Venture Battery Heated Gloves

Venture (Epic Series) Battery Heated Gloves

Why Heated Gloves?
After my trusty heated hand grips finally gave up the ghost after 7 years a few mates said heated gloves were well worth the investment. So I decided to try them. When I first saw these gloves advertised I thought they’d be cumbersome, chunky and stiff. But they are surprisingly very soft and flexible.

Design
They’re ergonomically designed with gel pads in the palm and knuckle area, and cover well up your arm. They are not a liner, they replace your normal gloves. Made with good quality vinyl materials with genuine lamb skin leather on the palm and fingertips. A velcro adjustable strap across the back of the wrist and an adjustable self-locking elastic thingamajig you pull to ensure a good seal well past your wrist.

Gloves

How do they work?
Thin micro fibre heating elements inside the glove trace around the perimeter of the hand and top of the fingers so warmth is circulated throughout your hand.

heating-element
A small button (the controls) on the back of each hand lights up 3 heat settings for low medium and high.   Two small light weight rechargeable slimline Lithium-Ion batteries sit in the cuff of each glove, where the tiny coax plugs also hide.
To recharge you just unzip the side of the cuff and hook the connectors up to your portable adapter charger which comes with it or they can be removed very easily to recharge as well.   

Glove battery 

 How long do they stay hot and dry?
The official website states you can get continuous heat for up to 8 hours per charge on low, 4-5 hours on medium, and 2 on high. I tend to stop more frequently for rests and always turn them off then, and I can get 4-5 hours on medium to high. Unfortunately if the battery runs out before your end destination it’s a heavy disappointment. While the gloves are still fairly good even without the battery heat, I’ve learned to take liners and even a second pair of gloves with me on longer trips just in case. The gloves are rain proof to an extent but certainly not torrential rainproof. I never go anywhere without my rain proof over gloves packed, so I don’t really care.

 

Where can you buy them?
You can only get the Venture on line.  They are not available in the shops. I got mine from Venture Australia within 24 hours of leaving for a big trip. The staff were extremely helpful. There’s also a guide on their website to measuring your hand so you can order the correct size and videos of almost all their products in action – which by the way also includes heated jackets and vests, portable heated wraps for the neck, shoulder, back and elbows, heated pants liners, shoe insoles and glove liners! These guys are GOOD!

Written by Allicat

 Addendum 28 April 2014: Since Alli wrote this review the Venture Gloves people have made contact and provided an Australian sales link and advised that flat rate shipping of $10 applies to a sale and can get to you in 1-2 days compared with $35 and 5-10 days from US site, so here are the current links:
www.ventureheat.com.au or www.zarkie.com.au