Deciding Between a Fire Pit and Patio Heater? Ninja’s Fireside360 Is Both

Spring’s arrival means it’s finally time to tiptoe outside. While warm days abound, evenings remain chilly, but a reliable patio heater or roaring fire pit can help extend your al fresco hangs. 

If you’re looking for outdoor warmth during the shoulder season and trying to decide between the two, Ninja’s $500 Fireside360 offers the best of both. The unique warmer is a patio heater-fire pit mashup offering targeted heat around the sides with a firepit center to add undeniable ambiance to your porch or patio at dusk.

In an impatient bid to turn April and May into true outdoor months, I hauled in the novel Ninja heater to see how much the Fireside could warm a few friends and me on chilly evenings. 

Here’s what I thought after a few weeks with the Fireside360.

Set up and use

The unit itself weighs about 40 pounds, so it was easy for me to move around the yard without help. Set up was as easy as it gets. All that’s needed is to remove the porcelain lava rocks, drop them into the fire pit center, attach a standard propane tank as you would for a grill, and you’re ready to fire up this patio warmer. 

The igniter worked as promised after holding it down for a few seconds, and the flame was adjustable, although I didn’t feel I could control it with the precision the advertising suggests.

How it works: Use as a patio heater, fire pit (or both)

The Fireside360 allows you to choose from three operating modes: a powerful outdoor heater (heat only), a smokeless fire pit (flame only) or both at once — all controlled by two dials.

It was a chilly evening, with temperatures dropping to about 40 degrees at one point, when some friends and I tested the Fireside360. We ended up using both heating modes and were able to sit around it comfortably for hours. When either just the side heater or the fire pit was at full blast, there was a noticeable drop in heat output. On a milder evening, using only one of the two heat sources might suffice.

The side heater wraps all the way around the unit, providing 360-degree warmth. While perhaps not as rustic or charming as a fire pit, the burners provided more targeted warmth than a traditional low-set fire that shoots its heat mostly up. 

The smokeless firepit was indeed smokeless, allowing us to get as close to it as we needed without any air-quality worries or the risk of smoky clothes. On the occasions when the wind kicked up, we noticed a slight reduction in heat output.

Ninja Fireside360 vs. a traditional patio heater

The key difference between a standard tower patio heater and the 360 comes down to vibes. Both types provide good warmth, but the Ninja version has an open-flame fire pit center, which is nice to look at, crowd around and warm your hands over on a chilly evening. The ceramic stones give the flame a natural look, even though it’s powered by a propane tank below

It’s lower to the ground and thus, less imposing than a tower heater. It also sends heat output from a lower place. Because heat famously rises, it stands to reason that more of the fire’s heat is delivered to target zones, so less of it wastefully drifts up above the humans gathered around it and into the atmosphere.

How much does the Fireside 360 cost? Is it worth it?

The combo patio heater and fire pit is listed for $499.99 at most online retailers, including Ninja’s own site.

What I liked most about the Fireside360 was the directed warmth. Fire pits send a lot of their heat up, so it’s necessary to crowd around, almost over the fire, to feel its full effects. The Fireside provides more of the target warmth of a patio heater with controlled burners, but at least some of the charm you get from a fire pit with a bowl of flames dancing on top. 

With 80,000 BTUs, it packed plenty of punch to warm me and some friends well into the evening on a chilly March night. All the power means it’ll burn a healthy amount of propane, too. We went through about half a tank in just a few hours with the heaters on full blast. 

At $500, it’s on par with other high-performance patio heaters and fire pits. If you want the best of both in one unit, the Fireside360 is one of the few options on the market that delivers.