Hot Bento – Self Heated Lunch Box and Food Warmer – Battery Powered, Portable, Cordless, Hot Meals for Office, Travel, Jobsite, Picnics, Outdoor Recreation, Kitchen Meal Prep

This works great for taking my lunch to work and heating it up. As a mail carrier it’s a struggle to get warm food but this works great. Only thing is that it takes an hour or two to charge up.

The first thing I worried about was the tray being a bit too shallow, but it works decent for my food servings. It does get the food hot in about 15 minutes and if used to reheat burgers, it actually gets a bit too hot in the time frame. Keep in mind that moist foods tend to get pretty hot as only the bottom of the pan gets hot. The juicier food will transfer heat better. Those are all positives.As for negatives, the largest negative, by far is that the device is completely glued together. This means that once your lithium-ion cells start to go bad, you are expected to trash the warmer and purchase another brand-new unit. I contacted the manufacturer about replacement batteries, but they simply ignored my email. As a comparison, LunchEAZE is another food warmer that is battery powered. The difference is that the company responds to email in one day and sell replacement parts. The battery can be replaced with a Philips screwdriver. They also use 8 lithium-ion cells in a 7.4-volt 2s4p. The Hot Bento uses only 4 cells in a 14.8-volt 4s1p configuration which will get hotter but for a shorter time. Expect to have under one year of usage from Hot Bento then to the trash it goes.The tray isn't removable which makes cleaning quite an annoying task as you are instructed to not run it under water. The included charger is a 1A 16.8v charger which takes a few hours to fully charge the warmer while the luncheaze includes a 3A charger. If Hot bento included an actual 2-amp charger, it would take nearly half the time to charge. This is what I do and get a full charge in a little more than 1 hour. Keep in mind that many 2-amp rated chargers lie about capacity. With some calculation, the device uses 8 amps during use while the Luncheaze can use up to 2 amps. Due to this design, the Luncheaze can actually run while plugged in if you forget to charge the device while the Hot bento cannot due to its included 1 amp charger and design. It would need more than 8 amps to run and charge simultaneously.When my battery fails in a few months, I plan on making this a device that I really like by adding 8 batteries in a 4s2p configuration and charging at 4-amps instead of 2.This thing can easily be made by using 2 thermoelectric blocks (which they use), a normally closed temperature disconnect switch, some relays, latching circuitry and a bms to disconnect the battery at low voltage. The batter charging is handled by a 4s smart charger.I fear that when the battery starts to lose capacity, the device will become completely worthless for those that expect a reliable product.UPDATE: I just had to lower the initial after realizing how important customer service is. I received a broken Luncheaze unit from someone that got theirs replaced with no questions asked almost a year after purchasing it. Hot Bento only has a 90-day warranty as it makes sense that they typically fail within a year and no replacement parts and a completely glued unit that serves to keep you from servicing the unit. I also have no plans on upgrading the unit as its just collecting dust now.Luncheaze customer support replied to my questions within a day and within a few minutes for the last few questions I had about replacement parts. The parts were shipped the following day and they worked out free shipping on the accessories that I purchased as an extra.Edit 2: notice the people with failed units exactly as I mentioned.

Five stars this is honestly a very very very good product. It’s easy to clean, but the only problem is that the latches of the lid break off but other than that it’s amazing. It heats up food very nicely it literally gets steaming hot.

Very good for heating children's food, not much food, you have to spread it evenly in layers because then it doesn't heat well, but my son used it in middle school and it worked wonderfully for him.

Was great while it's lasted gave me a good years worth of work until the battery stopped taking charge

It’s okay. Yes, it works. But it’s kinda quirky.Pros:-hot meals in remote locations without microwave or electricity-reasonably sized compartment for single meal-fairly durableCons:-cumbersome to clean (does not disassemble without destroying the unit)-sometimes uneven heating-battery gives you exactly 1 shot at warming up your food (does not keep food warm or reheat again without a several hours-long recharging)-comes with wall plug but not car plugOverall I will look at alternatives when it comes time to replace this unit. Perhaps something with the ability to wash, food tray comes apart, longer battery life and ability to plug into car outlet.

When I was pregnant and I had to cook dinner early for school, I could just heat it up right there in class and eat

Full disclosure. I don’t ever write reviews but I feel like people interested in this product should hear about my experience.I work in my truck so the idea of a heated lunch box I could charge to warm up my food was a game changer. They claim you can warm up a meal “3 times” on one charge. Most definitely NOT. It barely warmed one meal on one charge (and that was with me stirring the contents once after a few minutes as the instructions said). There is no indication on how charged the battery is. There is only one button and one light (indicating power is on and heating food).The final straw was the return process. There is no UPS, USPS, or drop off option. I had to pay for a shipment back to HONOLULU HAWAII which cost $57 (from California). Which was over half the cost of the item itself. Normally Amazon stands behind their products and provides hassle free shipping at little to no cost to the consumer. This was not the case. I still returned it on principle that it did not work as advertised. Pretty bummed on the whole experience.