2021 Heated Gloves Comparisons--Black Diamond v. OR v. Lenz v. Hestra v. Sierus v. Chaval

[Tahoma]

Anyone have experience with the Seirus Hellfire gloves? A ski buddy of mine got them last winter, loved them. They claim to provide 10+ hours of heat on the low setting, and seem to be more available than the Lenz 6.0 gloves (or the new Lenz 8.0 lobster mitts). Checked out the OR website, looks like they replaced the Capstones with the Prevail glove.

 

[Ice Queen]

Lucky you! For those of us with serious circulation issues - I take a heart medication seasonally to try and increase my circulation - those are not even close to an option. I have all sorts of mittens since gloves are laughable, unless it is spring skiing, or I am skinning. Hestra, Free the Powder, Gordini down, etc. These each work fairly well with chemical warmers on moderate days, although I pull my thumbs in on the lift every time. Nothing else works like a heated mitt.


Free the Powder are my favorite unheated mitts/gloves - inexpensive and good quality.

Yeah the thumbs are the issue for me too. Why doesn’t someone make a heated mitten or glove that only heats the fingers and fingertips? It would conserve the battery I’m sure.

 

[BS Slarver]

@Tahoma
We ski the hellfire glove here. When they work, they are awesome. With 200+ days you can expect to send them back at least once but customer service is great.
Next few days, highs will be single digits, they will be key part of the kit.
Like all the heated stuff expect some hiccups from time to time.

 

[Crested Butte Senior]

I have had the Chaval Supernova heated mitts since January 2020 at $425 and have been quite disappointed with the reliability of their heating system. I have returned them 3 times for continuing issues which persist and still have not been correctly repaired. The mitts themselves are very well made, but the heating system is unreliable with repair times regularly exceeding 8 weeks. The last time I called customer service, they did not answer their phone but did reply via email with no name attached to the communication. Overall I give the mitts a C- because of the above issues.

 

[Gina D]

After years of numerous brands I have been happy this year with the Seirus Hellfire Mittens. The Outdoor Research Capstone's worked but were unreliable, the Lenz 4.0 Heated gloves worked well, but weren't anywhere near warm enough. Batteries are very powerful in the Hellfire's too.

 

[Henry]

My new-for-this-winter OR Prevail gloves have already crapped out. A bad switch. OR's warranty might be the best, but I don't want a replacement pair if this model is junk. (I see that OR is selling all sizes of the Prevail for half off...suggesting that they want to get rid of them maybe for something better for 23/24.) I'll file my warranty claim in the fall and hope for a new, better model. The Prevail fit too tight for most hands in any case, adequate length but skimpy breadth for many hands.

 

[David Chaus]

After years of numerous brands I have been happy this year with the Seirus Hellfire Mittens. The Outdoor Research Capstone's worked but were unreliable, the Lenz 4.0 Heated gloves worked well, but weren't anywhere near warm enough. Batteries are very powerful in the Hellfire's too.

Agree about Lenz 4.0 not being as warm, but the Lenz 5.0 is much better with the heat directed to fingers. Plus you can get the RCB 1800 batteries instead of the standard RCB 1200, the 1800’s last longer and provide more heat.

I didn’t find the Capstones themselves to be unreliable, rather the batteries can get easily damaged because the two halves of each battery can get twisted or spread apart when removing them from the gloves, breaking the connection. OR will replace those without questions, but it happened enough times before I figured out how to treat them with kid gloves, that I really like how the Lenz connect securely. I haven’t used the OR in the last 2 seasons.

 

[Evan's Dad]

I bought Hestra liners for my wife to put into her Hestra Army Leather shells. Purchased the same size as her shells but they didn't even come close to fitting. We ended up putting them in another mitten shell and she loves them. Battery life is good and she usually keeps it on the lowest setting unless the temp is in the single digits. I don't understand why Hestra would design a liner that doesn't fit in their shells?

Bottom line, after a 25 day season with some VERY cold single digit days, she recommends the Hestra liners but you will need to size up the shells. Batteries are removable and plug into the switch on the cuff. I'm considering a pair for next year.

 

[James]

There’s electric liners for motorcycles that work. The ones I’ve seen were Chinese and around $100. The person was quite happy with them.

 

[DanoT]

I know of a couple of people who have bought Karbon heated gloves at Costco in Canada for $199. Cdn. and they are happy with price and performance.

 

[Tahoma]

I purchased my Lenz 6.0 gloves a few months ago from the EU-based online company snowinn.com and the price was more than half off the price of any North American outfit. The gloves were shipped promptly from Spain using DHL Express and arrived at my place about 9 days after ordering.

Very happy with the Lenz 6.0 gloves! They are much more nimble than my Chaval gloves I purchased a few years ago and I like the adjustable heat range (3 heat-settings) with the Lenz gloves.

For some reason, the Lenz batteries themselves aren't any cheaper through snowinn. But I already had Lenz batteries in hand for use with Lenz heated socks.

After trying a variety of gloves and lobster mitts with mixed results, I popped for the Lenz 6.0 gloves back in November. Also got them through snowinn.com, for a great price (without batteries), delivered by Christmas. Got the Lenz rc1800 batteries from a US outfit for a decent price.

Having used them in some very cold conditions at A-Basin in February, and at Crystal, White Pass, and UT, I'm pleased with them. My hands get painfully cold easily (not Raynauds, but might as well be), and if they can stay just cool and useable in frigid temps, I'm happy. The Lenz gloves did that in -20 F windchill at A-Basin, and much better in usual winter temps. I like that the batteries just snap in without fussy wires, and the Lenz heat app for smartphones allows you to fine tune your warming (and potentially get more warming time by on-off cycling). If I had to use them in really cold, windy conditions, I'd get a simple unlined overmitt like the Black Diamonds.

Overall, worth the $$, and give me more dexterity than lobster mitts or mittens.

 

[trieu]

Good to hear that you had good experiences with snowinn.com. I am always leery of ordering stuff that is not based in US, especially when the prices are 40% - 50% of US prices - it makes you wonder - what is the catch? I'll check out the Lenz offering there.

 

[Henry]

Snowinn is the only European outfit I've had trouble with. I ordered a hat...took the order and then--nothing. I finally got the credit card company to charge back the amount (refund the charge), and a few weeks later the hat showed. Zero response to my queries to Snowinn. The other purchases went fine, a German ski seller and SkatePro out of Denmark for skis.

 

[trieu]

Hmm. That's an interesting counterpoint. I guess if you are using your credit card, and things go south - you can always dispute the charges.

 

[James]

There’s a thread on here about ordering from Europe. Sometimes things happen. I ordered once slippers made from skins from a small company and it took almost two months for it to show up. On email they said they had no idea, it was stuck somewhere. It languished in customs in NY for weeks. Then it just arrived in the mail.

Have had very good experiences with
snowcountry.eu -Netherlands (the go to first choice)
telemark-pyrenees.com -France
alpinstore.com -France was also reliable

weirdly, shipping skis from France was no more than here, and half of what you could do yourself.