Devola 1500W portable heater review: “A space-saving fan heater that looks nice while quickly making a small space pretty toasty”

RRP at time of testing: £50 | Check price at Amazon, B&Q or Devola directly

My verdict

My ‘home office’ is in fact a garden shed, which can get pretty toasty on summer days and very cold in the winter.

I usually use a small oil-filled radiator in the winter but it can take a while to get the room warm, and then sometimes it gets too warm and I have to fling open the office doors and start all over again.

So, a portable fan heater that would warm me and the room up quickly sounded like a good solution. 

When I opened the box of the Devola Portable Fan Heater, I really liked the look of it: I may work out of a shed, but I want my shed to look nice, and this heater looked stylish and premium. At only 28cm high, it fitted nicely on my sideboard in a place where it would hopefully be able to warm the room easily.

I found the heater really easy to use. It has soft-touch buttons on the top and a clear display. Although the packaging doesn’t mention it, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it had a fan mode too, which is useful on warmer days.

One thing that confused me at first (but it’s probably my own fault for not looking more closely at the instructions) is that when you turn the heater off, it doesn’t switch off immediately. The fan continues for 60 seconds, which I learned after re-reading the user manual.

As a mum of a five-year-old and a one-year-old, I’m conscious about the safety of heaters. The Devola has a couple of impressive features that I liked; first, the tip-over protection, which stops the heater from working if it’s knocked over. Secondly, I liked that it had an automatic shut-off after eight hours, so if I had accidentally left it running in my office, it wouldn’t have been on all night, racking up big bills and potentially causing fire risks.

The heater is billed as being portable and at 1.5kg it is very lightweight. I found it easy to move, lift and carry. Its small size also made it easy to tuck away when not in use, although most of the time while testing it I left it out on display.

For £50, I think it’s a useful household gadget that does a good job, doesn’t take up much room and looks nice too.

How we’ve tested

According to Devola, the 1500W Portable Fan Heater is ‘your portable companion for when the office feels chilly’, so I tested it in my home office, which is actually a glorified shed in the garden.

The office is around four square metres. The fan heater’s manual doesn’t list an optimal room size, but the gadget itself does have two outputs: 900W for smaller rooms and 1500W for larger rooms. 

I tested the ‘lo’ and ‘hi’ fan settings in the same space, as well as the three different temperature levels.

I started testing this heater during a particularly warm autumnal week, so I was also able to test out the fan function, which surprisingly isn’t really mentioned by Devola as one of the product’s key features, but I think makes it even better value for money.

I tested the fan heater when I first went into my office in the morning, as that’s the time it’s coldest and I wanted to see how quickly the heater would get things toasty.

The heater also has a tip-over protection function, which stops the heater working immediately when it’s knocked over. I tested this out too, knocking it off my office sideboard to see if it would cut out (it did) and knocking it over more gently to see how much force it took to trigger the cut-out.

A gentle knock didn’t stop it from functioning, but as soon as it was tipped it cut out, which was impressive and very good for anyone with little kids around.

According to Devola, the 1500W portable fan heater is: 'your portable companion for when the office feels chilly'.

What’s in the box? 

Inside the box there’s a portable fan heater and an attached power cable.

How easy is the Devola 1500W Portable Fan Heater to set up and use?

There’s very little admin involved with this heater; you choose where you want to put it, you plug it in, choose your mode and away you go.

The top display shows three different fan options, three different temperature settings and then there’s an oscillation button too.

As mentioned above, this heater also doubles as a fan, but it’s not immediately obvious that there’s that option too, in case, like me, you were wondering what the extra ‘fan’ setting was in addition to the ‘lo’ and ‘hi’ ones.

To use the heater, press the power button, select your fan option, choose your temperature and let it get to work. It’s pretty straightforward to change between different modes if you want more or less heat, and if you want the heat distributed around the room you can press the oscillation button, which moves the heater through 60 degrees.

The fan doesn’t switch off immediately when you press the button, which took some getting used to, but once I’d re-read the instruction manual to make sure it wasn’t malfunctioning I reminded myself not to panic if it kept going after hitting the off switch.

The Devola portable fan heater looks stylish in a home office setting.

Is the Devola 1500W Portable Fan Heater good for heating a room?

This is a relatively small heater both in size and output, so it’s never going to be able to replace central heating.

But in a small space it was surprisingly effective, heating my office quickly, which I was especially grateful for on cold mornings. 

I found the room would get quite intensely hot and then I’d need to turn the heater off again. It wasn’t very easy to maintain a steady temperature. But I think this is the case with most electric fan heaters and not a fault with this model. They’re designed to give a quick blast of heat rather than to be used as an all-day solution.

I don’t think it would be hugely beneficial in a bigger space, but in my office it was great for warming up my hands and feet before starting work.

What safety features does the Devola 1500W Portable Fan Heater have?

For a fairly compact gadget I was impressed with the heater’s safety features. After eight hours of running, it automatically shuts off, which is very handy and reassuring, too.

It also has tip-over protection, which automatically shuts the heater down if it’s knocked over. I tested this to make sure it worked, and it did.

The heater detects when the ambient temperature in the room is higher than the set temperature and it’ll stop operating. I thought this was useful, both for safety and for saving energy.

The one thing this heater doesn’t have is any protection against you burning yourself if you accidentally brush against the front grille (which happened to me a few times while testing). It’s not a major issue because heaters are generally, you know, hot, but it’s something to be aware of, especially if you’re using it in a room with pets or kids present.

The Devola portable fan heater is easy to use straight from the box.

How energy efficient is the Devola 1500W Portable Fan Heater?

The heater draws 1500W, or 1.5 kilowatts (kW). That means it costs roughly 40p per hour to run, based on current energy prices.

It’s not a cheap solution by any means, but unless the room you’re heating is really chilly, it’s unlikely you’d be running it continuously.

Also, if you run the heater on ‘lo’ mode it draws 900W, which is about 24p per hour. 

It’s not an energy-efficient way of heating, but fan heaters in general aren’t. They’re designed to offer ‘top-up’ warmth rather than be a sole source of heat.

Devola vs Dyson vs Dreo electric fan heaters

Final verdict: is the Devola 1500W worth it?

Yes, there are fancier portable heaters out there with more oscillation angles and all manner of different modes. But I think for £50 this heater is a pretty good option. The fact it has a fan mode makes it even better.

If you’re looking for a space-saving fan heater that looks nice while quickly making a small space pretty toasty, then this is a strong choice.

It probably won’t change your life, but it might make it a bit warmer, and in the depths of winter if you’re also working from a shed like me, you’ll probably be grateful you parted with the cash.

About the tester and author

Charlie Bond is a freelance journalist and a mum of two (slightly wild) boys. As a lifestyle and shopping editor, she’s got more than 15 years’ experience testing everything from family holiday hotspots to mum-friendly makeup.

She’s always on the lookout for the best products to make parents’ lives easier, whether that’s a super-duper coffee machine (she’s usually had three espressos by the morning school run) or a cleaning solution that really does get pen off the walls...

About Mumsnet reviews

All Mumsnet product reviews are written by real parents after extensive research and testing. We work hard to provide honest, independent advice you can trust. We sometimes earn revenue through affiliate links, but this never influences our coverage.

All prices are correct at time of publication.

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