I’ve been on vacation for the last week doing some snowboarding in Colorado, but it wasn’t all play. I’ve been doing an accessory review for you, our good readers. For the last week, I’ve been testing the Marmot iTouch Multi gloves for use with capacitive touchscreens.
What Are They?
The iTouch Multi gloves from Marmot are gloves that have a special tip on the index-finger and thumb that allow one to use capacitive touch devices that normally only work with bare fingers. I bought mine at a local ski/snowboard shop for only $35. These gloves aren’t thick (or water-resistant) enough for use as dedicated skiing/snowboarding gloves, but they work great as liners for larger gloves or for stand-alone gloves in brisk weather.
How do they work?
On both gloves are pads on the index-finger and thumb that have a special material that activate the capacitive touch device. The material helps transfer the field that you fingers’ naturally generate which acts to disrupt a field created by a capacitive touchscreen, thus locating the region that the screen has been touched. It seems that these gloves are rather new, as I can’t even locate them on Marmot’s site, so I unfortunately don’t know the exact origin of the material. The special material is flexible, and it goes over top of the regular glove material, so you thumb and index-finger stay just as warm as your other fingers.
How do they perform?
I’m pretty impressed with the gloves. They work about as well as I expected them to. I bought these gloves with the desire to be able to operate the basic functions of my iPhone 3G in the cold without having to remove my gloves. I also wanted them to function as a liner for larger gloves so that I could take my outer gloves off while snowboarding and be able to use my phone on the slopes without my hands freezing off.
The special material on the index-finger and thumb work well to initiate touchscreen input. Of course it isn’t the surface of your real finger, so it is hard to be as accurate as normal, but as long as you are careful, it is possible to touch right where you are trying to. Sometimes it is easiest to use the side of the glove tip where it comes to more of a point to hit exactly what you want. The gloves make it easy to answer and place phone calls without taking your gloves off. Though it might take more time, you can also respond to text messages. When returning texts, it is only practical to type with one finger; you won’t be typing with two thumbs like you might normally.
I only have two issues with these gloves. The first of which is grip. The gloves are covered on the palm side with little rubbery grips that look just like the red logo on the index-finger. While they probably assist your grip somewhat, holding the iPhone is still analogous to holding a wet bar of a soap. Ok that might be a bit of an overstatement, but I would recommend being very careful while holding your electronic device. For me, holding and typing with the same hand was totally out of the question. While I was on the ski lifts, I would hold my iPhone firmly with one hand and use the other to navigate, any other way would just be asking to lose your iPhone to the snow 30 feet under you. Stopping to answer a call on the slopes wasn’t much of an issue. All I had to do was take off my outer glove and slide the slider to answer. I was able to talk on the phone without completely taking off my gloves, which is very nice when you are out in the cold.
My second complaint is build quality. The gloves would probably hold up very well if they were used by themselves. However, a week of being used as liners is already taking its toll. The special pads are already frayed. After prolonged use as liners, it seems like they would degrade fairly quickly. As I said, during stand-alone use, they would probably last much longer.
Overall I’m pretty satisfied with the gloves, and I feel that they are priced fairly. Any glove makers out there think they have a better pair of capacitive touch enabled gloves? Contact me at Ben [at] umpcportal.com if you would like to have them reviewed.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention Ben. Nice review and good to look at other things associated with UMPCs – what about gloves for your resistive touch screen?
Too bad it’s a Marmot product. I think that company is in the process of gutting their good name by pasting it on cargo ships full of cheap crap. Every Marmot product I’ve bought in the last 3 years has been returned as defective or thrown in the trash. My local mountaineering store recently dropped them due to excessive returns on defective merchandise. All the Marmot gear I have that’s 6 years or more old is still going strong, though. Ah, the once-great name in outdoor gear…….
