Radiant vs Infrared Patio Heaters: Which One Fits Your Canadian Backyard?
Radiant vs Infrared Patio Heaters: Which One Fits Your Canadian Backyard? — Here's the short answer: every Bromic heater is a radiant heater, and every Bromic heater uses infrared technology to do it. They're not two competing systems you have to choose between. The real question is gas vs electric, and more importantly, which Bromic model fits your climate and your space, because a patio in Tofino has very different heating needs than one in Winnipeg.
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What "Radiant" and "Infrared" Actually Mean
Quick clarification before anything else: radiant heat and infrared heat are the same thing. Radiant heat is the category, warmth that travels directly from a source to people and objects without heating the air in between. Infrared is the specific type of radiation that makes that happen. Every Bromic Platinum, Tungsten, and Eclipse heater works this way.
That means the heat hits you directly, the same way sunlight warms your skin on a cold day even when the air temperature hasn't changed. It's why you can stand under a Bromic heater on a windy night and still feel warm, even though the heater isn't raising the temperature of the whole yard.
So the real decision isn't radiant vs infrared. It's gas vs electric, and which model matches your climate, your space, and how you actually use your property.
Your Climate Changes the Math
Canada isn't one climate. A heater that pays for itself in eight months on Vancouver Island might only earn its keep for six weeks in Winnipeg. Here's how that breaks down by region.
Coastal BC: Near Year-Round Use
If you're in Victoria, Tofino, or anywhere on Vancouver Island, your patio heater is closer to a daily appliance than a seasonal one. Coastal BC rarely sees the deep cold that shuts other regions out of outdoor living. The challenge here isn't temperature, it's moisture and salt air. Marine-grade construction matters more than raw heat output.
The Prairies: A Real Off-Season
In Edmonton or Winnipeg, you're working with a genuinely shorter window. Once temperatures drop into deep prairie cold, no patio heater is bringing you back outside comfortably. A Bromic heater extends your spring and fall by weeks, and makes the occasional mild winter evening usable, but it isn't designed to fight a January cold snap. Used right, in the right season, it still pays for itself in extra months of use you wouldn't otherwise have.
The Chinook Belt: A Patio That Opens for One Day
Calgary and Canmore get something almost nobody else in Canada deals with: Chinook winds that can melt a foot of snow and push temperatures into double digits, in the middle of January, for a day or two before winter slams back down. If you've ever watched a pub patio go from closed to packed to closed again inside 48 hours, that's a Chinook.
Nobody's running a heater daily through a Calgary winter. But when that one sunny Sunday hits and people want to sit outside with a pint at 2pm, a heater is the difference between sitting outside for three hours and going back in after twenty minutes. Electric models with instant on/off and no warm-up cycle suit this pattern best, since you're switching them on the moment the wind turns and getting full output immediately.
Central and Atlantic Canada: Coastal, Lake Country, But Colder
Toronto and communities along the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Gulf get coastal moisture and/or salt exposure similar to BC, but without the same mild winters. You possibly need the marine-grade durability of a coastal build, paired with the realistic seasonal expectations of a colder region.
Matching the Heater to the Job
Beyond geography, how you use the space matters just as much as where you live.
Hot Tub Areas Under a Pergola
A pergola creates a semi-enclosed pocket that traps radiant heat far more effectively than an open deck. Mount a heater overhead and you can keep the surrounding area, towels, robes, the path back to the house, comfortable while you're soaking, even when it's well below freezing.
Covered Decks and Three-Season Rooms
For a standard covered deck where you're entertaining or just sitting outside in the evening, this is where the Platinum or Tungsten earn their keep, both available in gas or electric depending on whether you've already got a gas line run to the space.
Why the Platinum Looks (and Performs) the Way It Does
The Platinum's glass face isn't just there for looks. Bromic uses SCHOTT NEXTREMA tinted glass-ceramic, the same material family used in high-end architectural and industrial heating applications, specifically because it solves two problems at once.
First, strength. NEXTREMA tinted has the highest flexural strength of any NEXTREMA variant, rated up to 80 megapascals. That matters outdoors, where a heater faces thermal cycling, hail, and the occasional errant patio furniture collision, not just heat output.
