Development of new techniques has stimulated new interest in fluidized bed‐to‐surface heat transfer phenomena. In this paper a short critical review of major recent works on the subject as well as comments on the validity of some general concepts and of “small scale” equations available are presented. It appears that these concepts can serve as a basis for future development of reliable design equations for large commercial equipment and for analysis of its performance. Examples of the analysis of imperfectly understood observations are presented.