Since this is a tech (not an outdoor blog) site whereby I presume this will be the only Marmot product that will have any relevance to this site, I’m not sure how what they are doing with their brand is related to this product or site :)
..just to add, if that’s what they have to do to stay afloat and you’re (and most likely other outdoor sports ppl) aware of it, I guess it’s a GOOD thing at the end of the day, no?
I’m not sure I follow you. Maybe you didn’t notice, but Marmot is the manufacturer of the glove. Hence, the relevance. Not sure how you missed that, as the word “Marmot” is all over the article.
Good thing at the end of the day? I don’t get your point.
I guess you’re just making a joke. I just don’t get your humor. What’s the punch line?
>Maybe you didn’t notice, but Marmot is the manufacturer of the glove
Maybe YOU didn’t read my reply? :)
” I presume this will be the only Marmot product that will have any relevance to this site”
Now tell me how many products do you find on here http://marmot.com/ that would be UMPC related? :) Hence my comment that this will most likely be the only Marmot product that will ever be mentioned in a post on this site? Hence my comment:
“I’m not sure how what they are doing with their brand is related to this product or site”
Do I need to spell it out more? Your complaints about the Marmot products are most likely not related to UMPCs right? My point is I am not sure your personal problem with Marmot has much to do with this site, get it???
>Good thing at the end of the day? I don’t get your point.
Yes I can tell that you’re not getting it :)
YES If you haven’t noticed there are huge layoffs, and one company after the other going for chapter 11. Now if Marmot has had to do some major changes to their product line or/and suppliers to survive, that is in fact yes a good thing, especially if you’re aware of this so you can pick and chose what you buy. Or would you have preferred this company to have been gone already and this product never seen the day of light?
>I guess you’re just making a joke. I just don’t get your humor. What’s the punch line?
No joke, no humor, no punch line, just FACTS OF LIFE and a bit of “isn’t this OT” questioning. Get it?
> Too bad it’s a Marmot product. I think that company is in the process of gutting their good > name by pasting it on cargo ships full of cheap crap.
Well as they state themselves on their site “Marmot does not own or operate any manufacturing facilities” http://marmot.com/vendor_compliance_policy hence one can’t just pull all of this company’s products under the same banner so to speak, just like with a number of companies we know from within the computing world, where one product from that company might be great others, not so much.
I believe generalizing like this especially about a company that doesn’t manufacture ANYTHING, isn’t fare nor is it factual.
If you’re going to make accusations like this it is customary on the web to back it up with some hard evidence (that is not just a forum thread somewhere of someone discontent but statistics where there is info like PPM etc.
So, do you need to see receipts for the stuff I returned? Do I need to show pictures of the Marmot products that I threw out after a short service life? Sorry, dude, I just don’t keep that stuff around. As far as high-end retailers who drop Marmot, well, you can just go see for yourself if you care. You don’t have to take my word for it. You can ignore my opinion if you like – doesn’t matter to me.
Understand, though that it’s the responsibility of a company to validate the designs of the products sold under it’s brand. It’s also that company’s responsibility to ensure quality – especially for a company that built a reputation as a high-end brand. It’s just bad business to take the attitude that it’s the manufacturer’s problem and leave the reputation of the brand to someone else. So, the issue of Marmot not owning/operating any manufacturing facilities is completely irrelevant. I challenge you to construct a logical argument contrary to this.
You’re also dead wrong on your last point. It’s customary on the web and on forums to just make up any old bullshit. I’d love to see a forum where every opinion (hell even a majority) is backed by hard facts or statistics. You’re living in a dream world if you think factual evidence is customary.
In my case, my hard evidence is my own experience with a tent (bad seam seals), a sleeping bag (improperly attached zipper), two jackets (bad zipper/flap that was prone to jamming, another that couldn’t be openned/closed with gloves on), and two pairs of gloves (supposedly waterproof gloves that were single-stiched with cotton thread). That’s hard enough evidence for me.
Dear Pete,
>So, do you need to see receipts for the stuff I returned?
