Buyer's guide

Heated blankets for the patio

The cheapest warmth on this entire site, by an enormous margin — provided you understand that it warms a person and not a patio.

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Because for a large number of patio evenings, the honest answer is not a heater. If two people sit down after dinner and do not move for two hours, heating the air around them is an expensive way to solve a problem that a blanket solves for almost nothing.

That argument runs through this whole site. It is the same reason we tell people that a windbreak usually beats a bigger heater and that the cheapest heater to run is often the smallest one aimed properly. None of that advice pays us well. It is still correct.

Neither maker publishes a wattage, which is normal for this category and mildly annoying. But they do publish battery capacity and run time, and those two figures are enough to compute everything.

The ratios are absurd and they are also fair, because the two things are not doing the same job. A heater raises the temperature of an outdoor space that is open to the sky, which is a fight against physics. A blanket puts a small amount of heat directly against a person and traps it there. Of course it wins on cost; it is barely playing the same sport.

Read the comparison the right way round and it is genuinely useful: the marginal cost of keeping a seated person warm is essentially zero, so the heater only has to cover the gap that a blanket cannot — standing up, moving around, and everybody who is not under one.

Quick picks

Ranked for fit, not for hype. Output is the maker’s published figure; reach is computed from it or from the maker’s own radius claim, and the table says which. Tap a row for the full write-up, or go straight to the listing.

#	Product	Best for	Output	Reach	Price
1	ActionHeat 7V plushBigger, hotter and sherpa-lined, and the one to buy if the blanket has to cover two people. The trade is run time: it reaches 150F but gives up half an hour on high against the smaller throw.	Two people, or one person and a dog	n/a	n/a	$119.99 · Check on Amazon
2	Cordless hooded throwThe wearable answer, and the one that finally makes the hooded category recommendable. It is cordless, it has nine heating zones and a hood, and unlike a lap throw it keeps working when you get up to check the grill.	Standing up without losing the heat	n/a	n/a	$49.99 · Check on Amazon-22%

Reach marked “claimed” is the maker’s own published figure. Reach without that label is ours, computed from published output at 20 BTU per square foot for an open patio. Neither is a measurement we took.

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Top pick · Two people, or one person and a dog

ActionHeat 7V Battery Heated Plush Throw Blanket

Bigger, hotter and sherpa-lined, and the one to buy if the blanket has to cover two people. The trade is run time: it reaches 150F but gives up half an hour on high against the smaller throw.

Fuel

Accessory

Output

Not published

Reach (computed)

Not published

Cost per hour

n/a

Reach is ours, computed from published output at 20 BTU per square foot for an open patio. We have not measured any of this in person.

What works

• 50 x 60 in genuinely covers two people on a bench, which the smaller throw does not
• 150F on high is the hottest setting in the pair and the only one that reads as hot rather than warm
• The low setting runs 6.5+ hours — long enough to cover an entire evening without a recharge, which is the setting most people should actually use
• Sherpa lining does real work on a patio, where a thin throw loses to a breeze whether it is heated or not

What does not

• Same battery, more blanket. 2.5+ hours on high against 3+ for the smaller throw — the extra area and heat come straight out of run time
• Still one blanket, still not a heater. It warms whoever is under it and contributes nothing to the space
• Bulkier to bring out and put away, which in practice decides how often a patio accessory gets used
• No published safety listing, same as its smaller sibling
• No published wattage, so its running cost here is computed by us rather than quoted

Published specification
Size	50 x 60 in
Battery	7 V, 5,000 mAh power bank, included
High	150F, 2.5+ hours
Medium	130F, 4+ hours
Low	120F, 6.5+ hours
Construction	Composite fiber face, sherpa lining, three heating elements
Maker’s coverage claim	None published — the reach figure above is ours
Safety listing	No safety listing published by the maker

Who it is for

Two people sharing, or anyone who found a chair-sized throw too small. Also the better buy if you will mostly run it on low.

What it is not for

Solo use on a chair, where the smaller throw is easier to handle and runs longer on high for the same money.

$119.99 · Check on Amazon

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Sources for this entry

• Amazon listing — ActionHeat 7V Battery Heated Plush Throw Blanket
• ActionHeat — 7V Battery Heated Plush Throw Blanket published specification (50 x 60 in, 7V 5,000 mAh, 150F/2.5+ h, 130F/4+ h, 120F/6.5+ h, sherpa lining)

2 · Standing up without losing the heat

Cordless Battery Heated Throw Blanket with Hood, 20,000 mAh

The wearable answer, and the one that finally makes the hooded category recommendable. It is cordless, it has nine heating zones and a hood, and unlike a lap throw it keeps working when you get up to check the grill.

Fuel

Accessory

Output

Not published

Reach (computed)

Not published

Cost per hour

n/a

Reach is ours, computed from published output at 20 BTU per square foot for an open patio. We have not measured any of this in person.