Second, performance. The tinted variant reduces visible light while maintaining excellent infrared transmission, which is why the Platinum throws real heat without a harsh glow. It also has a near-zero thermal expansion coefficient and a high degree of resistance to temperature shock, so the glass face isn't fighting itself every time the heater cycles on and off in cold weather.
Affinity Controls: Where Patio Heating Meets Smart Home
If you're already running a smart home, your patio heater shouldn't be the one thing you still walk outside to switch on. Bromic's Affinity Dimmer system connects your heater to WiFi or Bluetooth and puts full control in the Bromic app, so you can turn it on from the kitchen, set it on a schedule, or fold it into routines alongside your lighting and thermostat.
Affinity gives you 1% increment heat adjustment, so you're dialling in the exact output instead of guessing between high and low. For larger properties, Affinity scales to 1, 2, or 5 heating channels, each handling up to 6000W, which means a single system can manage zones across an entire deck, pergola, and hot tub area independently.
Shop controls: Eclipse Dimmer Controller | Wireless On/Off Controller
Gas vs Electric: The Real Decision
Since every Bromic model uses the same radiant infrared principle, the actual choice comes down to fuel type.
Gas (natural gas or propane) works best for open-air, low-wind installations. It's a strong choice when you don't have easy access to a 240V circuit, or when you want the heater running independent of your electrical panel. Gas units require a licensed gas-fitter for hookup, no exceptions.
Electric handles wind better and gives you more precise control, especially when paired with Bromic's Affinity Dimmer system. Electric is the better fit for ceiling-mounted installs, covered pergolas, and anywhere you don't have a gas line already in place. These are hardwired units, so they require a licensed electrician, not a plug-and-go install.
Either way, this isn't a weekend DIY project. Gas and electric patio heaters both involve permanent connections to your home's gas line or electrical panel, and getting that wrong isn't just a warranty issue, it's a safety one. Always use a licensed trade for installation.
Before you call a trade, it's worth getting the layout right first. Bromic offers a free design analysis: send them your space, and they'll provide a recommended heater layout along with a full bill of materials and pricing. Any licensed gas-fitter or electrician can follow it directly.
One thing the design analysis won't cover: does your electrical panel actually have 240V service available? Many homes don't, especially older builds. If your panel needs upgraded service or new conduit run to reach the install location, that's a real cost on top of the heater itself. Ask your electrician to check the panel before you finalize gas vs electric, not after.
Want the actual running-cost numbers by province? See our Gas vs Electric Patio Heaters guide for a full cost breakdown.
Coastal Builds: Why Bromic Built the Marine Line
If you're heating a patio in Victoria, Tofino, along the St. Lawrence Gulf, or in Charlottetown, standard outdoor-rated construction isn't enough. Salt air corrodes metal in ways inland installations never have to deal with, and that's the exact problem Bromic built a dedicated product line to solve.
The Bromic Platinum Smart-Heat Electric Marine exists specifically for coastal applications. It's constructed in 316 stainless steel, the same marine-grade alloy used in boat fittings and coastal architectural hardware, because standard stainless doesn't hold up against sustained salt spray and humidity. That's not an upgrade tacked onto the regular Platinum, it's a separate build made for one job: surviving coastal conditions that would pit or stain anything less.
One more thing worth raising with your electrician on coastal installs: the heater housing isn't the only part exposed to salt air, the wiring connections are too. A licensed electrician working in coastal conditions will typically protect the connection points with dielectric grease (sometimes called marine electrical grease), a non-conductive, waterproof barrier that seals out moisture and salt at the connector. It's standard practice on boats and coastal equipment for exactly this reason.
Shop Marine: Platinum Smart-Heat Electric Marine
Bottom Line
There's no radiant vs infrared decision to make, they're the same technology. The decisions that actually matter are gas or electric, which model fits your space, and whether your location calls for marine-grade construction. Get those three right and the heater works the way it's supposed to, whether you're using it daily on Vancouver Island or saving it for the next Chinook in Calgary.
Still not sure? Take the 2-minute quiz and get a recommendation matched to your space.
Browse the full Bromic Heating collection at PremiumBackyard.ca.
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