After several weeks of testing, the Dimplex HeatLite 2kW convector warmed a cold living room and home office quickly and quietly, with app control on top.
Working from home alone in winter creates an awkward heating problem. Warming the whole house for one person and a dog feels wasteful, but leaving the radiators off means spending the day in a cold room. I wanted a middle path, so I spent several weeks testing the Dimplex HeatLite 2kW Smart convector heater to see whether a small portable unit could cover the gaps.
My setup makes the problem worse than most. I live in a single-glazed listed building. The flat warms up reasonably well in the morning and evening, but my working hours are spent in a bedroom office that I never heat. The goal was simple: take the edge off chilly moments without running the central heating all day.
What the spec sheet promises
The HeatLite is a convection heater rated at 2kW and aimed at rooms up to 20m². It measures 43cm high, 92cm wide and 21cm deep, and weighs 3.6kg. The operating range runs from 10°C to 35°C. There's a timer, an LED display and a 1.5m cord. The manufacturer describes the noise level as whisper-quiet, and you can control the unit from its side panel or through an app.
Setup and controls
The heater arrived in a box with a clear product image and minimal packaging, enough to keep the unit safe in transit without piles of waste. Assembly took very little effort. Two legs pop into the base and get secured with the screws provided. Plenty of products claim to be plug-and-play when they aren't, but this one genuinely was.
The 1.5m cord is short, so I ran it through an extension lead in my open-plan kitchen-diner-living room. That let me place the unit where the heat could reach the whole space. The heater doesn't move and has no oscillation, unlike the Dreo Smart Whole Room Heater I tested previously. Instead, heat exits through the top, and the casing itself warms up and radiates outward.
You can operate the unit from its side panel, which handles on and off, temperature, normal and turbo modes. Or you can use the GlenDimplex Connect app, which is the option I preferred. It let me switch the heater on from another room, and it also handles pairing, schedules and timed operation. The weekly calendar lets you select one-hour blocks for heating. I skipped schedules because I was testing speed and heat distribution, but setting them up looked straightforward.
For manual use, you press the power button, set the temperature with the slider, choose one of three heat strength modes and tap the fan symbol for turbo. Safety features include an open-window setting that switches the heater off if room temperature drops suddenly, an overheat auto-switch-off and tip-over protection.
Living room performance
In the living room, the heater did exactly what I needed. I switched it on when I got back from an early dog walk, and by the time anyone else came down for breakfast, the chill was gone. Just as useful, nobody asked when the central heating was going on. The unit rarely ran continuously. It kicked in for short bursts whenever the room dipped below the 20°C I'd set.
Evenings followed the same pattern. I'd start it from my phone once the room got cold, with the door pulled to. A few minutes was usually enough to make the space comfortable again. By my estimate, it pushed back the central heating switch-on by around two weeks, and I never needed it running constantly.
Warming a bedroom office
When the central heating finally went on, I moved the heater upstairs. It's light enough to carry in one hand using the handles at the top. My bedroom office is the coldest room in the flat. It has two large sash windows and two external walls, so once the central heating shuts off at 9am, the chill sets in by 10am.
I placed the heater beside my desk and chair, set it to 20°C through the app and left it there. It usually started from around 17°C and reached 20°C within minutes. After that, it cycled on and off as needed. I never touched turbo, because the highest fan setting was fast enough on its own.
The "whisper-quiet" claim holds up. On normal settings there's a slight click and a low whirr, and that's it. Turbo is louder, but still quieter than some of the dehumidifiers I've tested. There was a faint smell on first use, similar to what I noticed with the Meaco Grisos Smart 2kW PTC Fan Heater, but it faded quickly and didn't linger.
What it costs to run
At full heat, running for 60 minutes costs 50.1p per hour. I estimate I'm running it for less than two hours a day at the moment, which still works out cheaper than heating the whole flat through the day. That maths shifts as the weather worsens, though. Electricity is pricier than gas, and a 2kW heater running for longer stretches could eat into the savings quickly. I'll revisit the schedule once winter sets in properly.
Where it falls short
This isn't a heater for big spaces. The rated coverage tops out at 20m², and I'd respect that ceiling. The casing also gets hotter to the touch than I expected. If there are young children at home, think carefully about placement and make sure they understand it gets hot, just as they would with any radiator. Portable heaters also don't replace the right minimum temperature for a home, which still matters for avoiding damp and condensation.
Where it earns its place
If you want a quick heat boost this winter, the Dimplex HeatLite is a strong candidate. At the time of testing, it was priced at £75 at B&Q, £85 at Argos, and £94.99 on the Dimplex site. It does what it says. It warmed my living room before anyone woke up, kept my bedroom office comfortable through the mornings and asked very little of me in return.
For a home office, a cold kitchen on winter mornings or any single room you'd rather not heat from scratch, this one is worth adding to your shortlist. Just don't expect it to carry a whole floor. Keep an eye on the running hours as the temperature drops, because the cheapest heat is the kind you only switch on when you need it.
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