If the repellent smell was gonna mess with the deer you couldn't use a Thermacell during the mosquito ...er... bow season . Nearly all of it will be exhausted when you use the pad for scent dispersal anyway . The distance from the heater couldn't make that much difference since it doesn't get hot enough to ignite the pad , it may also simply be a design change from the repellent model . I've used "shake n' bake" type handwarmers to warm scent pads before , maybe you could try that . They're a lot cheaper than Thermacell pads and they give off no scent at all .