Heated Gloves

Summer might be the wrong time to bring up the subject of warm gloves, but here goes:
These past few years, my digits have gotten progressively more sensitive to cold, so I've been on a quest for a way to keep my hands warm on the slopes. I've tried several gloves (I prefer them to mittens), including the OR Super Couloir. It had great reviews, but for me it was just OK, and frequently needed supplementation with chemical heat packs; and my fingertips still got cold when the ambient temperature would fall below ~10 degrees F. A couple of years ago I bought Zanier Heat GX gloves from Cozy Winters. They didn't seem to work that well. An additional frustration was the customer service at Cozy Winters, but to make a long story short, it's possible that the batteries (NiMH) with my gloves were defective. After two years, I have a new set of batteries. They now seem to work more reliably. I'm not sure how effective they will be. Technology has moved on: There is this product which could work as a heated liner:
http://www.v5glove.com/
This is a second generation design, and I wonder if anyone out there has any experience with the first generation product. I recently received a solicitation for half off the gloves--for delivery in October--if I order by June 24th. Might be worth a try.
Except that Mountain Hardwear is planning to release a heated glove called the Red Savina in early fall.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9859120-16.html
It's pricey at MSRP $300. Probably worth a try?
I've also heard a rumor of a heated glove from OR called the "Prima Volta".
It's not even ski season, and I'm already thinking of investing $450 dollars in gloves...

Reusch came out with heated gloves for this past season, might be worth checking out.

Last years glove was Ok not the best, it had problems with the connections, this years looks much better, a more powerful, secure and low profile battery system, their highest setting last year is know their lowest, so that's cool, customer support last year was good. hope this helps cheers camski

Camski, are you referring to the last years' Vaso glove?
I went ahead and preordered a pair of V5 gloves.

I can not find a prcture of this product (V5) on a real person's hand. How do these things work? What is the heating component? Where does the battery mount and how is it mounted?

The V5 isn't on the market yet, but I believe that the prototypes were tested in Vail earlier this year.
As far as I know (I haven't seen or tested one yet), the gloves are made to fit snugly--with heating elements on the fingerpad side of the finger (not the nail side). A slim lithium-ion battery (700-800mAh) snaps into a receptacle on the wrist of the glove and sends out pulses to the heating elements. Supposedly, each pulse heats the elements briefly to 160 degrees F. It is the frequency of the pulses that determines the overall heat level, and inversely, the duration of heating.

Looking for info on Google I found heated gloves at carolwrightgifts.com for $12.95! I wonder what kind of functionality you would have with the cheap heated & insulated gloves from carol wright and some gauntlet style mittens over the top of them. I do not like mittens but I have a pair of oversized lightly insulated mittens that fit over my spring gloves. I might just try over a pair of these $12.95 gloves to see if they would last a few runs on a cold day.

They are not worth the money.
Get a good pair of gloves or better yet mittens and add some chemical handwarmers if you need them instead.

I skied at Vail and Beaver Creek 2 seasons ago when the high temps in the day were -15f. With wind chill it was -45-50. Keeping my hands warm was a challenge, but I did great all day. Most people under dress their core especially in very cold temps. The second your core has the slightest chill you can pretty much forget about your hands and feet. In super cold temps it is the only shot anyone has of keeing their digiits warm.

I ski regularly in Montana, and it is frigid often. I now have limited issues with my hands and feet becuse I dress properly and keep my core well protected.

I am not trying to stop anyone from buying battery pack gloves, and they may indeed be super (and I may get some myself). They will work even better with extra layers on the core.

I remember. I was skiing Copper, and just couldn't keep my digits warm. I bought a pair of OR Super Couloir gloves, and thicker socks, and used multiple chemical warmers a day. And then I started using electricity to help keep me warm. I bought Therm-ic insoles and Zanier Heat GX gloves. I began paying better attention to keeping my core warm--and you're right: nothing's gonna work too well at the digits if the core is chilly.
Now I've found I can get pretty warm at the feet with the insoles, additional mylar insulation around the inner boot, and neoprene bootgloves. Counterintuitively, thinner socks work better. I now use the battery powered heat only supplementally.
The hands are a different matter--I'm still searching for a good all around solution. Last year I was using Black Diamond Mercury mitts with supplemental chemical warmers. Worked well. Sometimes too warm. And of course, it wasn't as cold last winter (Except for that last week of December at Winter Park). But I prefer gloves and would like to find a glove solution. So I'm re-exploring the possibility of battery powered heat for the hands. I'm certainly not giving up skiing for the lame excuse that my fingers and toes might fall off.

Update

I was looking forward to trying out the Mountain Hardwear Red Savina heated glove this season. It was scheduled to be out this fall, but the latest news from their customer service is that it will not be available until February, 2009. That might be a bit late in the season to commit to an expensive, untested product.
I did go ahead and preorder the Vaso V5 glove, which as far as I know is still scheduled for delivery in October.
Early predictions are for a snowy, cold winter...

Heated gloves? Seriously?!

I prefer light gloves and have trouble finding goretex gloves that are light enough for most days. If it is low single digits or below 0f or so I will go to mittens. I guess if it was -15 or so I would look into liners. Some heavily insulated gloves for climbing or winter camping have hand warmer pouches. I am not sure why anyone would you ever want an heated glove for skiing.

Some people get cold hands easily. It can interfere with a good day of skiing.

I have a friend who picked up a cheap pair of ski gloves with a bladder located near the hand, not the fingers. When you squeeze the blader the heat is circulated to the finger tips. It works from body heat in the hand or from chemical packs on cold days. He tells me that this set up actually works

Hedgeskier's point about core temp. and cold fingers and toes is a good one. The opposite holds true for goggles that fog up.

