No, today's electric fireplaces are nothing like the cheesy ones from 15-20 years ago. There are many,many different kinds. I had a conventional wood-burning masonry fireplace years ago when it seemed cool to pretend I needed to chop wood and build a fire
Then I moved to a gas insert. Even had remote control start. Much easier and cleaner, but still a bit messy and you've still got an open flame inside your home (before I retired,I investigated the charred remains of house fires, usually caused by fireplaces, so I may be biased
). In our RV, we have a Dimplex electric fireplace similar to this one:
Dimplex-36-inch-Revillusion
Love it. It's our main heat source (also have a heat-pump ducted thru the ceiling and a gas furnace ducted through the floor but we're usually not in a cold enough climate to use them). Looks great. No mess. Turn the switch and you've got 'fire', turn the other switch you've got heat. Disclaimer: I'm really old and prefer very simple, low-maintenance things that don't tend to catch fire.
