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In this balanced Atomi space heater review, I am happy to share the details of what I think is hot (and what is not) with this high-tech portable heater from Atomi.
Read on to find out if this heater is ‘smart’ enough to fit your needs, budget, and space requirements.
Got Heat?
Got heat? No? Well, then, you better get some. Like it or not, winter is coming. With New England’s autumn chill in the air over the past few days, this has me thinking about the best ways to keep my office warm.
The problem is: I’ve been having issues with my aging electric baseboard heat, so it looks like I will be relying on a space heater until I can get maintenance to replace these baseboards.
So I must find the best portable space heater to keep my living and working areas toasty. I love the concept of a Wi-Fi-enabled, voice-controlled, whisper-quiet indoor space heater that has a compact design and is compatible with my smart home.
Apparently, I am not the only one. A recent study by Data Bridge Market Research found that the smart room heater market will expect to grow at a rate of 11.50% for the forecast period through 2028.
One option I found with many— great features was the Atomi Space Heater, so I figured I’d take a deep dive and see what there is to love (or not) about this heater with its intuitive controls and smartphone app.
Let’s examine some pros and cons of this smart tower from Atomi. Is it hot or not?
Pros and Cons of the Atomi Smart Space Heater
Pros (What’s Hot)
Cons (What’s Not)
Atomi WiFi Tower Space Heater Specifications
The following are the key technical specifications of the Atomi Smart Space Heater:
Last update on 11/17/2024 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
📚 Related: 13 Best Smart Thermostats
Who Is The Atomi Wi-Fi Tower Heater For?
Anyone with a small-to-mid-sized room that needs heat fast is an ideal candidate for the Atomi. The heater is sized for rooms up to 750 square feet.
Wow. That is impressive as that is a 30′ X 25′ room for such a small heating unit.
This makes it great for larger rooms and smaller areas, including a home office, living room, den, game room, or even large master bedroom (including en-suite and closet).
Thanks to the PTC ceramic heating technology, the air around the heater will reach 70F in two seconds, and the rest of the room will quickly follow suit. With the wide-angle oscillation, you can reach every room corner without ever having to get up and move the heater. Smartphone users will love how easy it is to control using the app. I loved how smoothly this integrated with my existing smart-home set-up (Amazon Alexa).
HelpInLivin has a nice unboxing video of Atomi out on YouTube. I’ll embed it below if you want to take a look.
Is the Atomi Wifi Tower Heater Easy To Use?
Using it is straightforward and simple: just press the button on the touchscreen panel to get heating. The screen makes it easy to choose from the three heating options: set a timer, adjust the temperature, or turn the oscillation on and off.
Setting up the Atomi Smart App takes a few minutes, but once it’s connected to your heater, you’ll have all the heating options at your fingertips. You can even add and adapt a heating schedule to keep your room warm at all the right times using just your smartphone.
How Much Does the Atomi Tower Heater Cost To Run?
A key consideration that I want to include in my Atomi space heater review is just how much this thing will cost.
Like most tower space heaters, the Atomi runs at 1500W. This would consume under $3 per day if I were to run it during my waking hours (max 16 hours a day; it’s not safe to leave space heaters running).
But I didn’t need to keep it running all day, and I could fiddle with the adjustable thermostat to my heart’s content. This automatic “eco mode” makes this heater surprisingly affordable.
📚 Related: How To Make A Dumb Ceiling Fan Smart
Does the Atomi Smart Wifi Portable Tower Space Heater Work?
I set it up in my open-floor office (roughly 650 square feet). The ceramic element heated up to hit my preferred temperature of 68 degrees in around 20 minutes. I only had to switch it on a few more times throughout the rest of the day—and only for half an hour at a time—to keep the area nicely warm. I love the way the ceramic heated up nice and fast.
I loved the smart safety feature that automatically shuts the heater off if it gets tipped or knocked over. Though the base is sturdy enough to keep it upright, my dogs knocked it over, chasing each other through the house. It shut off instantly and didn’t so much as singe my living room carpet—definitely a “pro” in my book. With concerns about unsafe portable heaters, this safety system gives me huge peace of mind.
