I`ve never used an immersion heater, so I could be wrong, but they don`t look very handy to me. Since you need an electric outlet, if you`re able to make use of one you`re able to just as easilly walk across the street to a gas station for your coffee or microwaved food. I don`t know what they weigh, but it must be fairly comparable to the weight of a Pepsi stove, small pot, and small bottle of HEET, which would give you the same cup of boiling water much faster pretty much anywhere you happen to find yourself. The one situation I can think of where the immersion heater would be better than an alcohol stove would be staying in a motel- you could plug in and heat your water right in the room as opposed to having to step out and heat water outside your door with a stove. Then again, most motel rooms I`ve stayed in recently have had coffee pots in the room already.