Noob question--safest way to provide sufficient heat?

[Pythonfriend]

with a good thermostat, you can run any heat source safely, independent on how much watts it has maximum.

heck, while i would advise against it, with a really good thermostat you could theoretically use a 1500 watt cooking plate capable of getting a pot of water to boil in minutes. a good thermostat can regulate anything down to 5 or 10 watts or whatever is required, even a heat stone or lightbulb.

one functionality of thermostats, or heat rocks with an internal thermostat, is not being talked about enough, and that is how exactly they fail if they fail. some fail gracefully, meaning if they fail, they fail into an off-state and go cold because there is safety added that ensures that they dont fail in the wrong way but shut off completely. some, especially old ones, do not have it, and often fail by getting stuck at 100% maximum energy output. meaning hurting the reptile or in the worst case taking a reptile down with them.

every device of every design can fail; good ones fail gracefully, meaning in a way that their failure does not cause further collateral damage. some even notify you with an alarm when they fail. for extreme examples of stuff not failing gracefully, think rockets, nuclear power plants, or bluescreens in older windows versions. or heating systems that burn your house down.