No since I was talking about objective reasons, not subjective ones. As I typed the reply to you I was returning a Motorola EQ5 speaker, why because it was as you put it “crap”, NO, but I found it elsewhere for half the price. I have also returned other items that were perfectly ok for other reasons. This happens quite often actually when you’re a tech geek :)
>As far as high-end retailers who drop Marmot
I have made NO SUCH STATEMENT nor question!? I am not sure if there is a language barrier here or if you just don’t READ before you reply. So let me try again with my point:
I think this product is the only product from Marmot that a website like UMPCportal will post about.
UMPCportal is not a commercial site, and I have not said anything about any resellers of Marmot of dropping their product. However if you would present such information rather than just saying “well, you can just go see for yourself if you care” it might help. Where should we look to see that a good amount of Marmot retailers have dropped their product due to very low quality (which “crap” constitutes)?
>Understand, though that it’s the responsibility of a company to validate the >designs of the products sold under it’s brand……I challenge you to >construct a logical argument contrary to this.
You know Pete, if you first off would actually READ my replies, and then secondly had an understanding of how this type of global sourcing and quality control works you’d comprehend my replies. From your comments it’s obvious that you don’t. Any company like this that sells such a large number of very different products use a GOOD MULTITUDE of manufacturing factories, where one supplying factory might just be outstanding and another not so great. In the economic atmosphere we’ve been the past year so some of these factories might have just shut doors, this means they will have to source this from other places. Our own company is in this position with a number of OUR (non tech) products, the factory that supplied them are no longer around, and they had outstanding quality.
Even if you take a large brand name you an very often find the same (especially garments!) exact item made in various countries (even continents) from different times, just open your eyes and start looking at the tiny print such as “Made in” more, having worked for around a decade with quality and global sourcing for two of the best known mobile phone brands, I have the tendency to look at all tiny small markings on any product that reveals a lot about it’s origin and production chain at times.
>It’s customary on the web and on forums to just make up any old bullshit.
THAT WAS MY POINT EXACTLY!? I will quote myself:
“that is not just a forum thread somewhere of someone discontent but statistics where there is info like PPM etc.”
Note the “NOT” and the “BUT” and the reference to statistics and PPM? I was saying this is NOT a forum where such subjective opinions are thrown around, rather my indirect reference was to places like Wikipedia, with this site’s product page in mind where there are numbers and figures and facts, and not someone’s subjective opinions such as “return receipts”.
>In my case, my hard evidence is my own experience
I’m sorry but you might want to get more acquainted with the meaning of that term (hard evidence): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hard_evidence&redirect=no
Your examples are all subjective where half of them are opinions not even product issues, out of curiosity did you READ the instructions for these products? :)
Pete, since it appears you are not REALLY thoroughly READING my replies before you reply I believe it would be pointless for me to reply any further to this subject, as this whole discussion in itself is exactly the opposite of my initial comment’s point which wa trying to be: “Does the Marmot product range (non glove) comments belong on this tech site?”. So to avoid any further waste of your time, my time and more importantly this website’s tech reader’s time. I can not reply to any further comments by you on this subject just READ through my replies once (or twice…) more ok? Bye!
Dear Pete,
>So, do you need to see receipts for the stuff I returned?
No since I was talking about objective reasons, not subjective ones. As I typed the reply to you I was returning a Motorola EQ5 speaker, why because it was as you put it “crapâ€, NO, but I found it elsewhere for half the price. I have also returned other items that were perfectly ok for other reasons. This happens quite often actually when you’re a tech geek :)
>As far as high-end retailers who drop Marmot
I have made NO SUCH STATEMENT nor question!? I am not sure if there is a language barrier here or if you just don’t READ before you reply. So let me try again with my point:
I think this product is the only product from Marmot that a website like UMPCportal will post about.
UMPCportal is not a commercial site, and I have not said anything about any resellers of Marmot of dropping their product. However if you would present such information rather than just saying “well, you can just go see for yourself if you care†it might help. Where should we look to see that a good amount of Marmot retailers have dropped their product due to very low quality (which “crap†constitutes)?
