Date reviewed: February 2023 | Tested by: BikeSocial member Patricia Stiemke | Price: £279.99 | www.furygan.com
It’s been a perfect winter for testing heated gloves, and I’m glad to say that my hands have been able to weather the worst of the temperatures thanks to the Furygan Heat X Kevlar Lady gloves on review here.
Also available in a men’s version, I’ve been using them continuously since November on my commutes, covering all kinds of fast and slow roads on a CBR650R and an Aprilia RS660, together clocking up over 2,500 miles. I can honestly say that I’ve never had warmer hands than this winter so, despite any shortcomings, these are a welcome addition to the rest of my heated gear…
Pros & Cons
- Very effective heating
- Control of both gloves is done with just one
- Comfortable lining
- Cuffs a bit short for some jackets
- Lack of adequate waterproofing
- Automatic temperature control has failed
Construction
The Heat X Kevlar Lady gloves combine goat leather (often used on gloves), abrasion-resistant polyamide and a three-layer laminated softshell fabric. The palms are reinforced with microfibre, while a Kevlar and carbon fibre weave distributes the heat from the wire elements.
The tips of the index fingers and thumb pads have a slightly bulkier, stiffer feel – or ‘Furygan Sensitive Science’ as they like to call it – for touch screens, and they really work.
The stitching is very robust and has held up well, while cleaning has just been a matter of using a damp sponge and a brush with a mild soap.
Furygan dispenses with what I’ve found to be the mostly useless built-in wiper on the left-hand index finger or thumb. I use my Visorcat, which straps onto the glove quite nicely and doesn’t interfere with the knuckle protector.
Fit and feel
These Furygan gloves felt very comfortable from the moment I first put them on, and because of the softness of the materials, they don’t feel clunky or cumbersome. If it wasn’t for the lump against the bottom of the wrist from the batteries in the cuffs, this could be any winter glove.
I’ve always had misgivings about battery operated gloves as I’m quite sensitive to anything pressing against the bottom of my wrists; my nerves and blood vessels pinch easily, leading to pain or numbness in the fingers. I needn’t have worried in this case; while noticing the area of the battery pouch against my skin, it has never interfered with my ability to move my wrists or felt constricting in any way.
The knuckle protector is unobtrusive and blends in seamlessly, though I do have an issue with the touch screen pads in the index and thumb tips; they’re quite thick and I find them a bit squeezed right at the end. Admittedly, I have quite chunky, worn-out fingers, so riders with slimmer digits will probably not notice these tight spots.
Furygan offers the gloves in sizes 5 (XS) to 12 (XL) and provides an online chart for precise measurements needed to determine the correct glove size.
I found the cuffs are a comfortable length and not too bulky to wear under my jacket sleeves. However, unless your sleeve cuffs overlap your wrists, the cuffs on the Furygans are too short to stay tucked in while moving your hands and arms around while riding. It’s a bit of a paradox to have really warm hands but icy wind blowing up the sleeves. Ideally, I could have done with an extra few cm on the glove cuffs but it’s a minor niggle.
Note – you’ll need to ensure your jacket has space to tuck these gloves under.
Both gloves are easily controlled by either button
Temperature
I have only the Keis 701 heated gloves as a comparison, but it’s safe to say that the Furygan gloves have kept my hands warm throughout this winter in some fairly brutal conditions, including a snowstorm, freezing rain and temperatures of -5°C (feeling much colder of course at 70mph in the night). They’ve succeeded where I sometimes struggled with the Keis.
I get cold hands very easily but I’ve found myself not needing the full power setting when the temperature drops below 5°C; it’s been more than adequate running the gloves at 65% at an outside temperature of 3°C. Anything below that and I have to run it at 100% (or 36 to 40°C in the automatic temperature setting in the control app).
The heat distribution is via a double set of wires woven into the fabric and gives an even feeling of heat across all fingers. The notable exception is where the thicker touch screen pads are situated – because of the pinching effect the tips of those fingers don’t get as much heat as the rest. Also, the right hand is always a bit cooler than the left hand. The only explanation I can think of is due to battery usage (see below). As the gloves always share the same temperature settings across both hands, the option of setting one glove to a different temperature to the other is not given.
