BETELNUT 36" Electric Fireplace Review: a thin wall heater that’s mostly about the vibe

I’ve been using the BETELNUT 36" electric fireplace in my living room for a few weeks, mainly to see if it’s just a flashy LED toy or if it actually adds real comfort. Short version: it looks good, heats decently for a small/medium room, and feels more like a décor piece that also happens to warm you up, rather than a hardcore heater. If you expect it to replace your main heating, you’re going to be disappointed. If you want something that looks like a modern fireplace and takes the chill off, it does the job.

In my case, I installed it on a wall in a roughly 350–400 sq ft open space (living room + dining area). I didn’t recess it into the wall; I just wall-mounted it with the included bracket. I’m not a pro handyman, I have basic tools and that’s it. The install took me about an hour including measuring, drilling, swearing at the level, and cleaning up the dust. Nothing complicated, but you do want a drill and someone to help hold it if you’re not comfortable lifting 30+ pounds alone.

What pushed me to try this one over others were three things: the slim profile (4" deep), the option to use it with or without heat, and the flame color options with both logs and crystals. I know, the color thing sounds gimmicky, but in practice it’s actually the main reason people like it when they come over. The flames obviously don’t look like a real wood fire, but they’re pleasant to look at and not as fake as some cheap LED panels I’ve seen.

Overall, my first impression was pretty positive: it feels like decent value for the price, especially compared to some overpriced brands that do basically the same thing. It’s not perfect – the remote isn’t the most intuitive, the fan is audible, and the heat is fine but not crazy powerful – but for a mid-range electric fireplace, it’s a pretty solid compromise between looks, features, and cost.

Compared to other electric fireplaces in the same size range, this BETELNUT 36" model sits in that mid-range sweet spot: not the cheapest, not the most expensive. Given what you get – 12 flame colors, timer, thermostat, both logs and crystals, wall-mount and recessed options – I’d say the price-to-feature ratio is pretty solid. You can find cheaper units, but they often have fewer color options, look more plasticky, or have weaker heat performance. More expensive brands sometimes just charge extra for a logo and slightly nicer remotes.

From a running cost standpoint, it’s a standard 1500W electric heater. If you run it at full power for hours every day, your electricity bill will feel it, like with any space heater. Using it in flame-only mode is much cheaper, and that’s what I ended up doing most of the time. In that mode, you’re basically paying for the LED lights and a bit of electronics, so it’s more or less like running a TV backlight.

Where the value really makes sense is if you were already thinking about adding some kind of feature wall or focal point in a living room or bedroom. Instead of buying a random piece of art and a separate heater, this combines both. It’s not luxury-level décor, but it looks modern and clean enough that guests comment on it. The 4.6/5 rating with a lot of reviews on Amazon lines up with my experience: most people will be happy with what they got for the money.

If your priority is pure heating power for the lowest possible cost, you’ll find cheaper, more basic space heaters. If you want a premium built-in unit with ultra-realistic flames, you’ll need to spend a lot more. This one sits right in the middle: good value if you care about both looks and functionality, and you’re okay with a few small compromises like a basic remote and a fan that you can hear in a quiet room.

The overall design is clean and modern: flat tempered glass front, black frame, and a pretty slim body at 4" depth. When wall-mounted (not recessed), it doesn’t stick out as much as I expected. It still protrudes, obviously, but visually it looks more like a modern panel than a bulky heater. If you plan to recess it into the wall, it will look almost built-in, but you need to be comfortable cutting drywall and dealing with studs and clearances. I went with simple wall-mount because I didn’t feel like opening a wall just for this.

Installation is fairly straightforward if you’re used to hanging heavy things on walls. You fix the metal bracket to the wall, making sure it’s level and anchored into studs or with decent anchors. Then the fireplace hangs on it. The manual is basic but enough. I used a stud finder, a level, and a drill. One thing to keep in mind: the power cord exits from the side/back, so you either accept seeing the cord, hide it with a cord cover, or have an outlet placed right behind the unit. If you’re picky about looks, you’ll probably want to plan the outlet position or add a simple cord channel painted the same color as the wall.

As for day-to-day design details: the touch controls are on the right side of the front glass, and they light up when you touch them. They’re fine, but I found myself using the remote most of the time. In a dark room, the little indicator lights on the front are visible but not blinding. The digital temperature display shows on the glass when you adjust it, then disappears, which is nice because you’re not stuck with a glowing number all the time.

From a pure look standpoint, I’d say the flames are decent for this price range. They’re obviously artificial, but the combination of colored LEDs and reflective background does a decent job creating movement. Some colors look a bit tacky (pure blue or green, for example), but you can just ignore those and stick to orange/amber or the mixed modes. The logs look okay – not super realistic up close, but from a couple of meters away, it’s convincing enough. The crystals give a more modern, slightly flashy style. I ended up preferring a mix of a few crystals with the logs, which weirdly works.

For a mid-priced electric fireplace, the build quality is decent but not premium. The front is tempered glass, which feels solid and gives the product a more serious look. The frame and body are mostly metal with some cheaper-feeling parts inside, but once it’s on the wall you don’t really touch it much anyway. It doesn’t feel flimsy when you lift it; the weight is reassuring without being a tank.

The mounting bracket is thick enough and doesn’t bend easily, so as long as you anchor it properly, you won’t worry about it falling. The included screws and anchors are okay, but if you have better wall anchors at home, I’d use those, especially if your wall is drywall with no stud where you want to mount. The glass front sits flush and doesn’t rattle, even when the fan is running at full power, which is a good sign. No weird vibrations or buzzing on my unit.

