I looked at them when I was at Costco last week. The vest has very small heating pads so it seemed like effectiveness may be very limited. Same for the socks I believe based on what I saw. Not sure about the gloves.
I still absolutely love our FiredUp gear that I bougtht here on the group-buy a few years ago. Both vests still work perfectly and the infrared vs resistance heating is just unbeatable. Even on the coldest days, when I turn that vest on it's like someone wrapped a nice warm waterbed around your entire torso.
Fired Up X manufactures Infrared heated liners.
firedupx.com
I think it's one of those things where, yeah, you very much get what you pay for.
Well, I did say the vest and gloves may not be the best for riding unless you're just heading to Timmy's. I personally prefer 12v plug-in gear so I don't have to worry about battery life. That said, I decided to try the socks since my feet only get cold at the toes and sweat everywhere else, and being battery heated I can wear them off the bike too.
Funny you should rave about the FiRed-Up gear. That's what I was referring to when I was comparing to pantyhose. My first experience with heated gear was a full set of their stuff (socks, gloves, vest) from Costco and I returned the gloves and socks almost immediately.
The gloves not only weren't warm enough, but with the batteries in the wrists, they didn't fit under my multiple layers of sleeves and gauntlet gloves, so I could only wear them with wrist-length gloves which defeated their purpose. The batteries also didn't last long.
I never tried the socks on, but I remember them being really thin, and was worried about how they'd stand up to being washed.
Their vest was about $180 tax-in back then and was nice at first, but on longer rides, the heat pads caused me to sweat because they weren't breathable, which caused me to get even colder when the battery eventually wore out. The heat control button being on the chest was also inconvenient. Then the batteries started losing capacity and one of them would only last a few minutes. So I decided to hard wire it for 12v, and I found that one of the wires had frayed right at a heating pad, so very difficult to repair and I wasn't confident it would last even if I could.
A friend had raved about his Venture Heat plug-in jacket liner, and GP had them on sale along with no tax, so I got one for about $220 tax-in. It had more/larger heat panels as well as heated sleeves and neck. It was an amazing difference with my arms and neck being toasty along with the rest of my torso, and the remote heat control was easy to access mounted on my bars. But the more I used it, I found I was constantly switching between the 3 fixed heat settings because one level was too warm and the next level down wasn't warm enough. Then the main zipper pull tab broke off and GP honoured the warranty with a store credit that I used to buy my Scorpion mesh jacket that happened to be the exact same price.
I now have a Warm 'n Safe liner with full rheostat control, and finally happy. Funny thing is, this turned out to be the cheapest of all the ones I've owned at $129 USD shipped to my US address. It's also windproof, rainproof, breathable, and designed to be worn as a standalone jacket off-bike, so very versatile.
