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Three touchscreen-capable gloves tested

While capacitive touchscreens have a lot of wonderful qualities when it comes to precision and sensitivity, the need for skin contact can be a problem in cold climates. MobileBurn has tried out three different solutions that help protect your digits from frigid air while still letting you manipulate your iPhone or iPad without resorting to some kind of sausage.

Gloves from Isotoner and Agloves and a retrofit kit from GloveTips.com gave a decidedly mixed set of results in MobileBurn's testing. Fleece smartTouch gloves from Isotoner feature capacitive pads on the tips of the index finger and thumb. While the gloves are warm and the pads work well, their position means that your finger or thumb have to be straight on to make contact. If you often use the side of the finger tip or thumb, you're out of luck. The Agloves are infused throughout with silver, meaning that you can touch the screen any way you want and still control it. However, the knit construction means they don't keep your hands as warm as the Isotoners, and they are apparently very slippery, making it hard to keep a grip on your phone unless it is in some kind of case.

Finally, the GloveTips let you retrofit your favorite gloves with capacitive tips. Unfortunately, the contact points are very small, and if you don't get them in exactly the right spot for the way you hold your phone, they aren't very reliable. If you've tried out any gloves that let you control a touchscreen, let us know how they worked out in the comments. Check out MobileBurn's video in the second part of the post.




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Accessories iPhone iPad

While capacitive touchscreens have a lot of wonderful qualities when it comes to precision and sensitivity, the need for skin contact can...
 

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WhiteGlossy

When it comes to keeping your digits warm with an iPhone fetis... we lean more towards the freehands glove. See - http://wp.me/p106i6-1JA

December 09 2010 at 10:08 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
steinauf

I've found a few other good gloves.

Echo Touch has several designs for men and women. I tried the msoft ones on in the store, and while they are too girly for a man, they are very accurate
http://www.echodesign.com/Category/features/echo+touch+glove/default.aspx?rid=656

and here is a link to the North Face ETIP gloves that someone mentioned above:
http://www.thenorthface.com/catalog/sc-gear/mens-accessories/etip-glove_2.html

As it is, I think i'm going to try for the Isotoners. Good grip so you don't drop the phone, and I always use my fingertips anyway (or at least could adjust if I had to).

December 07 2010 at 1:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
nate

I'm confused by the mobileburn video--they sorta gloss over the fact that the location of contact points on the isotoners force you to use your phone a certain way--yet they say GloveTips are "unreliable" if you don't place them correctly. Seems like they have the same issue. At least with GloveTips you can actually have control over where the contact points are. Seems to me if you place them correctly: they work fine. And it looks like he placed the thumb glovetip in a rediculous location--on the side of his thumb? Has anyone else tried these?

December 01 2010 at 10:47 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Optimus Rhyme

I bought a pair of North Face etip gloves only just yesterday.
They are thin enough to go under my normal gloves (a good job as they are not that warm!) and give pretty decent control over my iPhone.

Bad news is they cost £27!

November 29 2010 at 5:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Optimus Rhyme's comment
izekial27

You got ripped off Optimus Rhyme.

http://bit.ly/fDLGj1

November 30 2010 at 5:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
callisto9

I had the Isotoner gloves, but found them to be too snug on my chubby little fingers, so I returned them. They did work as advertised though.

November 29 2010 at 4:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
LinkReincarnate

I did this myself like 6 months ago using a bit of wire glue. Here is a video for anyone who doesn't want to spend exorbitant amounts of money for a pre made solution.
http://www.linkreincarnate.com/2010/07/how-to-turn-anything-into-ipad-stylus.html

November 29 2010 at 4:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Nicki

I bought the Isotoner gloves a month or so back and have been very happy with them. As you pointed out, they take a little bit of adjustment to get used to them, but overall does exactly what I need. :)

November 29 2010 at 1:53 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
uzerzero

I opted for the more economic and roundabout approach: take a pair of knit gloves that are fairly decent at keeping your hands warm, tear tiny holes in the bottom (palm side) of the index finger and thumb allowing for direct contact with the touchscreen. Voila! iPhone capability in the cold without taking off gloves at a cost of a few dollars.

I knit/crochet during the colder months to fight boredom and carpal tunnel, so I wonder if using some capacitive thread in the fingertips would offer the same capability?

November 29 2010 at 1:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
uzerzero

I opted for the more economic and roundabout approach: take a pair of knit gloves that are fairly decent at keeping your hands warm, tear tiny holes in the bottom (palm side) of the index finger and thumb allowing for direct contact with the touchscreen. Voila! iPhone capability in the cold without taking off gloves at a cost of a few dollars.

November 29 2010 at 1:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
robb1068

I tried out two pairs of the DOTS gloves last year (the fleece with the metallic dot and the knit with the silver threading) and they were both junk. The fleece with the dot had the metallic dot slightly recessed into the glove, which made it almost impossible to make contact with the surface of the iPhone screen.

The knit gloves were an even bigger disappointment because they initially worked fine. But the quality of the glove was so poor that within a week of wearing them, I was losing threads and knitting to the point where my fingers could stick through the tips and holes were opening where the fingers and palm join. And they did little to keep out the Chicago cold.

November 29 2010 at 12:45 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to robb1068's comment
spencergaum

Wow I thought I was the only one who hated dots gloves. They don't work like they're supposed to. And they definitely don't protect your hands from the cold. And in Canada, it's not cold. It's f---ing freezing. Two thumbs down for dots gloves.

November 29 2010 at 1:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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