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The Best space heaters are winter’s rear guard, the last line of defense against goose bumps and cold feet. Though not a great way to heat a whole home, space heaters can be indispensable for a late-evening movie night, a workbench in a chilly garage, or the home’s odd corners that refuse to stay warm. And if you live in an apartment building where you don’t control the heat, they may be your only way to feel OK in January.
Even so, these little machines do bring about serious safety and reliability concerns, along with a need to be able to parse dodgy and opaque marketing claims. (For example, no matter what the marketing specifies, large space heaters usually aren’t more powerful or more effective than small ones.) So we turned down the thermostat and tested dozens of space heaters to find the ones that’ll warm you up as quickly, quietly, and safely as possible.
Alongside naming the top pick overall—the blessedly balanced and quiet Dreo Whole Room Heater 714—we also pinpointed which heaters are best poised to suit specific needs, from the best bathroom heater and a space heater that doubles as an air purifier to an option that’ll warm your towels. For those on a tight budget, the bare-bones Honeywell 360 Surround often goes on sale.
Photograph: Matthew KorfhageLooking for more ways to tailor your air? Check out our guide to all things that improve your indoor air quality, as well as our specialized guides to the Best Air Purifiers, Best Humidifiers, Best Fans, and Best Dehumidifiers.
Updated November 2026: We’ve added a new Honeywell model (HHF365) as a pick, heaters from Lasko and Amazon Basics to Honorable Mentions, and information about a Dreo recall. We’ve also updated links and prices.
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Best Space Heater Overall
Whole Room Heater 714
This Dreo is the best answer to what I’ve been looking for in a space heater ever since I started testing them. I want simple things: the promise of safety, with reliable tip-over and overheat protections; quiet and effective functioning; and the ability to use the full capacity of an American outlet to heat quickly and evenly around the room. I like a remote control, but if I lose it, I still want to be able to use the heater. I also like precise digital-temperature control, with a thermostat that actually works. I also don’t want to hate how the thing looks, considering it’ll be with me all winter.
The Dreo Whole Room Heater 714 checks these boxes better than any other heater among the dozens I’ve tested in the past two years—with thoughtful design touches that make it possible to actually like the thing. It’s a nice modern update on the classic fan design, able to oscillate not just side-to-side but also up and down. The counter-spiral grill, similar to competitor Vornado’s models, creates good heat distribution around the room. And while it’s not silent, it’s still quieter than my refrigerator on high fan speeds.
The thermostat works, a strangely rare quality among space heaters. This model is successful, I suspect, largely because its bipartite design allows the temperature sensor to be isolated from the heating elements. Huzzah! Other nice touches include buttons whose beeps are mutable and digital screens that dim themselves. The housing is satisfyingly cool to the touch. The heater also remembers its settings from previous use, so you don’t have to reprogram it each time you turn it back on. Oscillation is silent, with no squeaks, and the brushless fan is whistle-free.
It’s not perfect, of course. I’d like the ability to set a shutoff timer, and the on-device controls are a bit hard to see and close to the floor. There’s also one hot spot on the exhaust grill: the exact center where the Dreo logo sits. (Vanity is a vice!) Still, this is a great little heater. —Matthew Korfhage
Update November 2026: Dreo’s HSH015 space heater was recalled on October 29 for overheating. It looks similar to this heater, but as of press time, this model, HSH034, has not been recalled. We are closely monitoring the situation.
Best Quiet Space Heater
TAVH10 Space Heater
Kansas-based fan and heater company Vornado offers a dizzying array of heaters that look visually similar: an oblong plastic box with a circular whorl on its face. This can make shopping a bit difficult, but there are good reasons the Vornado is wedded to this design. It’s wonderfully effective and quiet, with some of the most even heat distribution I’ve seen among any devices on the market. (The quietest and best fans available at any given time are often also named Vornado.)
The Vornado TAVH10 has a remote, two heat settings, a fan-only setting, and a timer so you can set your heater to shut off after you go to sleep or turn on when you wake up. My favorite aspect, though, is that on low heat, this thing is beautifully silent—less than 40 decibels. That makes it much quieter than any previous digital device I’d tested from Vornado.
It's also gentle in its heating, pushing out air almost imperceptibly to the opposite corner of the room. This is the result of Vornado’s whole-room “vortex” technology, which is essentially a spiral grate that’s counter-rotated to the movement of the fan, creating a column of coiling air that pushes to the far corner, then scatters around the room. This does underscore the importance of how you situate the heater in your room: It needs to have an unbroken line to the opposite wall or corner. If you don’t want to notice your heater at all but still feel warm, this is the heater you want. —Matthew Korfhage
Best Radiator Heater
Dragon Oil-Filled Radiator
Oil-filled radiators like this Dragon from De’Longhi are a different beast from the resistive heaters that make up the rest of this list. The Dragon contains a reservoir of temperature-stable, diathermic oil that circulates within the radiator. The oil takes a little while to heat up, meaning it may be an hour before the temperature stabilizes in a room. But once the Dragon achieves this baseline, the large thermal mass means that the heat stays stable and even. There are trade-offs: The device is huge, at 2 feet tall and more than a foot deep, and its entire surface gets quite hot to the touch.
