"This means that all electric heaters are always 100% efficient: all the electricity they use gets converted directly into heat." This is blatantly untrue. An infra-red heater will produce a spectrum of radiation, only some of which we would class as "radiated heat". On a heater which was 100% efficient, the filament would have no glow visible to the human eye, since it would produce no wavelengths our eyes can see.

@IMSoP Technically correct, but in practice the number is generally very close to 100%. All of the energy radiated by a heater is absorbed and heats the room, except for whatever escapes through exterior openings. And at typical heating element temperatures, almost all the radiated energy is in the IR band at which glass is nearly opaque.

Heat pumps can achieve "greater than 100%" efficiency by using a small amount of energy to move a large amount of existing heat energy from another space into the heated space.

In a similar vein, you could fill a bath with less water by running cold water through a high-surface-area metal conduit, and collecting the condensation into the bath along with the water run through the conduit. Of course the amount of extra water would be small, but you would fill your bath with >0% less (cold) water.

@IMSoP: No, the claim that "all electric heaters are 100% efficient" is correct. All wavelengths of EM radiation are eventually absorbed and turned into heat, not just infrared. The reason infrared is so often confused with "heat" is that those are the wavelengths given off by normal everyday objects (including humans).

I don't know man, I may have to downvote since OP wrote "I'm more interested in Matt's story". We need quotes from the UAF student handbook. They're ranked 389 out of 439, so must have some standards. Maybe there are letters to the editor in "The Sun Star"? A guy named Matt Langberg manages a hair salon in Fairbanks but also works in heating. He could be our guy... .

@BlueRaja-DannyPflughoeft The answer doesn't say "eventually turned into heat", it says "converted directly to heat". If radiation is defined as heat transfer not heat itself, then very little of the heater's energy is directly converted, and the efficiency is measurable as how much of that radiation is absorbed by the intended target. It may well be the heaters are often very close to 100% efficient, but it is not a simple logical proof, so should be referenced if true.

Heat pumps can heat up a room more efficiently than 100% efficient resistive electric heater. Thus, we have an industry standard heaters that shows that argument made in the second paragraph is false.

Annother example that doesn't involve moving heat is the microwave. In a microwave the food is much hotter than the surrounding air because the heat is emitted as light energy and skips over the air. Meaning the things you want to heat in the "room" are heated more efficiently. This remains true even at equilibrium because no insulation is perfect. A traditional fan heater heats the air which then heats the objects. (Clearly this example is a scam, but I'm with the other commentors that a better heater isn't physically impossible)

"This means that all electric heaters are always 100% efficient(...)"; "Any device that is supposed to extract extra heat from the electricity is therefore a scam." This is no longer correct in 2024. Heat pumps nowadays can have a COP of 8, which is the equivalent of an electrical efficiency of 800%. Of course, they still don't violate the law of conservation of energy. But by extracting thermal energy from external sources, they can generate more heat than what was electrically inserted into the system.

@Imsop and others. I'll confirm what @ David, @ BlueRaja ..., said. It's a matter of terminology and common usage versus engineering definition. In a resistance heater ALL energy is converted to heat. "Heat" = "Light" = electromagnetic energy at any wavelength - across the spectrum (deepest IR through UV-Xrays-Gamma ways. We associate certain wavelengths as heat in normal use of the term, but it's all heat. Some of the heat may not initially heat what we want it to, but that's not it's fault :-). || [Russell McMahon. ME. 50 years as a professional engineer.

This is a "light source". They call it that to keep the peasants happier. Hard Gamma rays come out the business end. That's also "heat" - although the fact that it's ionising (knocks bits off stiff) confuses things a little. || This is the "Diamond Light Source" in the UK, Same as above applies.

@RussellMcMahon The answer claims that "electric heaters are always 100% efficient". But efficiency has to be measured relative to some desired outcome, and the desired outcome of an electric heater is not "generate a spectrum of radiated energy", it's "make the room warmer". In fact, the question doesn't even use the term "efficiency" at all; the claim is that the advertised device "can heat a room 90% cheaper". So if "some of the heat may not initially heat what we want it to" means "some of the electricity we pay for is not heating the room" then there is potential for savings.

If you want clarification resistive heaters when tested in a calorimeter give efficiency figures that are indistinguishable from 100%. efficiency defined as the relationship between the amount of electrical energy supplied vs the amount of heat energy produced.