The remote control is where you feel the cost-cutting a bit more. It’s light, basic plastic, with small buttons that aren’t backlit. It works fine, but it doesn’t feel high-end. The good news is the signal is strong enough; I could control the fireplace from across the room without aiming perfectly. The on-unit touch controls feel more solid than the remote, and they respond quickly to touch.

As for durability, I obviously can’t say after years, but after several weeks of daily use (flame almost every evening, heat a few hours on colder nights), I haven’t noticed any hiccups: no flickering LEDs, no strange smells after the initial “new heater” burn-in, no crackling noises. The ETL certification is reassuring from a safety point of view. I still wouldn’t leave it running with heat all night unattended, but that’s just basic common sense with any heater. Overall, I’d say materials and build are pretty solid for the price bracket, not luxurious, but not cheap junk either.

Let’s be clear: this is a supplemental heater, not a replacement for central heating. On the 1500W setting, it does a good job taking the chill off my roughly 350–400 sq ft room. If the room is already at a reasonable temperature (say 66–68°F), it can bump it up a few degrees and keep it comfortable. If you start from a cold room, it takes a while. You’re not getting the punch of a gas heater; you’re getting the typical electric space heater performance, just packaged in a nicer format.

The heat comes out from the front upper middle, which is actually a good design choice. It pushes warm air forward into the room instead of sending it straight up the wall. I noticed the area a few feet in front warms up first, then the rest of the room slowly follows. The thermostat function is basic but functional: you set a target between 62°F and 82°F, and the heater cycles on and off. It’s not ultra-precise like a smart thermostat, but it’s good enough for casual use. I tested it by setting it at 70°F; once the room warmed up around that range, the heat shut off and then came back on when it cooled down a bit.

Noise-wise, the brand says around 45 dB, which matches what I hear. It’s basically a small fan noise, similar to a desktop fan on low/medium. You definitely hear it in a quiet room, but it’s not annoying unless you’re extremely sensitive to noise. I watched TV with it running and didn’t have to boost the volume much. If you only use the flame without heat, it’s almost silent, just a faint hum from the electronics.

In terms of flame performance, the 12 color options and brightness levels are the fun part. You can set flame speed and intensity, and combine background and ember bed colors. Some combos look nice and warm (orange + slight blue mix), others look like a nightclub. The good thing is you can tweak until you find a setting you like. I did notice one small downside: the unit doesn’t remember your exact flame color preference after being fully turned off sometimes, so you might have to cycle through again. Not a big deal, but a bit annoying if you’re picky. Overall, performance is solid for the price: good enough heat for a medium room, reasonable noise, and plenty of visual customization.

Out of the box, you get the 36" unit, a log set, a bag of crystal stones, the wall-mount bracket and hardware, a remote, and a basic manual. No surprises, nothing fancy. The unit itself is about 36" wide, 17" high, and 4" deep, so it’s not huge – more of a medium-size fireplace that works well under a 50–55" TV or on its own on a feature wall. It weighs around 34 pounds, so not super light but manageable. You’ll want to anchor it properly into studs or solid anchors though, it’s not a picture frame.

In terms of tech, it runs at 750W or 1500W with a max heat output of about 5100 BTU, which is standard for this kind of electric fireplace. The brand claims it’s good for about 400 sq ft, and I’d say that’s roughly accurate if you use it as a supplemental heater in a reasonably insulated room. It has a temperature range from 62°F to 82°F, plus a timer from 1 to 8 hours, and a safety cut-off. The controls are duplicated: you’ve got a touch panel on the front glass and the remote that lets you change flame colors, brightness, heat level, and timer.

The flame system gives you 12 static colors plus a color cycling mode. At first I thought I’d just use the classic orange/yellow, but I actually ended up cycling through a few combos depending on the evening. The unit lets you choose between the log set or crystals, or you can mix them if you don’t care about looking “realistic”. The logs look more traditional, the crystals look more modern and a bit more “hotel lobby”, but in a good way if that’s your style.

Overall, in terms of basic offering, it’s fairly complete for the price: you don’t have to buy extra accessories, you’ve got both visual styles (logs and crystals), and the feature list is in line with or slightly better than other budget/mid-range electric fireplaces I’ve seen. Nothing revolutionary, but it covers what most people actually use: a few heat settings, a timer, and a bunch of visual options to play with.

In daily use, the thing that stands out the most is that it does its two main jobs fairly well: 1) make the room feel cozy visually, and 2) give a decent heat boost when needed. I found myself using the flame-only mode a lot more than the heat. It draws less power and just gives a nice background ambiance at night when watching TV or reading. The flames and glowing ember bed do enough that the room feels less cold psychologically, even before you switch the heater on.

When I actually used the heater, it was usually on the 1500W setting for about an hour or two in the evening. In a roughly 350 sq ft space, it’s enough to make a real difference, especially if the main heating is set a bit lower. If your house is badly insulated or the room is very open to other areas, you’ll feel it less. As a direct comparison, it heats about as well as a decent standalone 1500W space heater, but at least this one looks nicer on the wall and doesn’t take up floor space.

The timer function is practical. I often set it for 2–3 hours so I don’t forget it on. It’s especially handy if you’re the type who falls asleep on the couch. You can also use it in the bedroom on a short timer to pre-warm the room before sleep, then let your main heating take over. The safety shut-off is a plus mentally, even if you hopefully never need it. I didn’t trigger any overheat shut-off in normal use, so that’s a good sign that it’s not cooking itself.

Overall, I’d rate its effectiveness as good value for money: it’s not the warmest heater on the planet, but it’s consistent, easy to use, and the visual effect is what makes you actually want to turn it on. If you just want raw heat, a basic space heater is cheaper. If you want heat + ambiance without paying a fortune, this hits a pretty nice middle ground.