What works

• It is wearable, with a hood. A lap throw stops working the moment you stand up; this does not, which on a patio where people move between the table and the grill is the difference between using it and folding it
• Nine heating zones across a shawl covers shoulders and back — the places a blanket over the legs never reaches
• Cordless and battery powered, so it stays on the right side of the one genuinely unsafe idea in this category
• Roughly half the price of the ActionHeat throws, which makes it the easy second one to own

What does not

• The maker publishes no battery voltage and no run time per setting. That means we cannot compute its cost per hour the way we can for the ActionHeat pack, and you cannot plan an evening around a stated duration. 20,000 mAh is a capacity, not a runtime
• No safety listing is published, which is worth noting on a heated textile even at USB voltages
• A wearable shawl is a different object to a blanket — some people find them warm and some find them faintly ridiculous, and that is not something a spec sheet resolves
• Nine zones is a marketing count as much as an engineering one; more zones across the same battery does not mean more heat

Published specification
Power	20,000 mAh battery pack, USB
Zones	Nine heating zones
Settings	Three heat levels
Form	Wearable shawl with a hood
Battery voltage	Not published
Run time	Not published per setting
Maker’s coverage claim	None published — the reach figure above is ours
Safety listing	No safety listing published by the maker

Who it is for

Anyone who wants heat that follows them around the patio, or who wanted a hooded model and found the category was all unbranded stock.

What it is not for

Anyone who wants a stated run time they can plan around — for that, the [ActionHeat plush](/blog/heated-blankets) publishes its hours at each setting and this does not.

$49.99 · Check on Amazon-22%

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Sources for this entry

• Amazon listing — cordless battery heated wearable throw with hood, 20,000 mAh, nine zones, three levels

These are no longer two versions of the same thing, so the decision is between a blanket you sit under and a garment you wear.

The plush is the one to buy if you are sitting down and want a number you can plan around — 6.5+ hours on low covers a whole evening and the sherpa lining does real work. The hooded shawl is the one to buy if you move about, or if you wanted a hooded model and kept finding unbranded stock. It is cheaper, and you give up the published run times to get it.

One thing the specifications do not say out loud: the low setting is the one to use. On both models it roughly doubles the run time, and a blanket at 102 to 120F against a body is already warm. High is for the first ten minutes.

This is the part the category's marketing skips, so it is worth stating plainly.

• It warms one person. Two, on the plush model, if they are sitting together. It contributes nothing to anyone else and nothing to the space.
• It stops working when you stand up. Every heater on this site keeps working when you go to the grill and come back. A blanket does not.
• It is finite. Three hours on high is one evening. A propane cylinder is about ten hours and a wall socket is unlimited.
• It does not solve wind either. A breeze strips warmth from around a blanket exactly as it does from around a heater. The blanket just loses less because the warmth is trapped against you rather than floating in the air.
• It does nothing for hands. Which is why blankets and a tabletop heater are a better pairing than either alone.

Worth knowing before you plan an evening around one. Lithium cells deliver less of their rated capacity as they get colder, and every run time in this category is quoted without stating the temperature it was measured at. On a patio in genuine cold you are using the battery in exactly the conditions that reduce it.

We are not going to put a percentage on that, because neither maker publishes one and inventing a figure would be worse than saying so. The practical version is simple enough: treat the quoted hours as a best case, not a plan. If you need three hours of warmth, the model rated at three hours on high is not the one to rely on — run the bigger blanket on low instead.

Keeping the pack in a jacket pocket until you actually want heat helps, for the same reason. A cold battery that starts warm behaves better than one that has been sitting on a cold chair since six o'clock.

Do not take a mains-powered electric blanket outside. They are built and rated for indoor bedroom use, and a patio adds damp, dew and an extension cord to a fabric heating appliance. It is the only thing in this category that is actively a bad idea rather than merely a poor buy, and it is worth saying because it is the obvious cheap shortcut.

The same instinct applies to the rest of the patio: your appliance's own manual is the authority, and our safety and clearances page covers what that means for anything that burns.

1. 1Charge it fully before the evening, not during. The battery is the whole appliance and there is no mains fallback.
2. 2Start on high for ten minutes, then drop to low. Warming the fabric is the expensive part; keeping it warm is not.
3. 3Put it over your legs, not around your shoulders. Legs and feet are where a seated person actually loses the argument on a cold patio.
4. 4Bring it in. It is a textile with electronics in it. Leaving it on a chair overnight in the dew is how it becomes a normal blanket permanently.
5. 5Pair it, do not substitute. A blanket plus a small aimed heater beats either one alone, and costs less to run than a big heater on its own.

If you already own a heater, yes, and it is the cheapest upgrade available to you. It costs about what a tabletop propane heater costs, runs for essentially nothing, and turns the last hour of a cold evening from something you endure into something you stay out for.

If you own nothing yet, buy the heater first. A blanket makes a seated person comfortable; it does not make a patio usable, and working out what your space actually needs is still the first step. Then add a blanket, because at a fraction of a cent an hour there is no argument against it.