What is personal warmth?

What is personal warmth and how does it work?
Discover why warming yourself instead of the whole room
could change how we think about comfort.

What is personal warmth?

For decades, staying warm at home has meant one thing: turn up the thermostat. But what if the room isn’t really what needs warming? Personal warmth takes a different approach. Instead of warming an entire space, it brings warmth directly to the person who needs it.

That idea isn’t new. Before central heating, people in the Netherlands used a stoof, a small wooden foot warmer filled with hot coals. The principle was simple: warm the person, not the room.

Why personal warmth matters

Everyone experiences temperature differently.

In Stoov’s 2026 Annual Warmth Survey, 94% said having independent control over their own warmth is important, while 74% said warming themselves directly works better than warming the room around them.

That makes sense when you consider how personal comfort really is. Two people can sit in the same room and feel completely different.

In fact, 91% of respondents said they sometimes feel cold in spaces where others around them feel perfectly comfortable.

A different way to think about comfort

Personal warmth gives you more control over how you feel, without relying entirely on the temperature of the whole room.

It can also support a more energy-conscious way of staying comfortable. In Stoov’s survey, 27% of respondents said they had already lowered their thermostat while using their Stoov, while a further 40% said they were open to doing so.

So maybe the future of warmth isn’t about heating more.