Step 1: Find me
Step 2: Trade gloves with me on the lift
Step 3: Trade back at top.

result: you get toasty warm gloves and my gloves don't turn into sweaty blocks of ice by midafternoon.

This problem of an efficient, durable, effective heated glove sounds like one I wouldn't want to solve. Heating relatively big and clunky and well insulated objects like boots has proven hard enough.

Updates

I'm still waiting for my vaso V5 glove. Some apparently have already shipped, and I'm supposed to get my pair within 2-3 weeks. I wonder if anybody on this forum has already seen a pair?

The Mountain Hardwear Red Savina heated glove has had manufacturing delays, and will not be out until possibly midwinter. It uses "Aevex" technology, which apparently is the same system in The OR Primovolta glove. The Primovolta IS available. It is priced $40 less than the Red Savina. As far as I can determine, the gloves differ in construction, insulation, placement of the heating elements (palm side for MH, back side for OR). Anybody out there with a Primovota?
The Reusch Solaris is also available apparently. Anybody seen this glove?

Ding ding ding. We've got a winner.

Keep your core temperature up. Keep your head warm. If you do that and engage in a moderate amount of activity, the excess heat will flow to your extremities. No more cold feet or hands.

Good gloves help, of course. But I've never been tempted by the electric gloves or those chemical heat packets. And I've skied at Searchmont when it's 35 below.

I just purchased a pair of the Zanier heated gloves and am very happy with them!


http://cozywinters.com/shop/zs-hgx.html

Costco sells boxes of 40 or 50 handwarmers for $15. Get some good unheated gloves and if your hands get too cold throw in some handwarmers. Its much easier and more reliable than dealing with batteries and wiring.

Walt, your point on core temperature is well taken, but some people will still get cold digits, particularly those with peripheral vascular disease or any type of Raynaud's phenomenon or other vasospastic issues. I think it's great that your digits are untroubled by -35 degree cold. We are not all so lucky.

Rio, I've found that those chemical warmers work fairly well with mittens, not so well with gloves.

I recently received a pair of the v5 glove liners. It is a great idea and design and initially (i.e. for several hours) worked like a charm. Unfortunately the batteries died more quickly then advertised. I called the company and they said they had some problems with the earlier batteries. 3 days later I received a whole new glove system (the customer service of this company is phenomenal). I'm trying it out this weekend and I'll post my experience.
Last year I tried the Zanier. If you really have problems with circulation, I wouldn't bother. The first two settings don't make that much difference and the third setting lasts only about 2-3 hours meaning you would need to spend money on at least one other set of batteries. Besides, they are about the ugliest gloves I've ever seen! The vaso is a brilliant idea because you can wear it under a relatively light well made glove. Additionally, they ship you two batteries per glove which means you can get the liners to a nice temperature and not worry about running out of juice.

I appreciate the Vaso feedback. I've been thinking about them but was waiting for opinion.

Please post back after you've had more experience

I also have cold digit issues. I'll stuff the chemical handwarmers into the toes of my boots while I drive to the mountain. Once there, I keep the warmers in my gloves. If I take a break and head inside for 10-15 minutes (which cold toes often require) I'll stuff the warmers back into my boots while inside.

v5 followup

I used the v5 glove liners at 7 springs in Pittsburgh this weekend. It was 5 degrees F and I set the batteries to the #2 setting. The gloves were great. Unfortunately, after 2 hours they were out of power. According to the instruction booklet, I'm supposed to get about 4 hours out of them at this setting. While I have 2 sets of batteries for each glove, with only 2 hours per battery, this wouldn't last a day on the slopes. I have an email into the company to find out what's up. One of the problems with all rechargeable batteries is they tend to crap out at very cold temps. It may be these liners are better at more reasonable climates i.e. teens and twenties. I'll keep you posted. I still think the design is great and that these are the best way to go. If you're like me, even the chemical heaters don't do it since they provide no direct heat to the fingertips. However, spending another 90$ for an additional set of batteries starts to drive the cost of the liners up significantly.

Them Dobies be cold in general.

Boot Gloves + toe heater on the outside?

Do you have the Endurance system or just the Sprint version...Endurance has 4 batteries, Sprint only has two and if you ck out their website, they only recommend the Endurance model for skiing.

I have the endurance - the only difference is that you get two sets of batteries so they should last twice as long. That would be great if you indeed get 3 - 5 hours out of a battery. Since I only got two hours out of mine, that means you get only 4 hours out of the "endurance" system. You'd need to buy another set or two of batteries to last a whole ski day.

Do you know how long would they last on the #1 setting? Several members of my family use the boot heaters. At first they wanted to keep their feet warm and they were unhappy with them. A ski shop suggested they concentrate on trying to prevent their feet from getting cold instead of making them warm and it made all the difference. On bitterly cold days (like 5 degrees F) they want to take a break every two hours anyway to warm up their face and torso so I don't know how they would fare if they stayed out longer.

I get it...so I guess your conclusion is that the technology is not quite ready for primetime(?)...boot heaters strike me the same way...there is still nothing out there that really works...I use the hotronics, but barely moves the needle in my view.

Haven't tried the 1 setting - on 2 in 5 degree weather my hands were still on the cold but tolerable stage, so I don't think one would have done it. For those of us with truly poor fingertip blood flow, I'm guessing these gloves are fine for your typical ski day out west with temps starting in the single digits, but rapidly rising into the twenties or thirties. When it's really cold you can still use them in a mitten. I'm trying to preserve my dexterity by using gloves. Suffice it to say, I'm still experimenting with them. The company is very receptive, and I'm guessing I'll get some further insights about battery life.