Dreo Smart Whole Room Heater review: Perfect for small spaces

With few exceptions, space heaters are generally unattractive, utilitarian-looking items. The Dreo Smart Whole Room Heater 714s is one such exception: a smart fan heater that provides efficient heating in a small package that doesn’t look industrial at all.

While it is effective as a compact heat source, it falls short in terms of fan power. However, if you are looking for an inexpensive heater for a small area, it is a reasonable option.

Dreo Smart Whole Room Heater 714s review: What do you get for the money?

The Dreo Smart Whole Room Heater costs £100, and is available in black or white. Its compact design is simple, consisting of a fan head resting on a u-shaped base, the whole unit measures 28 x 18 x 31.5cm and weighs less than 3kg. Its small size and lightweight design means it can be easily used on floors or a range of surfaces (as long as they are flat, stable and do not block the fan) and there is a small handle built into the back of the fan head for easy portability.

The Smart Whole Room Heater is powered by mains, with a cable of approximately 170cm. The control panel on the front of the base can be used to turn the fan on/off and toggle between fan modes, oscillation and timer settings. A small remote control is included with the air conditioner, along with two AAA batteries. The functionality is the same here, with icons on its buttons similar to those on the fans’ LED screen. If you want to set schedules or track usage and ambient temperature, you’ll need to download Dreo’s companion app – which I’ll discuss further in the next section, along with the details of the various methods on offer.

What features do you get?

Like most “hot and cool” devices, the Dreo Smart Whole Room Heater can be used with or without heat, and there are three different levels of both: H1, H2 and H3 for heat and F1, F2 and F3 for fan-only modes.

There is also an Eco mode, which uses a built-in thermostat to adjust the fan speed accordingly, turning itself off when the target temperature is reached and turning itself on again when the ambient temperature drops about 3°C ​​below the target. The target temperature ranges between 5°C and 35°C, and you can set this via the remote control or the app and the unit itself. The 714s offer both horizontal and vertical rotation, too: up to 90° horizontally, with a vertical range of 60° minimum.

You get more customization in the Dreo app, including the ability to set schedules throughout the week. It is here that you can also track your Smart Whole Room Heater usage, view ambient temperature readings, or set up voice control with Alexa or Google Assistant.

How well did it work?

Heating performance

I tested the Dreo Smart Whole Room Heater during a painful, very humid February, in the living room of my small one-bed apartment: a room, because of its old windows, that tends to get cold and does not retain heat well. As such, the Eco mode of the heater has been beneficial.

The fan delivers heat effectively: it raised the temperature of my living room from a chilly 15°C to a more comfortable 21°C in 19 minutes. This is in line with the device’s built-in thermostat, which I found to be very accurate, always varying by one degree when compared to the equivalent reading of our test anemometer. It really delivered on its “whole room coverage” claim too: when leaving the room and re-entering later, the temperature difference was amazing.

Cooling and airflow

I did some tests on the air speed of the Dreo Smart Whole Room Heater. For the most part, this is mild: with its low fan speed, my anemometer registered nothing, while the speed reached 1m/s on F2 (fan only) and 1.5m/s on F3. When the heat is on, this is even milder, the anemometer only registers 1m/s on the H3.

Considering these results, I hesitate to recommend using the fan mode only when it comes to the hot months: this is the weakest airflow we measured, which is only matched by the Dimplex Rechargeable Desk Fan in its high speed. That said, the rotation provided by vertical and horizontal rotation may well compensate for the lack of airflow, and I would like to test the fan during the summer before making a definitive decision on its cooling capabilities.

Making noise

I also tested the sound output of the Dreo Smart Whole Room Heater. I didn’t find it too distracting during day-to-day use, but the readings were pretty high at your highest settings. In the modes of its fans alone, this is from 41.6 to 53dBA: the maximum output is beaten only by the Levoit Classic Pro (max 55dBA) and the Shark TurboBlade fan (56dBA). As a heater, it is relatively quiet, from 41.1dBA to 50dBA.

This reading is slightly higher than the “HyperSilent” 34dbA that Dreo cites. I don’t usually find this too bothersome, but when my partner and I were watching 28 days later since the heater is running, I preferred to lower the fan speed during suspicious scenes.

Energy consumption

Finally, I tested the power output of the Dreo Smart Whole Room Heater. At maximum fan settings only (with oscillation light on), this increased to around 16.5W, which is not bad at all. At high heat settings, the power meter of the plug I use for testing exceeded its maximum capacity and I could not read, but on H1 (oscillation off) I recorded 968W. I also took a kWh reading while running the heater in Eco mode. After 30 minutes, I measured 0.997kWh, and 2.000kWh after 60 minutes.

According to the current energy price (27.69p per kWh), this would have cost me around 55p. If I wasn’t on a fixed rate tariff, I would be very careful how often and for how long I run this thing.

Testing aside, I found the Whole Room Heater very easy to use. The app connection worked very well, whether I was using it to adjust settings while working at my desk across the room, turning off the scheduled heating for a few hours first thing in the morning, or turning it on early on my way home.

I also liked its modern minimalist design. It looks nice and is small enough that I can tuck it in the corner of the room when not in use.

Whose?

The Dreo Smart Whole Room Heater is best suited for small to medium sized spaces. I’m only concerned with heating my London one-bed flat and it did an excellent job of warming my living room: it brought it to a comfortable temperature quickly, and it didn’t take up much space to do so.

However, although I didn’t have a chance to test it in a larger area, its compact size makes me question how well it would work as the main source of heat in a spacious home. And when you consider its high operating costs, you may be paying high electricity bills trying to heat a large room.

Should I buy the Dreo Smart Whole Room Heater 714s?

The Dreo Smart Whole Room Heater is a compact, lightweight heater perfect for a home office, bedroom or small living room. It is smart in both senses of the word: it looks good and is easy to use along with an impressive application.

What it lacks in sheer power, it more than makes up for in its smaller footprint, and I love how easy it is to move and reposition (especially with its integrated handle). That said, it’s a bit selfish when it comes to power consumption, so I would caution against over- or under-utilization.