My friend comes over for movies frequently and she's always cold. She sits on this thing (I know that's not what it's for, but it's working) and it keeps her warm without having to heat up the whole room or use a noisy contraption. It's flexible, so it's comfortable to sit on. It works great. No problems so far.

This is not as good as my 1500 watt space heater, but our new office restrictions won't allow space heaters at all. This is a decent little compromise. Warm feet mean the rest of me feels a little bit warmer, and I can wear sandals and capris in the summer even though the office feels like an icebox. This square does not heat up the whole area under my open workspace, but it certainly makes a difference to my feet and it draws less than 100 watts of power, so the office services department isn't ranting at me. In an enclosed desk situation, it might warm up the area under the whole desk.

Great way to keep the feet warm, using very little energy! Wish I had bought this years ago. After about 4 months of use, I notice a little bump in the center, I guess this is the thermostat, so we'll see how long it will last. It's not that big a deal really, and I expect it will last 2 or 3 more winters - but even if it only lasted one winter it would have been worth buying. I use it with the AmerTac 6089B Westek 500W Full Range Foot Control Dimmer (also on Amazon) to vary the warmth level and prevent the thermostat cycling on and off. With the thermostat it's easy to turn on and off and to vary the amount of heat.

UPDATE: One week later, the mat has stopped working entirely. The red light on the switch lights up but the mat is cold. Returning it to Amazon for a replacement. For now I'll keep it at 5 stars.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:
This heated mat is awesome. It's silent, comfy & seems well-built. The amount of heat it generates is perfect. The small space heater I had used before was noisy & at 1500 watts, was 25 TIMES LESS EFFICIENT than this mat!! (The mat I received has a 60-watt sticker, although Amazon description states 70 watts).

My only minor complaint is I think the power cord is a little short, considering the power switch is located roughly in the middle & needs to be somewhere accessible. So using it under a desk, it's effectively a 3' power cord. But that's a manageable issue & easily solved with an extension cord, or better yet, a wifi-controlled smart plug. Not taking any stars off for that.

My husband and I met due to our mutual love of anime. Complete and utter nerds? Yes, yes we are. But MUTUAL nerds so it all worked out. We stopped watching anime eventually (children have a habit of sucking the fun out of time consuming activities like staring at a screen for hours on end) but that doesn't mean that our love of many aspects of Japanese culture vanished. For example, we love udon. We eat with chopsticks at every opportunity. And we've both lusted after owning a kotatsu for YEARS. Honestly, in the decade and a half or so we've been together it's one of the things we've always wanted. But the buggers are EXPENSIVE and you need to have adaptors, fancy covers, places to sit your butt, etc.

Then I discovered that you can sort of fashion your own.
Look, we live in the midwest, right? It gets friggin COLD here and since winter's been too drunk to go home till May these past few years, it feels like it we've finally embarked on that threatened newest ice age. This fall we put together our kotatsu using this mat and a couple other supplies and holy friggin cow, this thing is amazing. Now, granted, I know in a "true" kotatsu you don't have a heater underneath, but since I got a very low wattage heater for the top and we're using a fleece blanket topped with an (Amazon basics cheapo) king-sized comforter, I wanted to get the most bang for my warming buck.

We have cold laminate floors. This thing is awesome to lay your legs on while the other warmer does the heavy lifting. I'd be lying if I claimed I didn't claim the footwarmer part of our makeshift kotatsu at every opportunity. I know, I'm a terribly mother. I make the children put on socks. But I'm planning on buying a second one for them to share. So, yeah, worth it.