Foldable foot heater for home office or warm days in winter at $49

The seller calls this gadget a foldable foot heater – so the foldable heating mat is primarily supposed to provide warm feet in the cold season. Is it the perfect complement to a good book and a hot drink for cozy evenings, as the product images promise?

• Foldable Foot Heater Sothing
  • at AliExpress for $91.43 (CN plug)
• Similar foldable foot heater 
  • at Amazon.com for $48.99 (US plug) ($5 Voucher)
• Universal Travel Adapter
  • at Amazon for $11.99

Sothing or Xiaomi?

Beautiful product pictures and “Xiaomi” in the title on AliExpress? That always suggests that Xiaomi at least sells the products, if not manufactures them themselves. You can find this heating mat on Xiaomiyoupin, Xiaomi’s Chinese online sales platform. This at least gives us hope that there is a certain quality control and that we are not buying a cheap Chinese product.

We are also already familiar with the brand: We already discovered Sothing’s heated mouse pads in the fall of 2021 and tried them out ourselves. Maike immediately declared them her highlight of the year and has been using the mouse pads in the office ever since. Can Sothing also convince with this “foot heater”?

Foot heating to put down?

The foldable foot heater is available in four different colors and, to be precise, in different designs. While green and pink are rather plain with generic camouflage patterns, you get a landscape with a cat or a whale in the colors orange and blue. By the way, these are the exact same motifs as the mouse pad.

The mat measures 130 x 50 cm and has a small control element on the top right. There you can change the temperature and turn the heating on and off.

The mat is then supplied with power via the power cord. Please note that there is only one version with a CN plug. You will therefore need a suitable adapter. Otherwise, you can only use a simpler version with an EU plug, which is also available.

Instead of a power plug, I would have liked a USB port more. You could connect a power bank, for example, and you are much more flexible with the choice of location and could also use the foot heater outdoors. However, the option falls here probably generally flat, because the mat for most Powerbank needs too much power (200W and 220V according to the manufacturer).

Layer by layer

The Sothing foot heater consists of a total of five layers. The top and bottom layers form a non-woven fabric, through which you can touch the heater without getting burned. In the second layer is a heating foil, which provides rapid heating and the heat. The third layer is a support plate. This provides a stable stand and is made of 2mm thick recycled fibers. The final layer is an aluminum foil, which should provide good insulation of the heat.

(Kink) folds for folding

A nice side effect of the foot heater are the folds with which you can fold the foot heater to a size of 32.5 x 50 cm. So you can put the mat on the wall or store it under the bed. However, due to the folds, you can also place the foot heater and thus create a “protective wall” from the cold 🙂

Heating the doormat is said to take only 30 seconds and the mat is said to be touchable by hand at all times. The temperature can be set in three different degrees of warmth between 45, 55 and 65 degrees. There is also a timer to turn off, this can be set to either two or four hours.

Assessment

I’m always surprised by the ideas people come up with to protect themselves from the cold. We already had a powerbank with hand warmer, a heated scarf or the heated mouse pads. Especially now in the wintry season, such a heatable doormat certainly comes in handy for many frostbite sufferers.

Sothing has already convinced us with the mouse pads, so I am confident that these heating mats will also do their job. The different designs are the same, but we liked those too. The folding mechanism is convenient, both for setting up the mat and for stowing it away. I might have liked a few more heating degrees or settings.

What I don’t like is the Chinese power plug. Especially with heaters and with high wattage, you don’t necessarily want to fiddle with adapters. The price could also be a bit lower. Just under $90 seems a bit disproportionate when there are comparable products even on Amazon for less. You might ask yourself whether the purchase is worth it, whether you should go for a cheaper model, or whether you would rather stick to the good old blanket in the end.