BIDDEFORD BLANKETS Polyester Electric Heated Mattress Pad with Analog Controller, King, White

As a result of lowering the house heating temperature to 60 F, to save energy and money, I have run into a hitch which has turned into a problem. My hands and especially my feet, often, but not always, get cold toward the late evening. Now, most of the time, for most of my waking hours, just wearing snug, warmer clothes is comfy. That is how I decided 60 F was OK.The hitch is NOT that I have the sense that my feet are cold. On the contrary, most of the time I don't notice my feet are cold, unless I put my feet against warm hands, for instance. Then my hands feel my feet as icy. If my hands are cold, they feel icy against my face. And my hands or my feet do not readily return to warm after they have gone cold.The problem is that when I get in bed, under my thick, snug blanket, my feet soon begin to have the sensation of being icy cold, and they will not feel or get warm, even though the rest of me is, for about an hour and a half. I can't get to sleep before that. I have been accepting this for several winters, but it occurred to me, browsing Amazon one day, that some kind of local heat would be the solution, and would be cheap to operate.The added heat of this heated mattress pad gets my recalcitrant feet back to warm fast enough that I get to sleep in approximately the same amount of time as in the warm seasons. But since I am comfy warm without the pad heat at that point, and I sleep more soundly without extra heat, for reasons unknown to me, I really need the pad to turn off after I am snoozing.Since this pad has an analog controller, you can use it freely with a timer (Tork 401A at Amazon), one of those 24 hour ones for putting lights on and off to keep thieves from noticing a house is vacant. Since my sleeping hours drift a bit, I use the timer differently. I just picked an hours time of "on" permanently, and twist the dial to that segment a few minutes before bedtime. I have to remember to unplug the next morning, so it won't go back on at a time that I might not be going to bed.Electricity is currently charged, in this area, at roughly 13 cents per kilowatt hour. The pad pulls less than 100 watts, or a tenth of a kilowatt, so my added electric cost per day is less than 1.3 cents. If I left it on for ten hours, it would still be only 13 cents.I confess that I now actually enjoy going to bed with icy feet, because it feels so good when they are warming up. I think it is the same effect as enjoying food more when you are really hungry.

Soooo tired of hearing the husband complain about the bed being cold... This is analog so I was able to use it with a smart plug and now it's on a timer to automatically come on. Since it does have an auto shutoff I have it programed to shut off then back on within 5 minutes then a final shut off at a predetermined time in the morning. No more complaining so it was a good investment.

I purchased a Biddeford heated mattress pad (HMP) a year or two ago from Big Lots. I used to be an electric blanket person until I tried a heated mattress pad. The great thing about heated mattress pads is they warm the whole bed so it's nice and toasty when you get in. A problem I had with electric blankets was getting consistent heat. Unfortunately, I didn't wash & dry the heated mattress pad correctly and ended up warping the plug-in part.My original HMP came with two controllers on a single plug-in. The nice thing about that is that it only takes up one plug. The new one I purchased from Amazon comes with two separate plug-ins that go in two separate outlets. I think it's important to have two controls because most people sleep at different temperatures. It's nice to be able to control my side and my husband can control his side. (FYI - the single-outlet dual-control plug from my last HMP works fine on this one, in case you're in the same situation)I'd say it takes maybe 10 minutes for this to give off a good heat. Depending on how cold I am, I might set it at around 5-7 initially to heat up the bed, then turn it down to 2-3 once I get in. I injured my back recently, so it was nice being able to keep it at 7-8 the last couple nights to soothe my back aches.The heat automatically shuts off after about 10 hours, however the light stays on if the plug is on. This might bother or confuse some people, but if you remember to turn it off when you wake up, it's not a problem. We have a higher-end HMP at our vacation property and that one turns off automatically (light too) but it's not a necessity.I'm very pleased with this HMP and it has worked wonderfully to keep me toasty warm at night. Would definitely recommend, especially if you're interested but don't want to spend a ton of money. I think it works just as well as the Sunbeam one.