IonGear Heated Gloves
Price: Click For Price
Score: 87/100
Where To Buy: Amazon
Category | Score |
---|---|
Comfort | 18/20 |
Warmth | 19/20 |
Water Resistance | 15/20 |
Quality | 17/20 |
Battery | 18/20 |
Overall Score | 87/100 |
IonGear Heated Gloves Overview
If you’ve done any type of internet research about heated gloves you’ve probably come across these IonGear heated gloves more than once in your search results.
I’ve come across them many times but because IonGear is a lesser known brand name I just kept putting them on the back burning so that I could review other more well known brands like Outdoor Research, VoltHeat or Gerbing.
I’ve got to the point where I’ve reviewed almost every pair of heated gloves on the market so it’s high time that I check out these IonGear heated gloves.
After looking into the company itself I’ve learned that it actually has a pretty good reputation despite not being very well known. Also the fact that the brand isn’t very well known hasn’t slowed down the sales of these gloves as they’re selling like hotcakes on Amazon this winter.
I know there are a lot of people that would be interested in buying these gloves if they only had a little more information on them so that’s where I come in.
Let’s get into the details now.
Comfort & Warmth
I was pretty impressed with the comfort level of these gloves. They have a pretty nice interior that’s 100% fleece so it’s very soft on the hand which is great if you have to wear them all day long.
They aren’t bulky at all in fact I’d even go as far as to say that they’re sleek looking and feeling especially considering you can wear them in extremely cold temperatures.
That’s the beauty of heated gloves, since they use electricity to keep your hands warm they don’t need to over use bulky insulation for warmth which is great for dexterity and comfort.
These gloves do however have some Thinsulate insulation so that they can at least retain the heat that they create.
That brings me to warmth. On the warmest setting these gloves claim to heat up to 135° Fahrenheit (57° Celcius) which I believe because they get really quite hot.
I actually had the perfect day to test them out because we’ve been having a real cold snap lately and it was -13° Fahrenheit (-25° Celcius) on the day that I tested them.
I was out hiking with my dog and it was really hard to keep warm but my hands were totally fine. I also really liked how the heat was evenly dispersed over all of the fingers and then the entire back of the hand.
I know that some people prefer the heat on the palm of the hand rather than the back but this is a matter of personal preference and I’m perfectly content with it on the back.
One cool thing about these gloves is that they actually have 4 settings of heat where as most heated gloves only have 3 settings.
This is nice as it allows you to pick your ideal temperature more precisely.
The temperatures they claim to reach are as follows…..
Level 1 – 90°F or 32°C
Level 2 – 105°F or 41°C
Level 3 – 120°F or 49°C
Level 4 – 135°F or 57°C
I didn’t have my thermometer out but I can assure you that it felt really warm on level 4 and I had to actually switch it down a level as it got too hot.
For the comfort category I’m giving these gloves a 18/20 and for the warmth category I’m giving them a 19/20.
Water Resistance
The exterior of these gloves is mostly nylon aside from the palm which is synthetic suede, non-slip, silicon screened.
The palm works really well for gripping things so you could easily wear these gloves skiing or in other activities where grip is important.
As great as the grip is for actually gripping things I found it to be just okay for water resistance. It started to absorb moisture after a while which made the gloves feel a bit soggy.
Since I was testing these gloves with the intent of reviewing them I made sure to handle the snow quite a bit to see how they performed.
I was making snowballs and holding them in the snow frequently to see how they held up and I wasn’t all that impressed.
Sure the nylon repels water pretty well and you have to be in some pretty wet conditions before your hands will actually get wet but eventually that will happen.
By the end of the day my hands were actually wet. So I’d say that these gloves are somewhat water resistant but not completely waterproof like some of the heated gloves I’ve reviewed.
For this category I’m giving these gloves a 15/20.
Quality
I think a lot of people are probably really interested to see what I have to say in terms of the quality of these gloves since the brand is relatively unknown.
I did a thorough inspection of all the parts like the battery, wrist strap, draw string, zippers and electrical plugs and it all looked pretty good to me.
I always like to tug on them and twist them just to see how they hold up and these gloves seem to be pretty well made upon initial inspection but only time will tell if they really last.
The materials they used seem to be average or slightly above average and the stitching all seems to be sufficiently durable.
Although they aren’t using super high end materials like Hestra or OR would I think for the price these are decent quality.
For this category I’m giving them a 17/20.
Battery
The battery life is the most complained about aspect of any heated gloves. In fact if you go to any online forum talking about heated gloves you’re sure to find multiple people moaning about the short battery life.
I was interested to see how these IonGear batteries held up because they have some pretty high claims.
They come with two lithium ion batteries and a charger that can charge them both at the same time.
They’re advertised to get up to 10 hours of heat on the lowest setting but that is very optimistic if not dishonest in my opinion. Here’s what they say you’ll get from these batteries.
I’ve yet to find any pair of heated gloves that will last 10 hours on the lowest setting and my instincts were right when I pessimistically doubted that they would get that much time.
My results were different but all in all not too bad especially considering the price. Here’s what I got.
Level 1 – 8 hrs
Level 2 – 5 hrs
Level 3 – 3.8 hrs
Level 4 – 2.2 hrs
So if you’ve read any of my other heated gloves reviews you’ll know that these results are pretty darn good even if they aren’t as good as they’re advertised to get.
The thing about heated gloves is that they all use the same technology when it comes to the batteries.
So even if you buy the most expensive pair on the market you’ll still get basically the same lithium ion batteries. The quality in the gloves will vary a lot between the pricey ones and the cheap ones but the heating times might not be that different.
For this category I’m giving them a 18/20.
Fit
I found that these gloves fit just a little bit big and I noticed some other reviews online were saying the same thing.
It’s a bit odd that they only come in 2 sizes. They come in a S/M or a L/XL. I normally wear a large in other gloves but the L/XL was a little loose.
I’m not sure if the smaller size would fit me properly but I think I would get the size down next time.
If you’re unsure of what size you should order you can have a look at our sizing guide just to be safe.
Final Thoughts
I was pretty impressed with these gloves especially considering Iongear heated gloves are not all that well known in the industry and they aren’t too expensive either.
I’ve seen some people saying that they bought these gloves for motorcycle riding which kind of surprised me but then I saw that IonGear was showing them in a photo being used on a motorcycle.
This seems odd to me since these gloves don’t offer any protection for motorcycle crashes. If you want a heated motorcycle glove you should buy one that is specifically made for that activity as there are a lot of them and they offer much better protection.
With that being said these gloves are versatile because you can use them for pretty much any outdoor activity from walking or running to sledding or skiing.
I think you should feel confident in buying these gloves even if you’ve never heard of IonGear before.
Thanks very much for stopping buy today and I hope you found this review helpful. If you have any questions or comments please use the field below and I’ll be sure to get back to you ASAP.
Cheers,
Robert