; however, they’re more expensive to buy and get much hotter at the front.
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Should you buy it?
You want a good-value heater with smart controls
This model is keenly priced for a smart model, and it looks fantastic, too.
You want lower running costs
If you want to keep your electricity costs down, check out an infrared heater instead.
Final Thoughts
If you want an occasional heater to boost heat in room, or just want to keep a garden office topped up, the Devola Smart WiFi Platinum 1.5kW Glass Panel Heater is a great-value way to do this, particularly as this convection heater has smart controls. If you want a fan heater or an infrared heater instead, check out my guide to the best electric heaters.
How we test
Unlike other sites, we test every heater we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as our main heater for the review period
We measure the fan speed (if available) using an anemometer so that we can accurately compare performance between models
We measure the heat output of the fan and its effect on our test lab.
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FAQs
It works with Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant.
Yes, it has wall mounting brackets in the box.
Full specs
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
