I bought these gloves for $299.00 in the week leading up to a trip from Sydney out to Koorawatha. My assessment of them are that they are only really useful for short runs such as commuting to work. As touring motorcycle gloves in general though, they seem OK. But when coupled with the electric circuitry, there are problems with them over long distances. The gloves are supposed to communicate with each other wirelessly but they constantly disconnected throughout the 1000km overnight journey and meant managing their power consumption became a problem, with the result being flat batteries after about four hours.

The problems encountered while on the move was being unable to control the temperature or switch the gloves off completely. To reset the gloves requires stopping, removing the left glove, pulling the battery out and disconnecting it.

Leaving Sydney the morning after the shortest day of the year, the heat generated by the gloves at full power was subtle, while on the move at 110kph along the M4 indicating +4 degrees centigrade on the dash with no hand guards and with heated grips active. The fact I have no hand guards could well have been the difference between feeling like they were keeping my fingertips from going into shock or feeling toasty. If I straightened my fingers out while cruising, I could sense a bit of warmth but it was only just detectable.

Pre-heating the gloves before moving off was a good idea but there is no feeling of them working once underway except that every other part of my body felt cold, but my hands were kinda OK. The heated grips did nothing to enhance the overall glove warmth and only served to do what they usually do and that is cook the palm of my hands.

The gloves are regarded as waterproof but I have not come across any gloves that are waterproof… really.

The HG3 gloves are regarded by FIVE5 as entry level heated gloves. On their own they appear well made. I have the XL size gloves which importantly, have an air space between the very end of the gloves and my fingertips which has proven in the past to be the key to keeping my fingertips from becoming painfully cold. The gloves are noticeably bulky but I had no real problems with the gloves new out of the box. There was initial stress in my hands when riding through the tight backstreets on my way out of town, mainly with my clutch hand. Overall comfort and feel was probably in keeping with a new pair of obviously thick gloves and wasn’t really distracting once in touring mode except for some slightly less feel on down changes and braking when coming to a complete stop and then taking off again, but this was made up for by the gloves keeping out the cold.

The picture above shows the battery plugged into the glove and the charge connector. The gloves come standard with an AC charger and two batteries that can be charged while still plugged into the gloves. There is a Connection Kit that permits wiring direct to the motorcycle’s battery.