Difference between "isolated" and "insulated" [duplicate]

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Difference in meaning in “insulation” vs. “isolation”?

What is the difference in meaning between isolated and insulated?

When you are isolated you are far away from other people or things (depending on the context). There are isolated areas, i.e. remote ones. There are also people who feel isolated among others because there is lack of communication.

When you are insulated from something you are protected from it. It can be literal and metaphorical. For example, you insulate your home to save energy (literal) using some protective material in the walls and roof. You can also be insulated from poverty when you have a steady income.

EDIT upon comment: After taking a look at the results you mention in your comments, I can say that when something is isolated, i.e. separated from heat by means of a material that leaves the item unaffected by heat, the result is that there is insulation, i.e. protection from heat. I would use insulation in this context, as it is a more usual term.

The difference is kinda subtle, as they both relate to the concept of preventing one thing from interacting with another thing but in my head the difference is that:

isolated: a statement that two things can't interact (for whatever reason)

insulated: implies that something has been done to alter the the thing being insulated

I'd suspect this ties in with @irene's answer, where isolated is a bit more passive (you're just away from things, which just happens to protect you) and insulated is a bit more active (in that you've had something done to protect you)

In the case of physical materials in a building/engineering/manufacturing context you almost always want to be talking about something that's been done to make the material different from what it would be normally (otherwise, it's kind of not something you'd be talking about), and so I'd probably suggest going with insulated to sound more natural - of course, if you're wondering what term to use when searching for materials, you might have to use both..

An additional nuance (again, in my head) is that its more natural to say that something is insulated with XYZ, and leave unspoken what it's insulated from (e.g.: the cable is insulated with plastic), but when you're talking isolation, it's more natural to say what you're isolating it from, but not need to say how (e.g.: the cable is electrically isolated).