Heated Jacket & Vest Cons
Honestly, the only cons I could come up with are not really deal breakers.
They are more so just parameters on when I’d choose to wear the heated jacket vs just a regular coat.
✔️ Lack of Water Resistance
Like any other electronic, you don’t want to get the battery pack or cords wet.
So if it’s cold and rainy, I wouldn’t wear this jacket or vest.
If it’s cold and snowing or I want to take my nieces and nephews sledding, I wouldn’t wear this jacket or vest.
Since you’ll want to avoid moisture I wouldn’t use this to sleep in when camping in the cold because you’ll likely sweat through into the battery pack pocket.
Maybe you could drape it over you or something and just keep it on low.
It’s similar to how you “shouldn’t” sleep with a heating pad, but we all do it (right?).
✔️ Effort to wear
It’s so simple to just open the coat closet and pull out whatever coat or jacket or sweatshirt seems best for the weather (and your outfit) and walk out the door.
But with heated jackets, if you want to use the heat feature you’ll have to be sure you charged the battery in advance and it’s charged enough to last for as long as you need.
It’s an extra step that is just enough of a slight inconvenience to make it not a “go-to” jacket, but definitely not a deal breaker – we’re not THAT lazy!
✔️ A lot of safety instructions to keep in mind
I will say, for us personally, the vast majority of the guidelines are not super relevant to how we would use the jackets anyway, but in the bigger scope of things I think quite a few of them would apply to many other situations.
Here are a handful of them to get an idea of what I mean:
❌ Do not use with an infant, child, helpless person, or anyone insensitive to heat, such as a person with poor blood circulation.
❌ Do not use pins on apparel because it could damage the electrical wiring (think celebration buttons at Disney World during those couple weeks in the winter when it’s actually in the 40s).
❌ Never wear if inner liner is wet.
❌ Heating elements are not recommended to touch bare skin.
❌ Do not allow the cords to be pinched.
❌ Do not store the battery pack together with metal objects due to a short circuit risk.
