Heated gloves - USB powered?

[crofty1984]

Hi all,
I've been thinking about getting heated gloves. I seem to find either gloves powered by their own proprietary battery, or powered directly from the bike @12v. I was wondering if there were any that are powered by USB? I have a USB socket on my main bike on the handlebars so could use that, but if I was jumping on one of my classics I'd like to be able to power them from a normal USB powerbank.

Do such things exist? I know you can get battery options for some of the bike-power gloves, but they're about 80 quid! USB would men I can use what I already have.

[Birky_41]

Would be a great idea and I did briefly look couple years ago although tech no doubt improved. I couldnt find anything though

Maybe its the 5v vs 12v issue? I ended up going with Gerbing and 12v 2a batteries

[Biker 1]

I have some Furygan ones with rechargeable batteries - a bit bulky around the wrist, but batteries last some 6 hours which is sufficient for me. I also have Alpinestars 12volt wired. They work fine, but it is a total faff wiring up your jacket.
I suppose a USB version would require a socket close to the saddle - handlebar socket would be in the wrong place....
Just a thought: buy a small 12volt lithium ion battery that fits in your pocket?

Edited by Biker 1 on Sunday 13th April 14:44

[LunarOne]

The problem you're likely to find is that anything that generates heat uses a significant amount of power. Google's AI tells me that heated gloves typically use between 10W and 36W. Let's say you need about 10W per glove, so 20W total. A typical USB-A socket provides 5V and 1A to 1.5A. Multiply those to get the power, so you get 5W to 7.5W of power. Clearly not enough. Whereas your bike's battery is rated at 12V and can supply enough current to light your headlights and turn lover the starter motor, so the current required by your gloves is going to be negligible in comparison.

You might find USB-charged gloves which have their own battery pack much like a USB power bank, but running the gloves off USB directly is going to be a non-starter.

If your bike has a USB-C socket and supports USB PD (power delivery) then it supports negotiating a higher voltage and supplying far more power than a regular USB socket is capable of. That standard can supply up to 240W which is clearly more than enough for a pair of gloves, but both the gloves and the bike would have to support USB-PD and even some of the latest smartest tech doesn't support that standard yet. Of course many modern USB power banks DO support USB-PD so you could use one of those as your power source. And power banks can charge (slowly) from a regular 5W USB socket. But I suspect you're looking for a clean solution where you can just plug the gloves into the handlebar USB socket. I'll be very surprised if you find one!

[Biker9090]

Get a normal pair like Macna and then buy a unbranded battery and charger off of amazon. USB powered stuff won't be anywhere near warm enough.

Don't buy Gerbing unless you want them to fail and leak like a sieve when they get wet.