Head-to-head · Brands
One brand tells you everything and warrants it for a year. The other tells you almost nothing and stands behind it for five.
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Dreo publishes specifications — a 41-95°F digital thermostat, a 300 sq ft coverage claim and an ETL listing. Vornado publishes a five-year guarantee, a cool-touch metal cabinet and very little else, including no wattage. Buy Dreo for control you can verify; buy Vornado for build and warranty.
These two brands come up against each other constantly, and the usual comparison lines up features in a table and declares a winner. That is not very useful here, because the two companies disagree about something more basic than features: how much a heater buyer is entitled to know.
Dreo publishes a thermostat range to the degree, a square-footage claim, dimensions, weight and a named safety listing. Vornado's own product page for the VMHi300 publishes two heat settings, an adjustable thermostat, a cool-touch cabinet, tip-over protection, an automatic shut-off and a five-year satisfaction guarantee — and does not publish a wattage, a coverage figure, or a listing mark. We checked; those fields are simply not there.
| Dreo Solaris 718 | Vornado VMHi300 | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Ceramic (PTC) tower | Fan-forced metal cabinet |
| Rated power | 1,500 W (published) | Not published by Vornado |
| Thermostat | 41-95°F digital, 1°F increments | Adjustable, mechanical dial |
| Heat settings | Digital control | 2, plus fan-only |
| Maker's coverage claim | 300 sq ft | Not published |
| Our computed coverage | 150 sq ft at 10 W/sq ft | 150 sq ft at 10 W/sq ft |
| Housing | Plastic tower, 29.7 in | Cool-touch powder-coated metal |
| Safety listing | ETL listed (stated by Dreo) | Not published — check the rating plate |
| Published cutoffs | Tip-over, overheat, thermal, child lock | Tip-over, automatic safety shut-off |
| Child lock | Yes | Not published |
| Oscillation | 30° / 60° / 90° / 120° | None |
| Warranty | Not published on the product page | 5-year satisfaction guarantee |
Published specifications only. Where a cell says “not published”, we looked and it was not there.
Control, and the ability to check it. A thermostat published as 41-95°F in 1°F increments is a specification; an “adjustable thermostat” is a description. If you want to set a room to 68°F and have it hold there, the Dreo does that and the Vornado does something you have to discover by trial and error with an unmarked dial.
A published safety listing. Dreo states ETL on its product page. Vornado does not name a mark anywhere we could find, which does not mean the heater is unlisted — it almost certainly is listed, and the rating plate will say — but it does mean you cannot confirm it before buying. For a renter whose lease requires a listed heater, that difference is decisive. See UL vs ETL.
A child lock, which Dreo publishes and Vornado does not. On this site that single field is what separates a heater we will recommend for a nursery from one we will not.
And a coverage claim that is checkable — and fails the check. Dreo publishes 300 sq ft. Our sizing rule puts 1,500 W at 150 sq ft. Dreo's claim is double ours, and we say so on the product card rather than repeating it. But note what just happened: we were *able* to check it, because Dreo published a number. You cannot catch a manufacturer overstating a figure they declined to print.
The warranty, by a distance. Five years on a heater in this price bracket is unusual, and a warranty is the one claim a company cannot make cheaply — it is a costed commitment rather than a marketing line. A five-year guarantee is, in a real sense, better evidence about build quality than any spec sheet.
The cabinet. Powder-coated metal with a metal inlet grille, published as cool-touch. Metal costs more than plastic, does not become brittle, and keeps fingers and dust further from the element. If the heater will live in a main room and be looked at for a decade, this matters.
Circulation rather than direction. Vornado's vortex circulation is a genuine engineering position — the aim is to move the whole room's air rather than aim a hot jet at whatever is in front of the unit. People who like Vornado heaters tend to describe the result as a room without cold corners rather than as a heater that feels powerful. The Dreo's answer to the same problem is oscillation, which is a different and equally valid approach.
Both of these are 1,500 W plug-in heaters on a 120 V outlet. That means both draw 12.5 A, both produce 5,118 BTU/h, both cover about 150 sq ft at our sizing rule, and both cost 27.5 cents an hour at the U.S. average rate. Neither is warmer than the other. Neither is cheaper to run than the other. Nothing either company does to an element or a cabinet changes that, because 1,500 W is 1,500 W.
| Wattage | Per hour | 1 h | 4 h | 8 h |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,500 W | 27.5¢ | $0.28 | $1.10 | $2.20 |
Computed at 18.34¢/kWh — the U.S. residential average for June 2026 (EIA, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A, released August 26, 2026). Your rate is on your own bill; substitute it and the arithmetic still holds. Figures assume full output for the whole period.
The rate behind every figure on this site
18.34¢per kilowatt-hour
U.S. residential average for June 2026. EIA, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A, released August 26, 2026.
This is the most recent month EIA has published. Residential rates move seasonally and vary enormously by state — from roughly a dime per kilowatt-hour in parts of the South to more than 40¢ in Hawaii — so treat it as a national reference point, not as your rate.
Both also exceed the 12 A continuous allowance of a 15 A circuit at full output, identically and for the same reason. A 1,500 watt heater on a 15 amp circuit covers what that means in practice.
| If your priority is… | Buy |
|---|---|
| Setting an exact temperature | Dreo Solaris 718 |
| A nursery or a home with young children | Dreo — it is the one with a published child lock |
| A lease that requires a listed heater | Dreo — ETL is published, not inferred |
| Build quality and longevity | Vornado VMHi300 |
| The longest warranty | Vornado — five years |
| A room with cold corners rather than a cold middle | Vornado — circulation is the design goal |
| Oscillation across a wide space | Dreo — four oscillation angles |
| The lowest running cost | Neither. They are identical. |
The decision, reduced.
