Dr Infrared Heater Upgraded Version 2-Tier 18 Cubic feet Portable Bedbug Heater with Thermometer and Timer, Black, Big (DR-122)

Takes a little bit of time but it kills them real good, it brings me comfort to know they burn to a crisp in there. Fairly easy to set up and use, and when sealed up properly it keeps its heat level nice. And it's a heck of a lot cheaper and easier to use than an exterminator

I was waiting for a review on the upgraded version to see if all of the problems on this infrared heater were corrected. No one really gave a current review on the upgraded changes so I went out on a limb and purchased one, June of 2018. I was so happy to see that the upgraded version has in fact corrected all of the problems that people discovered. First of all, the knob to the heater is no longer a knob but a red off, on switch with a light built into it. The switch is on the back of the heater where it is easily accessed. I'm not sure what the hot glue issue was that people were referring to but there is no hot glue anywhere on the heater. The rack is very strong and sturdy and not flimsy so I think that was fixed too. Also, it is white and not silver. Also the frame was very easy to put together. It took my 12 year old, 10 minutes to put together. Also. The allowance on the case is perfect. There were no fit issues at all in placing and zipping the case around the frame. The quality is exceptional all around especially for the price. Today I will heat treat some items and update my review on the performance of the heater as well but overall, I'm very impressed with the quality that I see. I'm just a regular Amazon consumer so I think it was important to get my point of view out there because I myself was looking for a review like mine about this item.

My heater did not work....trying to contact seller ...for replacement

Please do not believe the bad reviews given by people who think this is a solution to ridding their entire home of bed bugs. It is to be used as a prevention tool. I purchased this when we had a scare on a trip recently and it worked great. The quality really is very good for the price. If you have an infestation, please call an exterminator, not use this and get mad when it breaks after 9 months of using it several times a week...DUH. I feel this is really an insurance policy so I will not bring critters home after traveling. We use this for the suitcases, backpacks, etc. All the clothes go in the dryer for 45 minutes. Easy and effective.

After a bed bug infestation cost us several thousand dollars in exterminator fees, I went looking for a device to use when I got home from my many business travels (last year, pre-CoViD19.) This was a nicely priced item with good capacity, so I bought it and used it several times (last year.) As far as funciton, it does what it says it does and is easy to use, but requires you to set aside an hour or more of time "babysitting it" if you have any items that could be damaged by extreme heat. The challenge is that the thermometer they include does NOT automatically control the heater. So you have to turn it on, wait for the temp to hit the target temp you set (there are instructions on how to set an alert on the included thermomoeter when this happens) and then keep switching it on and off to keep it above the desired killing range. This isn't the end of the world, but if they offered an upgraded model with an auto- control setting that was close in price, I'd pick it over this one. As it stands, it works fine, just make sure you keep an eye on the temp while running it to keep it in range. I also noticed a lot of people complaining about the heater shutting down or dying due to overheating, so make sure the port the heater attaches into is clear and not obstructed to minimize the risk of this happening to you. The person who said the frame is weak is "sort of" right: the shelves fold in the middle for storage and when in use they do sag a little, but I have put a LOT of weight on mine and only been casual (ie not super-careful, but not throwing it in basketball-style either) about setting my full size and filled to the brim travel suitcase in it without damaging the rack.

Large capacity makes fast work of baggage and clothing. A quick wipe down of the bottom after running the first suitcase and contents through showed 3 dead bedbugs and some other little bugs I couldn't identify, which was the kind of thing that keeps me scratching at nonexistent critters. I bought it as a mental health insurance type item. I don't want to think that expensive, well known hotel chains might have bedbugs, but didn't want to risk it. They really are everywhere and almost impossible to get rid of. The cost was completely recouped in the first use, not to mention the peace of mind that comes with knowing I'm killing the evil little monsters before they can make a permanent home here. Even if you only take a single yearly vacation, buy this, and use it. Maybe if enough people do, the bedbug population will not only stop growing, but hopefully decline to the point that technology can catch up and eliminate the threat. My only complaints would be the complete lack of directors for the case itself. The directions only handle the frame. I had to figure out the case by looking at the picture and moving it around until I finally got it right. I'm also concerned about the center zipper. With the connection being at the top, instead of at the bottom, the constant downward pressure makes it more likely to fail. It is more logical to reverse that but it can't be done by the purchaser, it's a design flaw that has to be corrected on the manufacturer's end so I'll keep my fingers crossed that it holds for a long time as we will be using this on a weekly basis.

