Does anyone have any experience with heated clothing, specifically battery-powered?
I’ve gotten into night photography and I’m going to be shooting the lunar eclipse in January. I have warm clothes, but I wanted to get something heated because I’m going to be out all night and I anticipate it being really cold.
I normally wear a base layer, a fleece midlayer, and a puffy coat.
Optimally, I think I’d want to get a heated midlayer, something fleece, but I haven’t been able to find those. All the ones I’ve found are no longer made. So, I’m now trying to decide between a heated base layer or a heated softshell jacket of some sort, hopefully something I could wear as a midlayer.
No firsthand experience, but Milwaukee (the tool brand) makes heated jackets and gloves. You could probably also check out motorcycle and ski shops.
I think the bike and ski shops (or Amazon for that matter) would be your best bet for finding a midlayer. Both would likely want something under their regular jacket.
I’d be worried about using a heated midlayer because if you start sweating, you may end up colder than you started.
You might even be able to get away with heated gloves and shoe warmers. IME, feet and hands are the first thing to get cold and make you want to go back inside.
I gave up on using my telescope party because nights at elevation are very, very cold. And frankly, I found it a little boring. Yep, that’s Saturn. The moon is quite cool though had to put a light filter on as it’s too bright.
I live at altitude and am used to it. But sheesss. Just sitting was a bit much.
I would look to ski stores/equipment for heat. They are most likely to have what you need with out going exotic.
Chem packs can help to warm hands and stuff. Keeps you nimble. And no battery to fool with. You are not going to do well with a camera and mittens
Unlike my usual night photography forays (mainly involving the Milky Way), this will be a lot more sitting around; the eclipse will be about 5 hours long.
I’ll have chemical heat packs for my shoes, and I have special photography folding-back-mittens for the hands.
As for overheating, most of the things I’ve found have 3 settings. I doubt at the lowest level I will overheat (Big Bend night air tends to get pretty chilly, even outside the Basin).
How cold is it going to get? Try more layers instead: a thermal vest / undershirt, shirt, jumper (possibly two), jacket, and overcoat for your torso and arms; ordinary underwear then thermal underwear then trousers for your nethers and legs; socks and oversocks and boots with thick soles for your feet. I was fine out in -37 in Kirkenes. Heated gloves might be an idea, though.
Hmm… That’s Big Bend, Texas? Wikipedia says that the record low at Chisos is -19 C. I wore the above in Hammerfest - without the jacket - and was fine for hours at that temperature.
But for 5 hours overnight I would suggest you have a fire going - a brazier or something - as an external source of warmth.
I used to have a pair of battery-powered heated socks, which my parents gave me specifically to wear at cold-weather Packer games. The “heating” consisted of one radiant band that ran under the toes (the reasoning apparently being that it’s your toes that are the part that gets coldest).
They didn’t really help much. After an hour or so in the cold, the batteries, themselves, seemed to slow down, and the socks didn’t put out much heat.
My suggestion is the chemical hand warmers and foot warmers, as enipla suggests, and a sleeping bag to get into. My father and I discovered that sleeping bags actually worked really well for staying warm at football games, though, with the security checks they now do at games, I don’t think one can bring them into the stadium anymore.
Milwaukee makes a heated hoodie that’s quite popular on job sites. Milwaukee has the advantage of using the same batteries you use for thier cordless tools.
I think you may be overestimating the results of heated clothing. It’s more for short term function. Guys like them for jobsite work because before you get working you tend to be cold, once you’ve started you warm up. The heated gear cuts out having to start with extra layers and peeling them off. You just kill the power once you’ve warmed up.
If your workload is staying the same for several hours more layers would have similar effect.
I do a fair amount of winter hiking/snow shoeing in new england. I’ve never really considered heated gear for that purpose. I’m already bought into Milwaukee cordless tools and am always on the fence about buying heated clothing but ultimately I decide against it because I don’t think I’ll get enough use out of it before destroying it. I go through work clothes pretty readily. I work outside with water year round.
I’ve never used any of it, but I think BMW Motorcycle has a wide range of 12v stuff. Designed to plug into the bike, so might not be right for your application. But hey, you could have a car battery under your chair and it would power you all night long!
There was an article a while back about a photographer from Time Magazine shooting in IIRC Antarctica. He came up with a system of wearing two sets of gloves. A light, thin silk glove with regular heavy gloves/mittens over it. When he needed to take a picture, he could pull the outer glove off and the glove under it was thin enough to use the camera and bought him a extra few seconds to do what he needed to do and put the winter glove back on before his fingers went numb. He said he used a silk glove because it made it easy to remove the outer one without the inner one coming off as well.
I couldn’t find the article but did see a lot of people mentioning that they used mittens that had a top that flipped back to expose your fingers.
Not heated per se but I am going to recommend Uniqlo Heattech underlayers. I am a very cold-natured person and this stuff rocks. Walking the dog in below-freezing weather with a wind, I am good. This stuff is great and it is NOT expensive. Disclaimer: the dog will not wear clothing so we won’t be out all that long, and we are walking. But occasionally I am wearing it in inclement weather while waiting for a bus or something and it’s really good.
I have Raynaud’s phenomenon in a couple fingers; they quickly get white and numb even “mild” winter temperatures (40 °F). A couple months ago I bought some heated gloves. They were $150, but I love them.
I do a lot of outdoor work around the house. Being very expensive, I don’t want to get the insides of the gloves too dirty. So I am going to purchase some very thin glove liners to wear with them.
My Mom has Raynaud’s. I have to be very careful to think that 40 F is just a bit brisk when I get her out of the house for anything. What type of gloves did you buy?
A few years ago I looked into heated gloves, because my wife suffers from Raynaud’s and likes to bike in the middle of night even in winter (when there is no traffic). The problem with most heated gloves is that they only have heating elements in the palm or the back of the hand. I finally found Gerbing heated gloves which have heating elements on every finger, including the thumb. It’s not cheap but it’s been worth it.
Closest I came was a heated jumpsuit that plugged into my Harley; hated it. Different spots were either too hot or felt cold to me and it didn’t have nearly the comfort level layers and more normal clothing does. Plus it made me sweat in spots which then became cold as heck once I unplugged.
scr4 has already mentioned Gerbing’s, and I also have some of their gear — from the days when my motorcycle was my only vehicle, and I rode in all kinds of weather, heavy HEAVY downpours, and snow (and some ice).
Motorcycling is like stargazing in that your body is not moving, so you’re not generating much warmth. When motorcycling, you can’t really drink hot soup while riding. And once you become cold, you most likely stay cold or get colder, so layers or a sleeping bag don’t help much in those scenarios.
I have a Gerbing heated jacket liner and heated gloves and used them a lot. They are excellent and they generated a lot of heat. On the high setting they were almost too hot. Good quality, but also pricey.
It is very good gear, but that was 10 years ago. I hope they’ve maintained their product quality.