Ranked for fit, not for hype. Coverage and current draw are computed from each unit’s published wattage. Tap a row for the full write-up, or go straight to the listing.
| # | Product | Best for | Covers | Draw | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Dreo Solaris 718The rare heater whose published coverage claim survives the arithmetic: 1,500 W is a genuine 300 sq ft at 10 W/sq ft, and Dreo publishes that number rather than implying more. | A whole living room | 150 sq ft | 12.5 A | $129.99 · Check on Amazon |
| 2 |  Vornado VMHi300The in-stock Vornado: a powder-coated metal cabinet, vortex circulation and a five-year guarantee, with mechanical dials instead of a screen. | A metal cabinet and a five-year warranty | 150 sq ft | 12.5 A | $92.99 · Check on Amazon |
Coverage computed at 10 W/sq ft, average insulation, 8 ft ceiling. Draw computed as watts ÷ volts. Neither figure is a manufacturer claim.
Top pick · A whole living room
The rare heater whose published coverage claim survives the arithmetic: 1,500 W is a genuine 300 sq ft at 10 W/sq ft, and Dreo publishes that number rather than implying more.
| Published specification | |
|---|---|
| Rated power | 1,500 W at 120 V |
| Maker's coverage claim | 300 sq ft |
| Thermostat | 41–95°F digital, 1°F increments |
| Oscillation | 30° / 60° / 90° / 120° |
| Dimensions | 7.9" D x 7.9" W x 29.7" H, 8 lb |
| Safety | Tip-over cutoff, overheat cutoff, child lock, thermal cutoff |
| Heat type | Ceramic (PTC) |
| Maker’s coverage claim | 300 sq ft |
| Safety listing | ETL listed (stated by Dreo on the product page) |
Who it is for
A living room, bedroom or den at or under 300 sq ft with average insulation and an 8-foot ceiling, where you want to set a temperature and stop thinking about it.
What it is not for
A garage, an uninsulated basement, or anything over about 300 sq ft. It is not under-powered — 1,500 W is the plug-in ceiling — the room is simply too big for one outlet.
2 · A metal cabinet and a five-year warranty
The in-stock Vornado: a powder-coated metal cabinet, vortex circulation and a five-year guarantee, with mechanical dials instead of a screen.
| Published specification | |
|---|---|
| Rated power | 1,500 W at 120 V (retail listings; Vornado publishes settings, not watts) |
| Heat settings | 2, plus fan-only |
| Thermostat | Adjustable, mechanical |
| Housing | Cool-touch powder-coated metal cabinet with a metal inlet grille |
| Safety | Automatic safety shut-off system, tip-over protection |
| Warranty | 5-year satisfaction guarantee |
| Heat type | Fan-forced |
| Maker’s coverage claim | None published — the coverage figure above is ours |
| Safety listing | Vornado publishes an automatic safety shut-off system and tip-over protection but does not name a listing mark; check the rating plate. |
Who it is for
A living room or bedroom where the complaint is that one end is warm and the other is not, and where a metal cabinet and a long warranty are worth the price over a plastic tower.
What it is not for
Silent operation, or anyone who wants to dial in a number. For a set temperature look at a digital unit; for silence look at an oil-filled radiator.
Sources for this entry
We have not tested either heater. There is no lab here, no measurement, no owned units and no “in our testing” — that is true of every page on this site and it is stated on our methodology. What this page contains is the specifications each manufacturer chose to publish, the arithmetic we ran on them, and an explicit note wherever a maker left a field blank.
That last part is the thing we would most want a reader to take away. The interesting difference between these two brands is not which one has more features. It is that one of them can be checked and the other largely cannot — and that a company willing to print a number you can catch them on is doing something a company that prints nothing is not.
They optimize for different things. Dreo publishes more specifications — a 41-95°F digital thermostat, an ETL listing and a child lock — so you can verify what you are buying. Vornado publishes a five-year guarantee and a cool-touch metal cabinet but no wattage, coverage figure or listing mark. Choose Dreo for verifiable control, Vornado for build and warranty.
Vornado does not publish a wattage for it. Retail listings put it at 1,500 W, and an independently listed output of 5,200 BTU/h works back to roughly 1,524 W, which is consistent. Every current and cost figure we compute for this unit rests on that retail-listed 1,500 W rather than on a manufacturer figure.
Dreo publishes 300 sq ft. At the standard 10 watts per square foot with average insulation and an 8-foot ceiling, 1,500 W covers 150 sq ft — half that. Dreo's figure implies an assumption it does not state. We publish our own computed figure alongside the claim rather than repeating it.
Neither. Both are 1,500 W heaters, both draw 12.5 A at 120 V, and both cost about 27.5 cents an hour at the U.S. average residential rate. No element design or cabinet material changes the running cost of an electric resistance heater.
Both have fans, so neither is silent and neither is the ideal bedroom heater. Between the two, the Dreo's digital thermostat and timer give you more control over an overnight run. If silence is the actual requirement, the type is wrong and an oil-filled radiator is the answer.
1,500 W, a published 300 sq ft claim that survives the arithmetic, and a thermostat with numbers.
Cool-touch, tip-over cutoff and a 5-year warranty — plus a maker that publishes settings, not specs.
The four units that get closest to a 300 sq ft room — and the two-heater arithmetic nobody publishes.
The only feature that actually cuts the bill, because it is the only one that turns the heater off.
Both marks mean the same standard was met. Here is how to check that a listing is real.
The default type, and usually the right one. Four picks, and the rare coverage claim that survives the math.
Dreo has the better feature list and a 300 sq ft claim. Lasko has fewer features and a 150 sq ft claim that checks out.