@Jasen "efficiency figures when tested in a calorimeter" is not part of the claim being examined

I agree with the conclusion of the answer, that this specific device is a scam and the story is false, but I can't upvote an answer whose reasoning is that it would violate the laws of conservation of energy to have a heater that provides more heat energy than it consumes electrical energy. Heat pumps have been doing that for a long time.

Energy used to turn the fan in a heater could be argued to be wasteful. Also, heaters tend to buzz, that's wasted energy too.

@IMSoP - I'm reasonably certain that an element heater that was 100% efficient at converting electricity into heat energy would kill everyone for miles around.

@ScottishTapWater Where does the energy from the fan go?  Into moving air.  And since the air stays in the room and doesn't keep moving for ever, that energy is dissipated — as friction, i.e. heat.  So all of the fan's energy ends up heating the room too.  Similarly, if the heater makes noise, that too is vibration (movement), which ends up as heat.  It's one of few situations in which the second law of thermodynamics is working for you!

Ehh... That assumes a room is sealed, which it never is. Either way, it's somewhat irrelevant to the final answer given that you can have >100% efficiency when it comes to heating due to heat pumps and whatnot

To me, the silly claim in the video is about "recycling heat" so it doesn't go to waste. Where is the heat going in traditional systems? Do they convert too much energy to light (seems unlikely -- incandescent bulbs only convert 2-6% of the energy to light)? Is it being lost to the outside environment (the solution to that is better building insulation)?

@Mołot Didn't see the author of this post come back here, but "Any device that is supposed to extract extra heat from the electricity is therefore a scam", is a perfectly true statement. (When considering heat pumps you need to consider the entire system, and the system as a whole barely heats up). As is the statement about eletric heaters (news flash, heat pumps are not eletric heaters, as eletric heating refers to "a device that converts electricity into heat").

This does not seem to address the claim that an Alaskan college student was expelled for not selling rights to the device and instead focuses on the device itself.

@Joe W, The bottom paragraph is suggesting Martin doesn't even exist given the variety of "something bad happened to inventor X who's a Y" in the marketing.

@ikegami I have read the answer multiple times and that does not seem clear to me. It really should be more clear and there should be something to back that up not just something that appears to be the case based on what has been read in places.

It's a scam. || AND/BUT, noting all the comments above re heat and efficiency, as I noted above for very very very practical purposes an electric heater is 100% efficient. || Peripheral: A closed room is close to a sealed calorimeter AND if heat escapes it is not "the fault" of the device that generated it. || All the suggestions to the contrary are well intended tautology or understandable lack of knowledge.

@JoeW Being serious, this is the correct answer for Skeptics. The notable false claim is the magic heater, regardless of how tortuously the Q was written.

@OwenReynolds The notable claim that I read is that a college student was expelled, not the efficiency of the device.

The notable claim was that "Martin" was expelled because he wouldn't sell the magic heater. If there is no magic heater, the rest of the claim collapses. The claim is also addressed by the fact that different web sites are giving different details for the inventor but the same basic story.

I've restored the original text, but have also added a reference to heat pumps and an explanation of why this device can't work that way either.

I mentioned in a comment on the OP that I started see advertisements for an identical heater with a different name and backstory ("Toasty Heater"). I also found a more recent article which lists all the names that the scammers have used including EcoHeat: malwaretips.com/blogs/toasty-heater

The paragraphs about resistive heaters adds nothing to the answer. Even if the ad were to claim it's a resisitve heater, it could be lying/wrong about that specific bit without the rest being untrue. The question was not specifically about a resistive heater in any case.

Even if the claim about the product is untrue the person still could have been expelled from an Alaskan college after refusing to sell the product.

@IMSoP see my answer at Physics.se: physics.stackexchange.com/a/298203/46863 You can feel visible light just as well as IR and there's no physical distinction between them, just terminology.

@RussellMcMahon I think you're making the same mistake as the OP. As a device to turn electricity into heat you can't do better than a fan heater. As a device to heat the people and contents of an imperfectly insulated room you absolutely can. For example an old light bulb is a terrible electric heater because it puts all of its heat up near the ceiling where its not useful. Heat rises eventually but a lightbulb puts it up there to begin with. And that absolutely is the light bulbs "fault"