While spring is currently teasing us in Australia, it’s been a cold winter for many and here in Canberra, winter still has some bite left. So when my electric blanket shorted out, I needed a replacement and after a quick Google Search for smart electric blankets I found the Goldair Platinum Electric Blanket.

The basics of the Goldair Platinum Electric Blanket is that it offers an antibacterial treated fleecy topped electric blanket that will connect to Wifi. There’s an app available as well as Google Assistant and Alexa support. There’s six heat settings, 12 hour auto-off timer and multi-zone control letting you heat either feet or body independently.

While the $300 price tag on the Goldair site was a little high, the $5929 price tag I found online at Target for the Queen size model was much more in my price range. 

It arrived this week and after using it for a few days, here’s how it went.

What’s in the box?

There’s not a lot in the Goldair Platinum Electric Blanket box, there’s the blanket itself, a storage bag and warranty and instruction manual.

The blanket itself includes two controllers which are detachable so the blanket can either be machine or hand washed. It’s a simple matter of pulling the connectors apart to remove and simply pushing it back in when you’re done – and while it’s easy to do, the connectors aren’t going to fall out in a hurry.

The controllers are easy to use, with a simple On/Off button at the top of the D-Pad style selector, with body control on the left and feet on the right. Hitting the button cycles through the settings from 1-6 (1-2 Low, Gentle Heat 3-4 Medium Heat 5-6 High Heat – according to the manual)

Setup

The Electric Blanket uses a Fitted Skirt Style – it’s basically a fitted sheet – to ensure the blanket is securely in place. 

Once you’ve put the blanket on your bed you can simply plug it in and start using it with the controllers if you like, or it’s time to jump into installing the Goldair app and connecting the blanket to your home Wifi. 

The Goldair app is available for both Android and iOS offering access to a range of Goldair smart products including fans, dehumidifiers, heaters and of course the Electric Blanket.

The app of course requires an account, and once you’re all signed up it’s easy to add the devices in the app – or mostly so. The electric blanket only supports 2.4GHz wifi, so you may have difficulty setting it up if you have a mixed dual (or even tri-band) network in your home. 

A few tips to get this going is to disconnect the controllers from the blanket itself and then take them and plug them in next to your router and do the setup right alongside it. You will have to setup both controllers independently, so make sure you take both. 

I ended up using an old phone which only supports 2.4GHz Wifi – handy if you setup a lot of smart home gear – and was soon connected and setup. 

When you set the Electric Blankets up it sets them up generically, so make sure you change the name to something easier to view. 

The basic setup of the app allows you to see each device and once you select them you’ll be able to change the settings. 

The Goldair app allows you to control the Zones, as well as the timer. You can also setup a Schedule if you want to have your electric blanket come on at the same time each day – or, like I do, turn it on when I finish at work so it’s toasty warm when I get into bed when I get home.

Smart home

The box and advertising prominently display the Google Assistant and Alexa support baked in. There’s also excellent instructions on how to associate the Goldair Skill with either Alexa or Google Assistant.

While adding the skill to both Alexa and Google Assistant is easy, there’s not a huge amount of functionality with either skill. 

You can use voice commands to turn the blanket on or off, and even change the setting – “Hey Google/Alexa, turn ‘Device Name’ on” is the main command, however you can also add “Hey Google/Alexa, turn ‘Device Name’ to High (or setting 1-6 of your choice)”. 

Loading the Google Home app offered an excellent option for controlling the electric blanket, however the Alexa integration didn’t have as many options to control manually.

While you can use Alexa and Google Assistant to verbally turn them on, I  found myself simply loading the app or the Google Home app  and setting it up manually which is still a MASSIVELY easier way than having to go to the bedroom and physically turn it on.

Should you buy it?

If you’re like me and reaching peak cold nerd, this is a slam dunk. While the smart home integration could be improved, the app is excellent and the electric blanket itself with the fleece topper is quite comfy.

We’ve been using a mattress topper on our bed for years, but it’s been some time since we had a fleece one and it feels luxuriously soft to sleep on. The Electric Blanket component works well, heating up decently quickly and the six levels allow you to choose just how warm you want to be.

It’s easy to dismiss an electric blanket with spring so close at hand, but with the years seemingly flying by faster it’s worth checking it out for winter next year.