Description #
Autumn’s here in Sydney and the fan in my old bedroom heater is on its way out, so I picked up a cheap replacement from Kmart Australia — the Anko Fan Heater for $15. About as basic as a heater gets: a thermostat dial, a fan/1000W/2000W selector, and that’s it. Joining me for an old-school unboxing and a quick test.
Product page: https://www.kmart.com.au/product/fan-heater-white-43625116/ SKU: P_43625116
If you want to actually understand how resistive heaters work (and why a $15 unit produces the same heat per watt as a $300 one), Technology Connections has a brilliant video on it. Highly recommended — I’m not affiliated, he’s just great: https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=V-jmSjy2ArM
Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:30 Unboxing 01:00 Controls & thermostat 02:00 Fan & heat settings 02:45 Testing 03:30 Final thoughts
Thanks for watching — like, subscribe, and I’ll see you next time.
Original Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wdFeCnfHVc
Transcript #
Hey all, today we’re looking at this. This is an Anko fan heater from Kmart, Australia. It’s autumn in Australia and it’s starting to get colder, so I needed to pick up another heater as the uh fan in my bedroom one is starting to go, so I need to get a replacement. Uh I had previously done an unboxing of an Ankco heater, um a ceramic one in fact, but seems to be discontinued. So anyway, let’s unbox this and take a look inside. First thing, our manual. Make sure you read the safety instructions and everything like that.
We have the heater and an empty box. Okay, so this is the heater. Take it out of the plastic. There’s nothing really special about this. This is about as cheap as they come. And in fact, this one is $15. I don’t think you can get heater in Australia cheaper than that. So, I guess a little basic tour. Okay, now let’s talk about uh our controls here. So this is our thermostat. Now if we turn this we’ll hear a click. And when it clicks that means the temperature has been set.
So right now in my apartment it is 23° right? So if I turn it this way it is now below 23 degrees. It won’t go off if it’s more than 23. And if it’s here that’s above 23 degrees. Now, there are no numbers. Um, so you’re going to have to fiddle with this uh till you find a setting you like, but it will turn off automatically once it reaches that temperature. You just need to make sure if it’s past the click, that’s on. If it’s below the click, then that’s off.
Now, we have our fan and heat settings. The first one is fan. That’s just going to blow air. Second one is heat. That will produce 1,000 watts of heat. uh through the power of editing I tested. That’s how much energy is used. And then here, this is maximum. This is 2,000 watts, and it will get nice and toasty. But personally, I like to leave it on this setting here, 1,000, for a few reasons. One, it produces enough heat to heat my room to the desired temperature.
And second of all, I don’t feel comfortable with something drawing uh that much power all the time. Let’s move on with the testing. So, um, without further ado, let’s just turn it on. Take a look. Okay, so it’s off, but we have it on the heat setting. That’s cuz we set the thermostat. So, just turn that up just a bit. Sure enough, it’s on. And we can feel the heat immediately coming out. Fan’s nice and smooth. It’s not making any crazy sounds. Let’s turn off the heat and just keep it on fan mode.
And yeah, that’s what it sounds like. It’s a much better fan than the one I currently have. So, I’m pretty happy with this. So, let’s turn off the fan now. That pretty much uh sums up my quick review of this Anko fan heater. It is exactly what it says it is. It is a very simple, boring $15 heater you can get at Kmart. This is about as basic a heater as you can get, but it gets the job done. You got your thermostat, you got your controls.
What else could you ask for really? So, I’m happy with it. If you have any questions, please leave a comment. And and if you’re interested in learning more about these kinds of heaters, I highly recommend you watch the technology connections video on resistive heaters. He’s based out of the US, but the same applies to the heaters here in Australia. So, please give that a watch, too. Um, you’ll learn something. Uh, he’s amazing. I’m not associated with him in any way. I just love his stuff. Um, he is great.
Thanks again for watching. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and I’ll see you next time hopefully. Bye.