Columbia Omni-Heat Gear Shatters Winter Cold
Being as it’s now officially November, and in the Northern Hemisphere that means the trees are getting down to skeletal bareness, and a chill is pervading the atmosphere that pretty much promises we’re going to be buried under heaps of cold white glop within the next few weeks. And if you can’t stand that kind of horrible winter cold, then Columbia’s got what you need: the Omni-Heat System.
Oh, sure, people like me pretty much cut our teeth on cold weather and learning all the great benefits of staying inside, where even old furnaces provided heat sufficient to make every day seem like a jolly holiday in, well, mid-April at least, but for those of you who have to-or want to-hit the outdoors, this is something you’ll want to know about.
The Omni-Heat System basically outfits a variety of winter gear (boots, gloves and jackets) with electric heating systems, as well as mylar inner linings, just like those space blankets you see in camping stores, to help hold in your body heat. And before you start thinking something like “Snow.wet.electric.uh-oh”, don’t worry, I thought of that same thing myself. But the electric heating in here is battery driven, so your chances of contacting ground through a snowbank and keeping yourself warm by not caring about cold any more are pretty much nil. The number and size of the batteries, not surprisingly, change depending on the size of the garment; the jackets, for example, carry a pair of 15 Wh batteries whilst the gloves carry just one smaller battery.
The batteries themselves, meanwhile, will keep you warm and toasty for about six hours, can be recharged by AC or USB, and yes, they’ll even serve as a recharge port for your iPod or similar gear should you find yourself out on the slopes with a dead MP3 player while hitting the double diamond run.
Of course, as you’d likely expect, electrically heated clothing is pricey to say the least. The jacket costs a whopping $850, while the gloves run $400 for the pair. But still.a jacket that’ll make sure you never get cold again (while the battery’s alive) is a pretty valuable item indeed.
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