Atomi Space Heater Review: Space Heater Controls
The Atomi comes with an integrated touchscreen panel for easy controls.
At the top of the tower are five buttons: power, timer, Wi-Fi connection, oscillation, and low/high eco setting. The screen displays the temperature in large digital numbers that I found easy to read from across the room—much easier compared to other models, like the Amazon Basics Tower Space Heater.
Raising and lowering the temperature or switching it between low/high eco settings is easy, thanks to the built-in buttons.
Using the Atomi Smart Space Heater App
Next up in my Atomi space heater review, we’ll take a peek at the app.
The Atomi Smart App makes it even easier to control the heater without needing to stand up—eliminating the need for a separate remote control.
Installing and setting up the app takes a couple of minutes, and the instruction manual walks you through connecting the heater to your home Wi-Fi network and then pairing it with your phone.
Once the heater is paired to your phone, you have many options: adjusting the heat, switching oscillation on/off, and setting the timer. You’ll love how easy it is to set a schedule to switch the heater on and off at precise times of the day, so the room will be warm when you need it, but the heater turns off when you’re out of the room to reduce energy waste.
Compared to other smart home apps I’ve tested—such as the Dyson or Nest apps—the Atomi Smart App was one of the more intuitive and user-friendly operating systems. I like it much better than my UKOKE smart A/C unit app as it gives many more features.
You can even control multiple heaters in the same house, pairing them together to create a highly efficient heating schedule for every room. Here’s what the scheduling screen looks like. Super easy!
Wxrayreview gives a nice quick demonstration of the phone app and how to operate the Atomi smart heater.
Using Atomi with Alexa and Google Home
The Atomi Smart App connects the heater to your Wi-Fi network, allowing you to access the Atomi heater via the Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant apps. Once the heater is set up, it connects quickly to your smart home apps for easy voice control.
The commands available through Alexa and Google Assistant are fairly simple. The Atomi Smart website has a full list available here.
However, I would be remiss if I didn’t include at least some of them in my Atomi space heater review.
Here is a breakdown of the basics:
Atomi Heater Alexa Commands:
Atomi Heater Google Assistant Commands:
What I Didn’t Like About the Atomi Wifi Tower Heater
There were only two complaints that we had about the Atomi Smart Heater:
- It emitted an unpleasant odor when I first started using it like something was burning. Other users posting reviews on both Reddit and Amazon noted the same problem. Turns out it’s a problem that even Atomi admits on their website, explaining, “A new heater may produce an odor when first used. This is normal and should go away after the heater has been used for a while.” Sure enough, after about 3 hours, the smell was gone.
- The red Wi-Fi light doesn’t shut off. I’m a very light sleeper, and when I’m trying to nap in a dark room, the light was annoying and makes it hard to sleep. I put a little black tape over it, and the problem was solved!
Verdict: Atomi Space Heater Review: Is It Worth it?
Compare Atomi to similar tower space heater models, and you’ll find that the price tag is about 10-25% lower than many competitors and almost 80% less than the leader in this space (Dyson). Given its quality, the user-friendliness of its smartphone app, and its built-in safety features, it’s an option I’d consider on its own.
Considering the lower-than-average price and three-year warranty, I’m convinced that it’s a great option to consider if you want a smart heater for your home office, game room, master bedroom, or living room.
Stay toasty, my friends! I hope you found my Atomi space heater review helpful.
Speaking of which, if you want to see some additional options and price points, check out this post I wrote on the Best Smart Space Heaters.
Tim Brennan, a tech blogger and host of the @TecTimmy YouTube channel, writes about smart homes at oneSmartcrib, home theaters at UniversalRemoteReviews, and AI in writing at Writeinteractive. He holds a Journalism degree from Northeastern University and has covered technology for three decades. He lives on the ocean in Nahant, Massachusetts.
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