Bionaire BCH4138-U Digital Triple Ceramic Heater with Galileo

by Holmes

Product Features

• Digital Thermostat Advises Set and Room Temperature
• Senses and Maintains Temperature Where You Are
• 3 Ceramic Elements for Wider Heat Dispersion
• 16 Hour On/Off Timer
• Backlit Digital Display

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 9.5 x 7.5 inches ; 4.4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B00006JT7T
• Item model number: BCH4138-U
• Batteries: 2 AAA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #416,655 in Home & Kitchen (See Top 100 in Home & Kitchen)

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

A cold room warms up quickly with this triple-element ceramic heater. Vents project heat in three directions, with air intake in the back. The nifty thing about this heater is its wireless remote control/thermostat, which Bionaire calls the Galileo Climate Center. By keeping the thermostat near a desk or reading chair, the heater maintains room temperature closest to where it's needed most. Using radio frequency technology, the Galileo remote doesn't need to be pointed at the heater to work. A digital display on the remote shows both room and desired temperature, controls low or high output, and can be used as a timer to preheat a room in the morning or evening. The lightweight heater measures 9-1/2 by 8-1/2 by 7-1/2 inches, can sit on the floor or a table, and is backed by a two-year warranty. Three AAA batteries are included for the remote control. --Ann Bieri

Product Description

Galileo Wireless Climate Control Constantly Monitors the Room Temperature * Efficient Triple Ceramic Elements * 16 Hour On/Off Timer Sets to Preheat a Room or to Automatically Turn Heater Off * Backlit Digital Display

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

138 of 140 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great little heater, April 9, 2003

By 

Amos D. Meyers "Donovan" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bionaire BCH4138-U Digital Triple Ceramic Heater with Galileo (Kitchen)

I've had this heater a few weeks now, and I'm very pleased. I wanted to be able to heat up the bathroom without getting out of bed, so I needed either a timer or a remote. This one has both.

All the features are very cool, and work mostly as described. I'd like to share what I learned after I got it.

I haven't had any problems syncing the remote like the other reviewer. I plugged in the heater and put the batteries in the remote, and followed the instructions to press one button, and off it went.

It heats well, bringing up the temperature of my bathroom very quickly.

I set the remote on top of my home thermostat for a day to test the thermometer, and it was off by one degree. Perfectly acceptable for me. The remote shows the room temperature at all times, even when the heater is off. It has a backlight, which turns on for about ten seconds whenever a key is pressed. After a minute of inactivity, the remote locks itself, to prevent accidental keypresses. To unlock it you hold the mode button for two seconds.

Something not mentioned in the description is the heat settings: Low is 1200W and High is 1500W.

Note that you can turn the heater on without the remote, but only to constant Low or High, not to an Auto (thermostat) setting.

A minor disappointment was the timer function. From the description I was hoping to set a timer so that the heater would turn on every morning at a certain time. Instead, you can only program it to turn on in a certain number of hours, one time. So, if I know the next morning will be cold, I set it the night before, but I have to do it each night. This is probably fine for most people. BTW, when it turns itself on in timer mode, it runs for two hours on High, with a setting of 72F. Apparently you can't change this. It also has a timer to turn itself off after a number of hours, like the Sleep Timer setting on a clock radio.

One really minor surprise was the depth of the unit -- it's not as flat as it looks. From the pictures, you can't tell that the fan intake sticks out a few inches on the back. This was not at all a problem for me, just a surprise. The whole unit is still very compact, maybe the size of a soccer ball. It's also very lightweight; the outer body is all plastic. Mine's gray instead of the white in the picture. The weird orange thing in the middle vent in the picture must be some sort of sensor; mine has it too.

A pleasant surprise is the cool-down feature in Auto (thermostat) mode. When the room temperature has reached your setting, the heater of course turns off. But it seems to shut off the heating elements and just run the fan for maybe a minute, to flush out any residual heat. When I had more primitive heaters I'd do this manually, to cool down the heater and to get all the heat I'd paid for. This one does it automatically.

The only problem I've had is that sometimes on High it shuts itself down. I believe this is because I have it in a confined space and close to two walls, and it thinks it's overheating. I have not had this problem on Low, and I'm sure I wouldn't have it at all if I moved it into a more open space.

In case you're worried about wireless problems, I have 900MHz and 2.4GHz cordless phones, an X10 video sender, an 802.11g wireless network, RF ceiling fan remotes, an RF Dish remote, and other RF products, and I haven't had any issues with the heater and remote.

Oh yeah, and it's really quiet, probably because the fan isn't very powerful. If it's around a corner or there's something else going on, I don't notice that it's running. Since the fan is weak, it doesn't blow heat at you very far, but it still moves air and heat fine. It probably projects heat a foot or two straight out.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It is -56 tonight and this little heater is keeping me warm, January 29, 2004

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Bionaire BCH4138-U Digital Triple Ceramic Heater with Galileo (Kitchen)

The wind chill hit -56 this morning (only -28 otherwise) and fighting the cold trying to come through the brick wall that makes up the back wall of my ground floor basement office is the Bionaire Galileo Digital Triple Ceramic Heater. Not only that, this little heater is winning the war. By that I set the temperature that I want and this little unit hits the mark. Granted, it is rather strange to have a remote for your heater, but the controls are fairly simple. You push "mode" until it unlocks and then you have five choices: high, low, high automatic, low automatic, and off. For the most part automatic is how you want to go and low works fine unless you are trying to play catch up. The three directional heaters are nice because it works perfectly in a corner, in my case underneath the table.

Yes, a timer that would go off every morning to start heating up your designated area before you were up and about would be nice, but it is not that much of a problem to reset it each night and in the morning. It takes less than 10 seconds to do this. This unit will warm things up pretty quick once it gets going, so this is a minor inconvenience at best (especially in terms of what is on the other side of that brick wall down here tonight). The Bionaire Galileo Digital Triple Ceramic Heater is one of those items that once you discover it you wonder why you waited so long to get one. This is the first winter in the Zenith City where I have not been wearing my turtlenecks and sweaters all the time because of what this little unit can do.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Good, March 5, 2003

By 

Therese M Konya (Montclair, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bionaire BCH4138-U Digital Triple Ceramic Heater with Galileo (Kitchen)

I would have given this 5 stars but it took awhile to get the remote control in sync with the unit. I found that if you took the batteries out the remote and put them back in again, the unit will work. It gives off decent heat and heats up a room in no time at all. I have a sun porch that is all windows and has no radiators and it's perfect for that room. Do not let young children near this even when it's not plugged in. My son shoved pennies in it and broke it. It will probably cost more to fix then I paid for it so I might buy another one.