Throw, underblanket or cushion?

Three products, one idea: heat the person, not the house. The throw, the underblanket and the cushion heat the same person in three different places. Choosing between them is mostly a question of where your evening happens.

The heated throw, for the sofa and the desk

A throw works wherever you sit. Ours run from 120 W (Essential, three settings) to 160 W (Signature, ten settings; Summit, nine). The single size, 180 × 130 cm, covers a seated adult from shoulder to ankle; the double, 180 × 160 cm, covers two people side by side. From £79 to £149.

Choose the throw if your cold hours are waking hours: the film, the book, the desk at four in the afternoon.

The heated underblanket, for the bed

An underblanket sits on the mattress, under the sheet, and warms the bed before you get into it. Singles are 150 × 80 cm, doubles run to 190 × 140 cm. Power runs from 60 W for a single to 100 W per side on the Signature doubles, where each side has its own controller: two people, two temperatures, one bed.

The Summit models split the bed into temperature zones, warmer at the feet than at the shoulders: 50 to 55 °C in the lower zone, 40 to 45 °C in the upper one. Cold feet, cool head, which is how most people actually sleep. From £59 to £139.

Choose the underblanket if the cold you mind is the cold of getting into bed.

The heated cushion, for the chair and the lap

The cushion is the smallest answer: 100 W, 30 × 60 cm for the lap or the lower back, and a 60 × 62 cm shape for the neck and shoulders. It moves from chair to chair and asks for nothing but a plug. £39 and £45.

Choose the cushion if one spot is always cold: the home office chair, the end of the sofa, the driver's seat before the heater wakes up.

If you are still deciding

One person, one seat, evenings: the throw. The bed: the underblanket. One chair, one cold back: the cushion. Two of those situations: the two products, because each is built for its place and borrows badly from the other. An underblanket under a sheet is not a throw, and a throw on a bed is a compromise.

What each of them costs to run is written out in What it costs to run, with the sums shown.

Signature Heated Throw, 160 W, 10 Settings

• 160 W
• 180 × 130 cm
• 10 settings

£109.00

See the Signature Heated Throw, 160 W, 10 Settings