Where these gloves do struggle is when they get exposed to the wet. A driving rain or a constant drizzle will make the gloves feel much colder, and if the temperature’s hovering around the 2°C mark, then my fingers are cool but it never gets unbearable. Under those circumstances I do tend to fire up my bike’s heated grips. In dry conditions, that’s never been necessary, even in sub-freezing temperatures.
Power
The gloves are supplied with a pair of 7.4V 2,200mAh batteries that are safely tucked away in a Velcro-fastened sewn-in pocket on the underside of the wrist in the cuff. Included is a USB charging cable, but no power brick – you have to supply your own. I found the batteries take about 3 hours to charge from 5% to 100%.
As an optional extra, the instructions say that Furygan offers a ‘Boost’ battery power cable that attaches to the bike’s battery and was retailed at £79. This gives higher power output and of course heat as long as the bike supplies power. However, when checking, it does not appear on Furygan’s own website and is listed as discontinued on other sites.
The temperature settings dictate the rate of battery discharge but as I have a very consistent commute of an hour each way, I can safely say that at 100% temperature setting, the batteries are down to 50% after a ride of an hour and down to 60% with the temperature setting at 50%. If I use more than the 60% heat settings, I charge up the batteries for my return journey, just in case.
The automatic setting at a predefined temperature will generally drain the batteries faster. I suspect that’s due to the constant adjustment and communication with the temperature sensor but I’m just speculating here.
The handbook warns of letting the batteries discharge completely, and the LED underneath the control button will turn a sinister red when capacity has reached 10%. It’ll start flashing angrily at 5%, but I’ve had a few occasions where I had to have them on to the bitter end and they don’t seem to have been damaged by the experience.
On those occasions it’s also quite noticeable that the left and right glove use up the battery at different rates, which fits with my overall impression of my right hand usually feeling a little cooler than the left; the left glove will always run out of juice before the right glove does, though the difference is only about five minutes. Even when not pushed to this extreme, upon regular use, the control app is often showing about 5% difference in the remaining charge between the left and right glove. I’m not sure if this is just confined to my pair of gloves/batteries, or if it’s a general anomaly with this model.
Control
The temperature control for these heated gloves is where Furygan absolutely shines. If you’re a gadget freak like me, then the MyFuryConnect app is an absolute treasure trove. Sure, you can be very basic and just use the controls sewn into the gloves (but even then these have an outstanding advantage over others), though it’s worth downloading.
As with most heated gloves, the controller is in the cuff, and you push and hold the button to turn the gloves on; they automatically start with the red setting of 100%. Subsequent pushes will set the temperature to 70% (yellow) and then to 50% (green). The gloves turn off when the button is held down again for a couple of seconds.
This is where Furygan has been truly ingenious as, no matter which glove you control, the other glove follows suit (and you don’t need to have the app for this). As far as I’m concerned, this is a massively valuable feature as there’s no more hassle with trying to adjust the gloves while riding and taking your hand off the throttle.
Hassle-free to install, if you want to use the app, it picks up a connection to the gloves (after an initial pairing process using Bluetooth) as long as the batteries are hooked up. The app gives information about the amount of battery charge left and shows the three pre-defined heat settings, plus you can program in an additional two. You can also turn the gloves on and off with the app.
In the automatic mode, there’s an option of setting an actual temperature at which the gloves should maintain while they’re on thanks to a built-in temperature sensor. The maximum temperature you can set is 40°C, and I’ve used this one in temperatures hovering around zero and it works very well indeed. Well, it used to as, for the last two weeks, whenever I try to switch to auto mode, I’m told my temperature sensor is broken. It’s a shame but considering the manual settings I have programmed in work very well, I can do without the auto mode. I expect the standard warranty will cover this fault.
It’s worth noting that once you’ve set an automatic temperature and tucked away your phone, you can’t then manually change anything using the control buttons. There’s a purple LED on the control button to show that you’re in automatic mode and then that’s the way it stays until you turn the gloves off, which you can do manually.
Also, unless you disconnect the batteries, the next time the gloves are turned on they’ll remember the last temperature setting before they were switched off and default to that setting.
There are additional settings where you can play around with such functions as ‘Smart Move’ where you can set different profiles for ‘economy’, ‘start & stop’ and ‘body move’, all based on whether your hands are in motion. You can also program the gloves to pre-heat to a temperature of your choosing at a time before you set off, which has been very useful. You can even set the brightness of the LEDs on the control buttons of the glove.
