Refugium Jacket Staves Off Hypothermia…Or Charges Your iPod!

2:40AM September 29, 2009 | Mark Wilson

Most jackets trap your body’s warmth. Few generate their own. The Mountain Hardwear Refugium Jacket includes a cleverly concealed battery that warms your core for 8.6 hours and includes the option to charge your gadgets, too.

The heat is customisable, featuring three levels of warmth that you activate with a tab in the coat’s chest (sort of like a very lame Iron Man).

This coat, as described so far, will run you $US375.

For another $US50, you can add a USB adaptor that leads into a pocket that’s fed from the same battery as the heating element. In other words, you’ll be able to recharge your phone, but it could be at the cost of freezing to death or at least losing a few limbs.

Tough call. [Mountain Hardwear via Urbandaddy via CrunchGear]

Comments

Michael Doyle

September 29, 2009 at 11:54 AM

An insulating layer that weighs 1.5kg and retails at $230US!

Probably more likely to attract Short Stack fans on their trip up the chair-lift vs. someone who might be fearing hypothermia and freazing to death!

That said – cool idea. Alternative is a down filled jacket at 0.5kg and half the $$ (RRP is $230US)

I’ll take one on my next trip and tell you all about it :-)

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