Personally...I think they still are. They don't look like flame at all to me. If I needed the heat a cheap plug in heater would work as well to me, and for the ambiance...I'd use a fireplace cd, lol. But that's just me, I know they are quite popular now. I've had vent free propane and natural gas, direct vent natural gas and a woodstove and couldn't bring myself to have an electric one when we were thinking of an extra heater for our bathroom, after having had at least some other "fireplaces" at the time (we hadn't yet had the woodstove or propane VF).