The 10 Outdoor Tech Items You Need to Survive Winter
Give Jack Frost the finger with these sweet cold weather goodies.
We love spending time outside, but brutal winter weather can sometimes dissuade even the gutsiest adventurer.
Check out these ten pieces of killer tech that’ll help you own the outdoors, even when Mother Nature gives you the cold shoulder.
The latest competitor in the digital goggle space is RideOn, and their augmented reality goggles are pushing the limits of displaying real-time info and much, much more. Carrying the promise of friend-tagging, bio-metric feedback and, perhaps craziest of all, virtual slalom games overlaid directly on top of the world in front of you, the RideOns are poised to set the standard for what AR goggles are capable of doing and the quality of display.
2. Sunbeam Heated Sherpa Blanket
It’s Netflix and chill, not Netflix and freeze. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a cabin for the weekend or just spending a night on the couch, a simple heated blanket is a winter necessity, and Sunbeam’s furry sherpa blanket is as good as they get.
There’s an endless stream of actual tech that goes into snowboards, but that’s all just a matter of preference for how you like to ride. What everyone can agree on is that if you have the skills you should flaunt them, and the best way to do that is with a lightstrip that’ll retrofit whatever board you love into a party on the mountain for the craziest night sessions you’ll ever have.
Combining a lightweight ballistic shell with tons of intuitive design choices, the Oakley Guntower backpack is perfect for being outdoors in winter weather. A padded compartment for those sweet Oakley goggles and smaller side pockets for your GoPro gear make the Guntower an ideal pickup for your winter adventuring.
5. Seirus Heattouch Inferno Gloves
Packing up to six hours of heat, the Seirus Heattouch Inferno gloves actually send heat to the entire glove, including your fingers. It’s a major upgrade over the squishy, sweaty beanbag hand-warmers we usually use when braving the outdoors in the winter. Best of all, the battery is tucked away in the cuff of the leather design, making it completely unobtrusive whether you’re carving up a mountain or shoveling the sidewalk.
Should you decide against early adopting HUD Goggles, there’s still plenty of ways to pimp out your winter headgear. Chips 2.0 will likely fit that bill, adding a wireless earpiece and easy-access controller to your helmet that harness the power of your phone to play music, take calls or, using the included app, create a private push-to-talk network among your friends.
7. Thermacell ProFlex Heated Insoles
There’s nothing worse than not being able to feel your piggies during a day in the snow. Thermacell comes to the rescue with their heavy duty heated insoles. Long-lasting battery life and bluetooth controls make it easy to moderate the level of heating these provide, because it’s a fine line between staying warm and having sweaty feet all day.
8. Superdroid Robots RC Snowblower
It’s 2017, do you really expect us to still be pushing a snowblower? Superdroid’s RC snowblower build might carry the heftiest price tag of anything on this list, coming in just shy of 10 large, but when you compare that price tag to the look on your neighbor’s face when he sees you plowing the walk with a remote control from the comfort of your home, it’ll totally justify that price. (Well, probably.)
9. Gerbing’s 12V Heated Jacket Liner
There are plenty of battery-powered heated jackets out there, but you shouldn’t need to buy a different one for the mountain, for work and for everyday use. Enter Gerbing’s heated jacket liner, a trim shell with heating pads everywhere that goes underneath your coat, making all the outerwear you own a potential candidate for all-day heating.
There are several prototype powered snowboards we’ve been tracking for years now, but this is the only solid one we’ve seen make it to market. 18 mph might not sound like a lot, but when it’s just you against the mountain, anything beats unstrapping to peddle across the flats.
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