So why would you prefer it to other options? It is utterly silent, for one. Anecdotally, oil-filled radiators seem to dry out the air less than a fan-blowing ceramic. And its stability of heat for long periods makes it a good pick for bedtime. The hot oil inside the radiator keeps emitting heat even after you’ve turned it off, which means you can turn it on an hour before bed to warm up the room, then shut it off before you go to sleep and remain toasty. (The Dragon also has a timed shutoff function.) Additionally, the antifreeze feature makes it a great tool for greenhouses and basements: You can set the Dragon to turn on whenever the ambient temperature reaches 41 degrees Fahrenheit or lower. —Matthew Korfhage
Best Cheap Heater
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Surround 360 (HHF365)
Honeywell is renowned for its bare-bones, reliable heaters (and fans!), and this is a 2026 update to the HHF360 ($35), our previous pick for Best Cheap Heater and one of the North Carolina–based brand’s most popular models.
It’s mostly a visual refresh, now with a recessed handle, vertically oriented control knobs, and a more uniform cylindrical shape. It still features the same critical safety features as the HHF360, like tip-over protection (that even triggers when you pick up the device), overheat throttle, and flame-retardant plastic. It’s also got some additional safeguards not typically seen at this price point, including two overheat trip switches and a sleeved and soldered heat connection.
The 360-degree heating function is still there, with the vent on top encircling the unit, allowing it to heat large rooms quickly and evenly compared with other heaters at this price point. Plus, the plastic grate doesn’t get overly hot.
As befits this price, however, there is no digital display, no remote, no oscillation, and just two analog dials: one for High and one for Low (illustrated by heat-wave squiggles), and a thermostat that doesn’t show specific temperatures. It’s also quite loud—even louder than Amazon Basics’ $21 staple. However, safety is paramount with space heaters, and because this heater is more efficient than Amazon’s, you’ll have it running less. (It also has a three-year warranty to Amazon’s one-year.) —Kat Merck
Best Bathroom Heater and Wall Heater
Smart Wall-Mounted Heater with ALCI plug
A cold bathroom in the morning feels cruel and unnecessary. But a space heater on the floor can feel reckless in a room with a bathtub. A fixed wall unit, mounted away from the shower, is perhaps the most sensible solution to early-morning shivers. This slim-profiled Dreo offers IP24 certification against splashes, plus the same ALCI plug you’ll find on your hair dryer to prevent shocks. The heater’s app-enabled smart function means you can turn it on from the warmth of your bed and bask in the glow of a warm bathroom by the time you arrive.
Bathroom aside, Dreo's wall-mounted heater is also great for your home’s other cool spots that lack convenient floor space. It can heat a midsize room within 15 minutes, though even heat distribution depends strongly on central wall placement. Other helpful phone-app features include usage tracking over time, Alexa voice compatibility, and button-push calibration of the thermostat—a feature you'll need. The thermostat on this unit fares better than earlier-generation devices from Dreo, but it still sometimes gets confused by light breezes or the device’s own heat source.
Installation is pretty straightforward, provided you’ve hung a framed picture before. But make sure to mount the Dreo high enough to be out of reach for curious youngsters. While the housing stays cool, the heat exhaust vent can get hot to the touch. —Matthew Korfhage
Best Air Purifier and Heater
Hot + Cool HP1
Dyson heaters are tall. And Dysons look cool, if a bit discomfiting—like a droid without a face. Either way, they do lots of things. The Hot + Cool HP1 is an app-enabled air-quality sensor, a HEPA and carbon air filter that continually filters small particles from the air, a hygrometer, a mostly accurate thermometer (see below), a cooling fan … and, yes, a classic resistance heater.
It’s nifty. Though priced accordingly, the HP1 is the most sophisticated home atmospheric management tool I know. It heats the room evenly and quickly, has no exposed elements or blades, cleans easily, looks kind of fun, and remains cool to the touch.
Just note that, as with all Dysons, there are quirks: If you turn the fan setting up to 10, it sounds like, well, something got turned all the way up to 10. (It is, however, quiet at more reasonable wind speeds.) It doesn't come with paper instructions, and while the temperature readings are mostly accurate, the thermostat reads at the device, meaning it tends to land a few degrees high unless the room temperature equalizes. The most troubling quirk is that there are no temperature-control buttons on the device or the app (at least if you live in the United States). This means if you lose your remote, you won't be able to adjust the temperature until you get another remote or connect your device to a smart-home system like Alexa. Luckily, the remote is magnetic and can stay affixed to the machine itself, but woe betide folks like me with ADHD who’ll wander off with the dang thing anyway. Buttons, please!
Anyway, this Dyson is on sale a lot. Buy it when it’s on sale. —Matthew Korfhage