It’s a new winter season, and we’re gearing up for new adventures in the snow. Just in time, our partners at The Heat Company have sent us updated versions of their gloves. Time to see what they came up with in the past year!
The HEAT 3 SMART PRO mitt is the updated version of the HEAT 3 SMART. This is an All-in-one mitt with fixed liners. Like all mitts from The Heat Company, it can be opened at the palm and the thumb to expose the underlying liner, a feature that is very handy if you need to operate electronics in the cold and don’t want to take off your gloves all the time. The liner has touch-sensitive fingertips that allow you to operate your phone or other touchscreen devices as well. They retained some other nice design choices that we already know from the SHELL system, such as the integrated wrist-loops, various attachment points and pockets for hand-warming pads. The liner glove has a cord sewn in, so you don’t have to pull on a single finger when trying to take the whole mitt off. Having tormented the seams on liner gloves for many years that way, I’d like to see that as a feature in the stand-alone liners as well.
New in the PRO version
The mitt looks pretty much like any mitt from The Heat Company, except it now features a stylish embroidered red circle. A minimalistic design element, but it gives the mitts a more premium look.
The material of the liner is now also Polartec Wind Pro, which is very warm and blocks even Polar winds excellently. We tested separate liners made from this fabric in Norway and loved them. The liners have rubberised bits on the palms and fingers, that should help you get a better grip in the cold. However, our separate liners last year showed heavy wear on the rubber after already a week. We’re excited to see if The Heat Company has addressed this issue in any way. Apart from that, 55% of the PRIMALOFT insulation of the mitt is now made from recycled materials. We always appreciate if a kit manufacturer thinks about the environment when designing their products.
You can buy the HEAT 3 SMART PRO directly from the company website. It will set you back 160€, which is a pretty good bang for your buck for a pair of mitts of that quality.
On top of the mitts, we also got the bleeding edge prototype of the DURABLE LINER PRO. These are separate liner gloves that aim to combine the advantages of the WIND PRO and DURABLE liners. The back of the glove is made of the excellent Polartec Wind Pro fabric, which we loved when testing it in Norway. The palm, however, is now made of leather. As I mentioned above, the rubberised palms of the WIND PRO liner tended to show heavy wear quickly, so I hope replacing them with leather will make for a longer-lasting palm. The prototype we got only has a touch-sensitive index finger, but that’s still good enough for me. The production model will feature the two other fingers as well.
The DURABLE LINER PRO is available for purchase on the company website for 55€. We are excited to give it a spin in Polar conditions soon, but I like the improvements already. This has the potential to become my liner glove for Greenland.
Apart from gloves, The Heat Company also produces heat pads in many shapes and sizes. These pads react with oxygen by heating up to body temperature. I always have a few of them in my first aid kit when it’s cold, but you can also use them to keep batteries warm or just prevent cold feet. New in the line-up are pads for shoulders and neck and even bigger pads that last 40 and even 60 hours.
We’d like to say thank you again to our partner The Heat Company for providing us with these items. We can’t wait to try them out in the snow!
Keen hiker and ÖAV trekking and hiking guide, in love with Nansen. Owner of the most walk-averse rescue dog ever. Ice cream lover, kit junkie, runner and mad software genius.