Heated Gloves, or Heated Grips? Hmmm…
Keis has introduced a new competitor to the playing field when it comes to keeping warm towards the end of the riding season. Their new G701 heated gloves provide battery-powered heat to your hands when riding or shoveling the sidewalk.
These gloves are designed with one primary objective – to keep you warm. They’re waterproofed due to the ‘hydrophobic Ballistic Spandex’ outer shell (whatever that means…) and have 3m Thinsulate insulation (I know what this means) that is paired with heating panels to keep your hands warm.
So to get this out of the way before going further, I wouldn’t say these are quite as armored up like your typical riding glove. The gloves that I currently wear are covered in carbon fiber armor plates (all over), and I have full confidence in their protection. Keis claims the gloves have “flexible soft armour across the knuckles and scaphoid sliders on each palm”, which IS protection, but to what degree in the important question.
When it comes to power the heating elements, you’re going to be keeping these babies plugged in unless you buy their 2600mAh battery packs separately from the gloves. I couldn’t imagine buying Racer’s new Heated Vest and being expected to provide my own power source or pay for battery power separately given the already high cost to own.
With a price tag of $260 USD, you may as well just go ahead buy some heated grips for your bike if you’re looking to get a product like this specifically for riding. Although it’s good to keep in mind that you cant attach those grips to your shovel when clearing snow in the winter, you can also just buy a pack of HotHands for $10 and send it with similar results. Who knows, maybe I’m wrong and these $260 heated gloves are a game-changer, but my Yamaha OEM heated grips just died and it’s about half the price to replace those as it is to buy these gloves.