mangosquash

Problem:

I work from home in an old house that we are too cheap to heat properly. My desk is near 80 year old windows. My hands get cold and my fingers have trouble typing at full speed.

Solution:

The most obvious solution to this problem is a space heater. However, as my hands are really the only part of me that gets cold, a space heater seemed a little excessive for my needs. Also, they use a lot of electricity and as I mentioned before, we are cheap.

Enter: "Crust Be Dreaming USB Hand Warmers", clearly these are not marketed to men.

I wouldn’t have even thought that something like this existed if it hadn’t been brought to my attention by attention on Twitter by two friends(who I would have linked to but they both have protected accounts, boo!). But I saw them, I bought them, and now I’m wearing them.

My primary concerns before I got them is that they would get in the way of my computer using. I am happy to report that they do not (for the most part). That’s not to say that it didn’t take some getting used to. It’s taken some trial and error.

First off these things are comfortable (even off). They are made out of really solt plush material and fit well on my normal-sized hands. There is even a velcro strap if you need additional tightening (though for me, it is a minor nuisance.)

Velcro strap: Good for some? Not for me.

I have a desktop computer with an old-ish Apple Keyboard that has USB ports on both sides of it and I figured that these would be where I would plug my hand warmers in. I plugged them in and selected the lower of the two settings. (The packaging says they have 3 settings, but this is only if you count “Off” as a setting.) After about 10 minutes of use, it didn’t feel like they were any warmer than if I was just wearing gloves over my hands. I turned it up to high. Same general problem.

I was a little bummed out, but I thought the problem may be that the outlets on my keyboard (which is plugged into my monitor) weren’t provided enough power to warm the mittens. Fortunately, the mittens come with a long USB cable (4 feet maybe?) that allowed me to plug it directly into my tower without any problem. After I did that, they warmed up rather quickly.

Even from here though, Low was not the setting for me. I’ve had my warmers on high for over an hour now and my hands are pleasantly warm (though not hot). I’ve gone through my regular work day (typing, photoshopping, drinking coffee, etc…) and found that I can accomplish everything that I normally do, more comfortably than I normally would, with the help of my Crust Be Dreaming USB Hand Warmers.

I bought them for $34.99 (a little under $40 including shipping) from ModCloth, and had them in less than 4 days. When researching this article however, I found them for $24.99 on ThinkGeek. I don’t know what their shipping prices are though. Either way though, assuming these things keep working, they are worth $40 to me. If you have a problem that is similar to mine, this is a good solution. Buy them.

p.s. They are pretty cute.

This entry was posted on February 17, 2012 at 3:10 pm and is filed under Reviews, Technology.