Heated Gear?

[kainic]

Looking to pick up some heated gear.  Not to start an oil thread but what's considered the best out there?

[jdub53]

Warm & Safe makes quality stuff. They also make First Gear's rebranded heated gear, with subtle differences on a few items. For instance, the First Gear heated gloves I own have an essential visor rain squeegee, but the comparable Warm & Safe items don't. 

 

My old Gerbing heated jacket liner (my wife still wears a Gerbing) was a superior design as it had Thinsulate adjacent to all the heating elements. That jacket was much warmer both unpowered on or off the bike and when powered when on the bike. The Thinsulate kept the heat directed against your body, whereas the uninsulated Warm & Safe liner (as well as the newer Gerbings units) allow that heat to escape. Accordingly, on very cold rides (30s F for me) I have to wear another thin layer between the heated liner and my riding jacket to stay truly warm. By comparison, the Warm & Safe and newer Gerbing liners are just double layer windbreakers with heating elements. 

 

After internal connections in my old Gerbing 75 watt liner started breaking down after many years, Gerbing stood by their lifetime warranty and sent me a new-style replacement, but their new liner design was inferior in several ways so I sold it and bought a new First Gear 90 watt heated liner.  

 

Warm & Safe Heated Clothing the Warmest Clothing in the Universe

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The Warm & Safe Heated Clothing is made to be light, thin and body fitting. Not just for motorcycling but now with our advance 7.4V Heat Layer clothing, you can be warm in all situations. Our Heat-troller, heated clothing...

 

[Landshark]

Try Aerostich.   I've had one of there electric jackets for years.  I especially like the heat in the collar area.  Sooo nice!

 

Kanetsu Electrics - Heated Gear - Clothing : Aerostich RiderWearhouse

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Aerostich, the place to find motorcycle jackets, suits, helmets, boots, gloves, tools, bags, and other accessories to help make riding better in all conditions, through all terrain, and to all destinations.

 

[jdub53]

52 minutes ago, Landshark said:

Try Aerostich.   I've had one of there electric jackets for years.  I especially like the heat in the collar area.  Sooo nice!

 

Kanetsu Electrics - Heated Gear - Clothing : Aerostich RiderWearhouse

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Aerostich, the place to find motorcycle jackets, suits, helmets, boots, gloves, tools, bags, and other accessories to help make riding better in all conditions, through all terrain, and to all destinations.

 

I hadn't thought about Aerostich when I replied, but that's an excellent recommendation. I've never had any of their heated gear, but I have a closet full of their top notch and durable outerwear (a 17 year old one-piece Roadcrafter suit, two 20 year old Darien jackets for me and one 14 year old Darien jacket for my wife). And Aerostich customer service is absolutely top shelf.

 

EDIT: Forgot to add my first piece of heated gear was a vest. Worked great, but once I moved on to a heated jacket liner with heated sleeves I realized what I'd been missing. Compared to the liner, the vest was like being in a cold bedroom in a bed with warm covers but then putting your arms on top of the covers.

Edited December 18, 2021 by jdub53
Vest vs Liner info

[Wintersdark]

YMMV, but as a year round rider in Canada, what I've found:

 

• You want heated liners most of the time, vs. heated jackets etc.  You want to be able to replace a jacket, without having to replace the heating, and it's much easier to shop jackets independently of whether they have heat or not.
• You want heated gear to fit snugly against your body.  Baggy heated gear is dramatically less effective.
• Warm'n'Safe has a lot of reasonably priced and effective options, but they're ones you need to wear under an insulated jacket as unlike Gerbing they lack their own insulation to keep heat in.  This isn't a disadvantage, it's just something to be aware of.  Personally I'm a huge fan of the Warm'n'Safe gear because it's so thin and easy to wear under, for example, lighter summer gear. Also, the simple three-stage buttons for heat control are simpler and easier to use IMHO than Gerbing's pigtails.  On the other hand, Gerbing gear tends to be warmer overall (due to the backing reflecting heat back in) and somewhat higher quality.
• Gloves can be an exception to the above regarding liners.  I've got both heated gloves, and heated glove liners.  It's challenging to get heated liners that fit well enough (need to be snug but not restricting movement) but then you need slightly larger gloves to fit over the liners, and if you're buying a separate pair of gloves for heated liners, you may as well just buy heated gloves.  That said, again, you've got WAY more options for gloves if you're not just looking at heated gloves.
• Look for gear with all the same connectors and interconnects - for example, a heated jacket liner with outputs for gloves in the sleeve ends.  To my knowledge, all the manufacturers that use barrel plugs use the same barrel plugs (and likely the same actual gear just rebranded between them - see First Gear, Venture Heat, Warm'n'Safe, etc).  Gerbing has it's own connectors IIRC.  This isn't always possible, but 12V motorcycle heated gear is 12V motorcycle heated gear.  I've replaced connectors on "incompatible" pieces several times.
• Heated helmet visors are a thing and they are awesome.  No more icing, no more fogging.  Enormously superior to just a dual pane or pinlok visor.  Search revzilla for "electric visor" to see helmets that come with them or for which they are available aftermarket.  
• You can do heated pants, but in my experience they're not really necessary unless you're riding in extreme cold.  Between a heated body core and the bike itself, legs tend to sort themselves out so long as they're reasonably insulated (thermal liners, long johns, etc).  With that said, heated pant liners are also totally a thing.
• Really worthwhile IMHO are heated socks/insoles, though I haven't had any in some time.  I generally only worry about these on longer trips as I've got quite warm boots, but warm feet are happy feet.  

[Ray Ride4life]

I have a heated jacket and gloves from Gerbing.
Works great with a remote regulator you can fabricate somewhere on the bike, i stuck some Velcro on it so i can switch it between bikes. It has 5 settings and never head it on 5 other than to try it, mostly sticking to 2 or 3 when it's cold and 4 when it's really cold.
Gloves are wired through the jacket and have their own regulators on the collar with 3 settings, mostly on 1 or 2 but combined with heated grips.
Plus for the jacket is that it looks like a normal jacket unlike the old model that looks like a insulation jacket, this way you also can wear it without the motorcycle jacket when you take a walk when you're on a trip.

[kainic]

Thanks for all the great comments.  I am choosing between a Warm & Safe heat layer shirt or splurge on the Gen 4 heated jacket liner.  Either should do the trick.

 

[concours]

On 12/18/2021 at 2:55 PM, kainic said:

Thanks for all the great comments.  I am choosing between a Warm & Safe heat layer shirt or splurge on the Gen 4 heated jacket liner.  Either should do the trick.

 

I have the Warm-N-Safe heated jacket liner & pants, 12 years. TOP QUALITY and performance.