IncenseApprentice
I think pictures wouldn't help you much. I have several spread over the house and most of them are DIY. And from the three I bought, one is actually a lab stand, my first one is a super simple, ugly 8€ thing I haven't seen for purchase in years and the other one is nice, but there are better options available now.
But I gladly help you to pick one.
I'm gonna use Amazon links to show you what to look out for:
I have basically this one (without the ornament at the bottom, in the brass variant). It's good, but the problem is, that the metal screw becomes really hot, so you basically can't adjust the height as soon as the thing is going. I'm ok with that but for a beginner, it will likely be a major frustration.
There are ones with a wooden knob. A friend had one and after a while, the knob came off because the wood was damaged by the heat. He often had it on a ridiculously low setting, though.
However, this seems to be a common problem, as there are now more variations of this burner on the market who have a prolonged screw bit. This is one, but there are some with even longer rods. People on reddit say those can handle the heat.
What I like about this model is, that an empty tealight cup will fit into the top part (loosely but without falling through the hole if you take out the mesh.) I like to use clean tealight cups to put the incense in. Popsicle sticks are great to clean the spent incense out. I use them as along as possible to make it more sustainable.
They make clean-up easy, and you can have a set of them ready and swiftly switch between them if you want to compare different incenses.
Tweezers and a tiny spoon would be ideal tools to come with a heater. I like the angled tweezers best.
I do have an electric one as well that I bought on AliExpress. It cost about as much as a some of those tealight heaters.
Here's a link to the one I bought. I hope the link is valid.
I used it for a 6-week phase when I wasn't at home and couldn't use a tealight one; I still occasionally use it.
I can fully recommend it, but there's a caveat. This works with both EU and US voltage. There's a fair chance those heaters have less power with US voltage, but I'm a total noob when it comes to electronics.
Maybe @EspritDeLaNature can offer some experience regarding this. Do Canada and the US use the same voltage?
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BTW your blog post on Agarwood was a fun read. It reminded me of this reddit post. 😃