How to manipulate/deactivate auto-off timer of heated throw

Factual Questions
1

In the winter, I like to keep my house cool at night to save on my heating bill. I have a heavy goosedown comforter, but I wanted to extend its range, so I went to the store to look at heated blankets.

A heated blanket for my queen size bed was $80. From the same manufacturer, a heated throw was $25. The heated throw is about the size of a full size bed, but I figured that this heated blanket would be under a comforter, so it’d be okay.

When I got home, I realized that the heated throw has an auto off timer set for 3 hours. This is problematic, because about 4-7 hours into sleep is when the house is the coldest, and that is when the heated throw is most useful. The heated blanket has a timer for 10 hours.

I want to make the heated throw work for my needs. An extra $65 for a heated blanket starts to cut into the cost benefit justification of buying a heated blanket vs using more gas heat.

Is there a way to either manipulate the auto off timer (say, set it to 10 hours) OR deactivate it completely? I assume deactivating it completely will be easier.

2

Don’t do it. It may not be meant to be used for such a length of time and could overheat or fail catastrophically sooner. Messing with the wiring runs the risk of causing a fire too.

3

Having had heated blankets which suffocated me all my life, my wife and I decided to look at other options a few years ago. The blankets had manual on/off switches on them if I recall. After talking to others we decided to try a heated mattress padwith a built-in 10-hour timer. It only cost about $60, and the heat coming from below versus above made a big difference in terms of comfort. YMMV

4

I second this. The fact that the timer is set to only 3 hours is likely a safety feature. There would be no good reason to deactivate it.

5

You could plug it into a timer switch so that it comes on at 2 am or whenever.

6

If it’s a Sunbeam, there are how-to’s online for opening the control panel and soldering in a new connection. The controller is capable of both 3 hour and 10 hour operation.

Obviously no one here is going to recommend that you do it, for fear of causing a fire. But, I’d bet that the blanket is more than capable of sustaining use for 10 hours. I’m no electrical engineer, but selling a blanket that could fail simply through use would be irresponsible, and your blanket would be featured on the 6 o’clock news for burning houses down.

What if (like I do) you turn the blanket on again (sometimes repeatedly) after the 3 hour timer has expired? I would imagine that peak temperature for the system is reached well before the 3 hour time limit, and that peak temperature is easily sustained by the hardware.

7

Or buy two throws have one activate when you go to sleep and have the second one come on via the timer switch 3-4 hours later.

Seems like a lot of work that spooning with your SO throughout the night should solve.

8

Need to check to make sure if the blanket has a ground plug, the timer does also. I have not recently been able to find a timer that will accept a grounded plug (didn’t look very hard).

It stuns me that proper bedding can’t keep a person warm. An easy fix might be to buy a pull over hooded well made sweat shirt. I often wear one, and just put the hood up. Makes a big difference. It’s cozy, especially if you keep your house cold like we do.