Protection and certification
As is required of all motorcycle gloves sold in the UK and Europe, the Furygan Heat X Kevlar are approved to EN13594:2015, achieving Level 1 and coming with knuckle protection. I was disappointed though to find that the gloves can pull off my hands even when cinched tight.
All motorcycle clothing sold in the UK and Europe is deemed to be Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). This is a good thing for riders as it can help them choose kit that has provable levels of safety because, to meet this legislation, it must be tested to a recognised standard. To fully understand the labels found in all bike kit, click here.
Fastening
The Furygan Heat X Kevlar gloves have an adjustable Velcro fastener across the wrist, which can’t slip out of the loop as it has an elastic band fitted around the outside of the buckle. The adjustments, however, are mostly for comfort as, no matter how tight I cinch this fastener, the gloves still slip off my hands easily.
The cuffs are closed via a sturdy Velcro pad and a reinforced flap holding the counterpart. I find the fold created with a closed cuff doesn’t pinch in any way, probably due to the soft material used in this section of the cuff. The cuffs fit comfortably under the sleeve ends of my Halvarssons Jolen Jacket and the RST Pro Series jacket, though there is a bit of a gap between the gloves and the cuffs of the RST jacket.
Wet weather use
This is a bit of a tricky one. Furygan states that the gloves have a waterproof and breathable membrane and recommend regular reproofing, but it’s not the best as they seem to soak up the moisture when it rains. Normal rain and a light drizzle makes the gloves damp on the outside but my hands feel dry. If it really pours down or there’s rainy fog, the gloves will start to feel quite heavy and there’s definitely moisture on the inside of the glove, although my hands don’t feel totally wet. The higher the heating is on, the less the feeling of moisture. The heating also becomes less effective the wetter the gloves get.
Once moisture is inside the gloves, they take a long time to dry out. Funnily enough, it even says in the handbook that leather gloves should not be used in wet weather. So, despite the areas that have this membrane, these gloves are not impervious to water. The Keis G701 gloves were definitely better in this respect, at least for the first year.
Note that heated grips should not be used with waterproof gloves during rain as having the heat on the outside effectively ‘reverses’ the membrane, making moisture track from the outside in. Also, the soft furry section at the back of the Furygans can wick water into the gloves if it’s exposed.
Lining
The lining is soft and plush apart from the cuff area, which has a thin material lining at the end and a broad patch of, what I can only describe as corduroy, housing the battery pouch. The plush lining is relatively thin and a bit of a struggle to get in and out of with wet hands but at least the lining stays put and doesn’t move with your hand. With dry hands it just feels very comfortable. However, if there is even a little bit of moisture inside the gloves and the heat is on, I do notice. It is not unpleasant, just noticeable, if that makes sense.
As the lining is not very thick, the glove is not hugely effective as a proper winter glove without the heating on. Having said that, as it is a heated glove, making the lining a lot thicker would have also made it bulkier and I find that more of a problem when riding my bike.
The app isn’t required to use the Furygan Heat X gloves, but it’s a great addition
Three alternatives to the Furygan Heat X Kevlar gloves
Heated gloves can transform trips for an all-weather rider. Here are some others to consider…
These are just three of many alternatives – you can find all the heated motorcycle kit we’ve tested here and be sure to regularly check for the discounts available through Bikesocial membership.
Furygan Heat X Kevlar review | Verdict
Besides the problem with the automatic temperature sensor, the Furygan Heat X Kevlar are high-quality, effective heated gloves that provide enough temperature even in the coldest conditions. The fact that I’m cable-free is a definite bonus as I already have enough cables dangling from my seat powering the rest of my heated gear.
Admittedly, these gloves are not cheap, and I was disappointed with the waterproof performance, but I find that the effective heating is really the big selling point for someone with chronically cold hands for most of the year.
For most of my journeys, the battery life’s adequate and there’s always an option of buying a second set of batteries (£52.99) for longer journeys with one pair charging on the go. And the accompanying app is not just a gimmick, it’s a truly useful controller.
I’m very happy with these gloves and feel really pleased every time I get to put them on because I know they’ll make that winter journey much more pleasant.
