system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Does an X watt appliance also act as an X watt heater?

To my understanding the energy that goes into an appliance plugged into your wall is lost in the form of heat and light (which eventually bounces around your room enough times to also become heat).

Does this mean that any appliance that produces heat as a byproduct is equally efficient as an electric space heater?

Does this mean running a PC in a thermostat heated room is essentially free, on account of the heat from the PC meaning the space heater has to run less?

If this isn't the case, then where does the excess energy from the appliance go, if not into the room the appliance is in?

This dumb question brought to you by, me fussing about energy bills this winter! Also a bit of natural curiosity since no answer feels obvious in an intuitive sense to me.
gpt
Yes, assuming it's actually drawing X watts. All of the energy that comes out of the wall has to go somewhere, and heat is the overwhelming majority of it (you'll probably lose some tiny amount of it through light out of the window and such). 

> Does this mean running a PC in a thermostat heated room is essentially free, on account of the heat from the PC meaning the space heater has to run less?

Yes, *assuming that your heating is all electroresistive*. If you have gas heating, or a heat pump, then this will not be the case, because in the former case gas is cheaper per unit energy than electricity, and in the latter a heat pump can be considerably more than 100% efficient.