Ökoform Miniöko Heated Desk review: you'll warm to this lightweight desk

The Ökoform Miniöko Heated Desk is not just a desk. When the weather gets colder, it’s tempting to do as much work as possible from underneath a blanket – but that’s often the most productive spot. The Ökoform Miniöko Heated Desk aims to keep you warm while seated at your desk, leaving you free to work as you please.

Anyone who works from home will be wanting to keep energy bills down and heating yourself rather than your home is known to be the most strategic way of staying warm this winter. I tested out ökoform's Miniöko, the brand’s standard table design, setting up my laptop and one monitor for a week’s worth of writing and graphic design work to see if it could claim a place among the best desks for your home office. Here’s what I found.

Ökoform Miniöko Heated Desk review: Setup

The initial process of building the Miniöko is straightforward, with an Allen key included for assembly. It comes in four parts: the desktop, two legs, and a cross-banded support for the back of the desk and I built it by myself in about 10 minutes.

Despite containing hidden electrics within the top of the desk, the entire piece is fairly lightweight when built, so easy to move around the room and find the perfect spot. You will of course need to be near a wall plug, so that the desk can be plugged into the mains. The cable isn’t that long, so I found myself needing an extension cord to plug it in.

Ökoform Miniöko Heated Desk review: Design

At 120cm by 60cm, the desktop isn’t massive, but large enough for me to set up my laptop, a monitor, keyboard, and have enough room to doodle in my notebook at the side.

The look of the desk is clean and simple: a choice of white or black metal legs and then a smooth surface in black, white, or oak for the tabletop. I had white legs with an oak desktop and I liked the minimalistic design.

The switch for the heated function is one the front right of the desk, the only apparent clue that this desk is not your average piece of furniture. The cable itself is tucked away underneath the desk and easy to hide with the rest of your cable management.

Ökoform Miniöko Heated Desk review: Use

Now we come to the main event: does it help to stay warm? I’m based in Edinburgh and the Scottish weather had just started to get its wintry bite. I’m often freezing in my office, with my radiator on the other side of the room, so I was keen to see how much of a difference the Miniöko made.

The Miniöko takes around 20 minutes to heat up and the same to cool down, so you do essentially need to keep it on all the time, as you quickly cool down again once it’s turned off. The entire surface of the desktop heats up, starting in two patches on the left and right and slowly spreading to cover the entirety of the desk.

Ultimately, it does an excellent job of keeping not just hands and arms warm, but your whole body. What’s more, when I shut my office door, it quickly warmed up my entire (albeit small) office.

While I was warm, I did notice that my desk accessories also heated up. Once the desk had been on for an hour or so, my wireless keyboard did start to get quite warm. I also tested out my laptop directly on the surface and it did start whirring and getting quite warm. Once I raised it up onto a stand, however, it didn’t seem to be affected by the heat.

However, that’s well worth a consideration if you’ll have tech sitting directly on your desk, or if you need to write or draw directly onto the surface. I even added a leather mat under my keyboard and mouse and the heat quickly seeped through.

It didn’t cause any harm to my keyboard aside from warming it up, however, which for me was well worth the pleasure of not having ice-cold fingers when I’m trying to type. The only downside for me was that there’s only on or off, with no inbetween. That means if you get too warm or your keyboard needs a break, you have to turn it off, wait to get cold again, then switch it back again. I could have done with a bit more finesse in finding the right temperature for me.

Ökoform Miniöko Heated Desk review: Price

The Miniöko retails at £349, with the standing desk option, the Miniöko - up, selling for £549. While this is more than your average desk, it saves you from buying a separate standing heater or heating the room at all, doing an excellent job of heating both you and the surrounding space.

The cost of running the desk is also in pennies rather than pounds, with my smart meter barely noticing a blip when I ran it for virtually eight hours a day.

For me, the £349 cost is well-justified, when you remember that you’re not just buying a desk, but also an effective heating solution.

Should you buy the Ökoform Miniöko Heated Desk?

At first, I was sceptical as to how a heated desk would work, worried primarily that it would affect my laptop and monitor or get uncomfortably hot throughout the day. However, I have been fully converted.

While I do wish there had been some sort of heat adjustment so you could find the perfect level instead of just switching it off altogether, I’m not quite sure if I can go back to my non-heated desk life. As a writer, I’m at my desk typing away for most of the day and often lose feeling in my fingers. The Miniöko didn’t just solve that problem, but also kept my entire body warm in the Scottish chill, all the way down to my feet.

If you struggle with the cold, it’s definitely worth the investment before the winter. However, as warned above, if you spend a lot of time leaning on your desk for drawing or have technology that needs to be in direct contact with it, it might not suit your needs.