Instructions should be more specific, ripped two holes in it trying to get the frame into the shell. Taped those up and seems to be working. Also make sure you have the thermometer at the right height or it will not register the correct temperature.

Before the product review, you should know our background. We are highly experienced international travelers due to work requirements. We’ve gone through multiple BB exposure events. One of the core protective measures for the home is a suitcase heater. We’ve successfully used a PackTite for more than one decade, nearly two. It finally died and it appears they’re not in business anymore. Next thing to understand is these creatures. 120°F will kill most larvae and a fraction of adults while doing some injury to most of the rest. There will be a reasonable number unharmed, and it only takes one egg-layer to spread the infestation. The injured may not be able to feed or may not able to breed but they’ll still bedevil you. Most eggs will be unharmed. Every degree above 120 will get more of them until you hit 127 which is instant kill for the entire brood. I see questions and reviews saying it didn’t kill them all or they heated their suitcase for an hour and it was still cold inside. Think of your suitcase like a steak. Grill it for a while and the outside is nice and done but it’s still red in the middle. To get well done you’ve got to let it cook longer. To guarantee a good treatment you need to get your bag hot and then keep it there to heat soak until it’s well done. The bugs will sense killing heat at the edges and try to move away from it so they’ll seek shelter in the area best insulated from that heat…the center of the bag or a bundle of clothing. Only time will allow that area to get cooked. Our PackTite would get the exterior of the object being treated to about 135 in an hour. We’d leave it running to heat soak for three to four hours before checking with an infrared thermometer (~30 USD online). We had two infrared guns to double check the temp. Verify heat penetration all the way to the center, inside shoes, everywhere. Even if your heater comes with a thermostat/thermometer, get one or more of the infrared sensors as a double check to protect yourself. About this product. Understand there is nothing about the heater that is infrared. It’s basically a space heater which blows ambient air across heating elements which is why they say the heater needs to be in a room at 70 degrees or higher. There is little to no radiated IR energy. First the good part. • It’ll handle two standard suitcases at once with plenty of room for the air to circulate. That’s it. That’s the good part. Acceptable: • The pieces go together fairly easily so assembly is mostly intuitive. However, the vertical uprights have a series of spaced holes for the rack holders which are not equidistant from the ends. Pay attention you put the section with the longest distance to a hole at the bottom. This gives clearance for air to go under your bags. • While it might have added to the cost, I would have preferred the four poles on the sides to be of the extensible type or just bar stock with a hinge. That way, when finished, I could fold the two racks (already designed to fold in half), fold the side pieces, and stored the now thinner unit against a wall in a closet or something. Now I have to pull the entire frame out of the bag to get those four poles loose from the corner pieces to pack it up. I’ll probably keep the front and back squares assembled. The PackTite had the base rack which included legs long enough to provide the air circulation space. The rest folded down to make a package short enough to slide under a bed. • The enclosure is heavy mylar lined fabric, so I expect it’ll last for some time. There are a LOT of zippers so there are a lot of places for your hot air (and maybe some bugs) to escape. • It’s BIG, it would be nice to have had a couple of handles sewn on to the enclosure to help move it around when not loaded. • I like the inlet tube for the heater. However, I am not sure how many heating cycles the elastic is going to last through. • There are screen vents set into the enclosure. I don’t think those points of failure are really needed. I know, since the heater is pumping in new air you need someplace to let the cold air out. However, there is enough leakage through the zippers I don’t think these are needed. Also, being as they are at the same height as the inlet, the fan basically blows some of the air from the heater right back out again. Inefficient. Not good: • The unit does not get hot enough to guarantee a kill. After one hour with the unit empty, the included thermometer indicated 120 degrees at the top of the unit. It was 118 at floor level at the far end from the heater and 127 at the inlet. The test piece was my daypack from a recent business trip. Inside were dress slacks, dress shirt, casual shirt, a couple pairs of socks and underwear along with a pair of dress shoes. Think of it as a gym bag. One hour later the IR sensor indicated an external temperature of 118 on the surface of the daypack, the probe read 108 in the center of the bag. This isn’t going to kill anything. I moved the bag to the top shelf. One hour later, IR gun says 121 external, included probe indicates 114 internal. Another hour, 122 external, 115 internal. After 4 hours I read 124° external 120° internal (The IR gun said 123° inside when I opened the bag and shoved it in). If this had been a regular suitcase, a complete treatment would take on the order of two days. Two suit cases? A week? It still would not have gotten hot enough to guarantee a complete kill. Particularly on the lower rack. We removed the clothing in a bag and ran it through the electric clothes dryer which made it to 134 within 10 minutes. • Conclusion: The heater is undersized for the area to be treated. Proof is the lower rack never breaking 120°. • There are too many zippers. Yes, you need them to get the rack into the bag but they leak too much heated air. The PackTite had one zipper that ran the length of the top. The remainder of the enclosure was sealed with no vents. The heater itself was inside the enclosure. Maybe it was a fire hazard, I provided mitigation for that potential, but it reliably ran the external temps of the bag up to 130 within two hours even in a 40° room. Five hours is the longest period we had to soak our largest, most tightly packed suitcase. • Given the whole zipper thing, give me a second cover or sleeve that provides more insulation to trap heat on the top and sides. We’re thinking of putting a bed spread over it next time. • I have doubts about the temp sensor provided with the device. Yeah, thermocouples are generally highly accurate, but this thing consistently read lower than the known reliable IR sensors of which we have several that read within a degree of each other. Most electric heaters have an overheat shutoff. Even feeding prewarmed air into it won’t solve the problem. What you find publicly available simply will not go much over 130 degrees without turning itself off. Therefore, the heater cannot heat a thermally leaky enclosure to killing temperatures, particularly one this large. The heater outlet temp being 127 is not encouraging for this one. The packtite air outlet was 150 though I did see temps as high as 155 once or twice. Solutions to this products problems: 1. Give me a heater which is capable of higher temperatures, it might keep up with the losses. 2. Give me two heaters capable of 130°+, yes, that will require separate circuits to plug into. 3. Give me a single unit that operates at 220 volts which will turn out a high volume of 135-145 degree air. Even houses with gas dryers likely have a 220v outlet there. 4. Give me a heater designed to use a 1 lb. propane tank. It would not be that difficult to come up with a blown unit with a catalytic burner (hot but no open flame) that could self-regulate to the 135-145 degree range. Don’t go hotter than that or it’ll kill any electronics you forget to remove before heating. The mylar can stand it. Most mylar is rated to well over 200°. The suitcase will fail first. I'd really like the seller to come up with a better heat source. Given the ability to treat several bags at once we're not going to return it. I'm going to find a way to safely deliver more heat into the enclosure if the seller doesn't. Basic common-sense point of caution not specific to this device…do not run any equipment like this unattended. No, you don’t need to sit next to it the entire time but don’t leave your domicile unattended while it is running. Check on it often. Having a smoke detector somewhere near the machine might be a good idea. No, our PackTite never caught fire or even showed signs of overheating through years of use. But the fact you are using this thing clearly indicates you are somewhat paranoid. Are you paranoid enough? 😊

