I know what you mean and I agree with you but it's very misleading to put it the way you do.

Infrared "rays", like all electromagnetic radiation, have essentially infinite range. They travel until they interact with something, which may be all the way across the visible Universe.

They spread out, too, and that's why there's that inverse-square falloff with distance. So, yes, if you are twice as far from your IR heater you will be getting 1/4 the illumination -- that is, 1/4 the warmth -- from it. And since the air is transparent to the IR, the air isn't warmed by it, only the surfaces that "see" the IR are warmed by it.

IR radiant heaters are good for spot heating of persons, right up close. They are not good for heating volumes of air.

All the input power to the heater eventually ends up heating the environment. But which parts of the environment do you want to heat up first?

Infrared light isn't really "transparent" in air.  Greenhouse gases absorb infrared light. This effect results in vibration of greenhouse gas molecules in the presence of the infrared radiations.  As the greenhouse gas molecules vibrate, dipole moments are formed and warm up the space which the greenhouse gases occupy.

Halogen type infra-red heaters are very efficient compared to hot air blower heaters. They provide instant localized heating on the person just 1kw or less is often enough to feel very warm. An electric hot air blower on the other hand must heat all the volume of air passing though it which often takes 3Kw to feel the same heating effect at the same distance away from the heaters. Of course they both heat up the room eventually but its a waste of energy to do this unnecessarily especially  where one is trying to save money.

If you want or need to heat up the entire room using electric then use Heat pumps or Air Con units which provide 3-4kw of heating for 1kw energy input. This is an OU device COP>3

bolt

thats funny you mention this ...
as i was yesterday  working on a unit that does this ... smaller scale ..  i was trying to acheive overunity operation .. 

but the  way i left the unit was like this .. 10w haligon  a 12 volt fan .. running along time on a small 12v battery
both operating on high frequency electricty .. a motor and a light  and i was recovering  to a boost cap to  close the loop

insted .. ill build a heater ..

can i call it the bolt?  i made a lot of videos of it .. and demonstrating  the effects .. witch are verry kool...
as i hooked up the cap the long spikes dissapear  i hook up the light and the motor  the medium spikes dissapear

and im left  with a nice wave   witch is the pulseing curcit  it is verry efficient  but NOT OVERUNITY..  darn close .. if i added up all the work and the recovered energy  it is ou .. but .. it aint good enough yet

the recovered energy  is to be pumped back into the source via ferroite transformer cap charger running low volt high freq  the concept is sound and i have prototyped all angles ..

ill keep at it ..  i post this hear  as it is IF and gets darn hot from 10 watts ...

william