Today I’m talking about this, it’s the heat coaster pro from a company called Ikago. A heated coaster, that is it. Its goal is to keep your hot drink hot or warm it back up if it gets cold. It currently retails for $50 in the US for the standard version, $60 for the pro set which includes a mug and you can expect to pay that or a little more in british pounds. I’ve had this on my desk for a few weeks, using it on and off If I’ve needed to and here are my thoughts.
As part of the pro set, you get the coaster, a mug or cup, a funky spoon and a lid for said cup. You can purchase the standard version and you will just get the coaster. The coaster itself is quite alot bigger in size than you would associate with a normal plastic, ceramic or cardboard coaster. It’s modern looking, colours of black, silver and chrome. It sits on four rubber legs, it’s got this rubber-like area your cup sits on, which is the part that heats up. It’s got a display, which shows the current temperature of your drink, plus the desired temperature. It’s got an on/off button and touch buttons to adjust the temperature. It needs to be plugged into the mains to be powered. As for the cup, it’s a fairly standard cup but you will notice to the underside, it has more surface area than perhaps a traditional cup, which will help with performance. There is a lid, it’s a little odd but they do recommend using it.
So how does it work? The dark black rubber area is a hot plate, there is an electrical element below it and it will just heat up. A bit like an induction hob, if you have one of those at home.
In terms of specification, it has a rated power output of 75watts, and it can warm your drink to anywhere you want between 40 and 80 Celsius, or 105 to 175 Fahrenheit. It measures the temperature of the cup via infrared, so you need to ensure the cup is in the corect position to allow it to take a reading. This display will help with that. The display shows four readings, at the top is the real-time temperature of your cup, below that a status bar, then below that your desired temperature you set via the two touch-sensitive buttons and to the right, a small indicator light noting whether the coaster has detected a cup or not.
To use the coaster, plug it in, turn it on by the power button on the right-hand side, place your cup in position and set the temperature to suit. Thats it. I mentioned the status bar earlier, which separates the two temperatures on the display. Well, it changes colours, blue means the cup is cooler than the temperature you’ve set. Green means it’s hit that temperature i.e. ready to drink and red means it’s hotter than the set temperature.
In terms of performance, it works well and as expected. It will efficiently keep your drink warm. Picking it up for a sip, and putting it back down, it will maintain the temperature until the majority of the drink has gone. I feel the temperature reading target is mid level on the cup, so as you drink and say you’re nearly done, the accuracy of the reading decreases as there isn’t any liquid in the middle of the cup anymore.
I made a cup of tea one evening, it was very hot, it was boiling water out of the kettle. I put it on the coaster, set the desired temperature to 80 degrees and left it. I came back 45minutes later and it was as hot as I left it. I left it again and came back 30 minutes later and again, as hot as I left it. Due to that continued heat, you can see this layer of something forming on the top of my tea which does look that appealing.
I touched on it before but the Ikago cup has this increased surface area to the base and it’s not an overly thick cup either, both of which will help with temperature readings. I tried a number of other cups, some bigger, some thicker and some didnt necessarily have a flat bottom to them, which kind of made an air gap between base and cup. All of which will affect temperature readings and heating performance. It’s not a deal breaker, and although the Ikago cup looks ok, you want to use your own cup right? It’s a thing, everyone has their favourite cup, so use it, just bear in mind that it may not perform as well.
In terms of safety, this certainly needs to be out of the way of children and used by adults only. At 80 degrees, this will burn your hand or finger if you touch it, so dont. That applies to the rubber, the circular area the cup sits on, so when the cup is in place, it’s relatively safe. It’s when you move it to drink or you’re done and it’s cooling down, which is when you need to be careful. The underside of the coaster gets very hot. It’s on rubber feet and there are air vents to dissipate heat but again, I wouldn’t pick this up while its hot or cooling down. In terms of cooling down, it will take a few minutes to get to a manageable heat and there are automatic shutdown settings built in too. So if it doesnt detect any cup movement for 2 hours, i.e. you’ve forgotten about it or you’re stuck in a meeting, it will shut down. Or if it detects no cup at all, it will shut down after 15 minutes.
It’s well worth reading the instructions as there are a few do’s and don’ts with the coaster. They recommend not using glass or quartz cups, and if you want your drink to heat up swiftly, put the lid on. Paper and plastic cups are not recommended due to safety reasons, you don’t want your plastic cup melting. If like me, you want to swap from Fahrenheit to Celsius, you can do this by holding down the plus and minus buttons together for a few seconds.
So there we have it, that was the Heat Coaster Pro from Ikago. A neat bit of tech that certainly works well and is not overly expensive. Whether you’ll use it, depends on your drinking habits. For me, yeah I used the coaster but if I have a hot coffee, I generally drink it within 5 minutes or so, so I’m not really benefiting that much from the coaster but, that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t.