So, the thing works well. The frame is cleverly designed with springy pins to hold it together. The nylon canvas bag that surrounds it is of good material and well made. It gets up to temperature and stays hot and works for what it's intended. There are a few things that people should know about it however. There is no thermostat on the heater. It's just a heater with a switch. The thermometer-timer is a separate thing and does not control the heater. You have to keep an eye on the time and temperature and turn the heater off yourself. Not a big deal but something to be aware of. You'll need to stay near it and listen for the (faint) beeping of the timer then turn it off. They say that it should be at least 49°c to kill the bugs. This can go up to 59° and 60°c. This might be too high for some objects. The ambient temperature of the room you put it in has an influence on the internal temperature. The heater switch has four positions. OFF, FAN, HI and HI. The manual says nothing about what the difference is between the two HI positions. In practise they seem to be the same. There is no mention of the orientation of the vertical supports in the manual. It's important for the racks though so that should be mentioned. The racks are well designed but there is a limit to the weight they can hold without sagging. The vertical zipper teeth were separating on the second day. This is likely because the zipper slider is a bit too cheap. (They should use a better quality of zipper slider.) Squeezing the slider with pliers works for awhile. The cooker doesn't get hot enough with the front vertical zipper not closed.

Easy to set up and use. Loses a star because the shelving that comes with it is weak. I used both shelves as one and placed a shoe rack inside and that has been good for me. No other issues so far.

This product was defective. It turns on and then shuts down after 30 seconds. Completely dead on arrival out of the box. There is no automatic temperature control as suggested. No timer. This is not a good product and now it is taking space and costed me money. Don't buy this. I have tried to return this but unable.

Refunding. Too bad. Tent is solidly constructed, frame does the job...but the heater shorts out within 5 minutes tops of turning on. Seems to be a common complaint. Avoid at all costs.

The product was shipped on time. The quality of the product is good. Easy to install. Fits a lot of stuff inside it to heat at once. But stops working certain uses. Cannot rely when it would start working again. Not worth the money based on the reliability factor.