>Understand, though that it’s the responsibility of a company to validate the >designs of the products sold under it’s brand……I challenge you to >construct a logical argument contrary to this.
You know Pete, if you first off would actually READ my replies, and then secondly had an understanding of how this type of global sourcing and quality control works you’d comprehend my replies. From your comments it’s obvious that you don’t. Any company like this that sells such a large number of very different products use a GOOD MULTITUDE of manufacturing factories, where one supplying factory might just be outstanding and another not so great. In the economic atmosphere we’ve been the past year so some of these factories might have just shut doors, this means they will have to source this from other places. Our own company is in this position with a number of OUR (non tech) products, the factory that supplied them are no longer around, and they had outstanding quality.
Even if you take a large brand name you an very often find the same (especially garments!) exact item made in various countries (even continents) from different times, just open your eyes and start looking at the tiny print such as “Made in†more, having worked for around a decade with quality and global sourcing for two of the best known mobile phone brands, I have the tendency to look at all tiny small markings on any product that reveals a lot about it’s origin and production chain at times.
>It’s customary on the web and on forums to just make up any old bullshit.
THAT WAS MY POINT EXACTLY!? I will quote myself:
“that is not just a forum thread somewhere of someone discontent but statistics where there is info like PPM etc.â€
Note the “NOT†and the “BUT†and the reference to statistics and PPM? I was saying this is NOT a forum where such subjective opinions are thrown around, rather my indirect reference was to places like Wikipedia, with this site’s product page in mind where there are numbers and figures and facts, and not someone’s subjective opinions such as “return receiptsâ€.
>In my case, my hard evidence is my own experience
I’m sorry but you might want to get more acquainted with the meaning of that term (hard evidence) for instance on Wikipedia.
Your examples are all subjective where half of them are opinions not even product issues, out of curiosity did you READ the instructions for these products? :)
Pete, since it appears you are not REALLY thoroughly READING my replies before you reply I believe it would be pointless for me to reply any further to this subject, as this whole discussion in itself is exactly the opposite of my initial comment’s point which wa trying to be: “Does the Marmot product range (non glove) comments belong on this tech site?â€. So to avoid any further waste of your time, my time and more importantly this website’s tech reader’s time. I can not reply to any further comments by you on this subject just READ through my replies once (or twice…) more ok? Bye!
I read just fine. You’re just constructing bad arguments that don’t hold together logically. I think you’re right. There must be a language barrier. You don’t even see where you contradict yourself in your last reply. I’m a native english speaker. Then you quote me, but object to the quote as though I attributed it to you……hmmm. I see who’s got the reading problem.
All your diatribe about the global supply chain, contracted manufacturing, oursourcing, etc., is completely beside the point, as I tried to explain, but your last reply shows you just don’t get it.
Regarding your point about customary practices on the web, forums, etc., if that was exacly your point, then let’s chalk that up to the language barrier. You said the opposite. Have a native english speaker explain it to you. You even quoted a fragment of your own that, in isolation, contradicted your original point.
So yeah, you can get all insulting if you want. It’s always the last defense of a loser.
Pete,
I want to appologize for all and any comments that might have offended you!
Despite how my words come accross at times it is my wish to keep this site professional and factual, thereof my appology, as no reader should need to feel that they are offended on here.
My original reply was only really intended to raise the question if the comment referring to other Marmot products wasn’t off topic on this site. However then I replied with numerous completely off topic replies!
So to you Pete and other fellow UMPCportal readers and comment writers, I’m sorry and let’s spend our time on here talking about what we really love, UMPCs and gadgets around them!
Ok?
Respect.
Sure thing, EC. It takes a lot more than that to piss me off. I was actually kinda amused by the exchange. No hard feelings. Actually, if I get pissed off, I usually just say “not worth the headache” and walk away.
Marmot Iphone Gloves? YES! Exclusive! #Iphone #glove
http://bit.ly/17rH2a