Uze, a brand that primarily makes power banks, sent me its first-ever graphene-heated jacket this winter. After wearing it for a couple of days, I’ll admit I was left wanting for way more.
I wasn’t a fan of either the aesthetic or the performance. It felt as if only three of the four graphene pads worked, leaving me feeling extremely cold in multiple situations. Promising a charging time of around 45 minutes, the jacket took a whopping five-plus hours to charge at first and two to three hours after a couple of recharge cycles.
Uze’s heated jacket sounds loaded with features when you review its specs on paper, but half of those specs feel unnecessary when it’s in use. I believe Uze could have focused more on providing what the jacket is intended to offer instead of trying to achieve a bit of everything. We’ll go over these features over the next few slides.
Aesthetic and Fit
The jacket isn’t the most pleasing piece of clothing you’d come across, but that’s the case with most heated jackets. Heated jackets usually target outdoor workers or folks interested in cold-weather sports. Since they’re not meant for a fancy brunch, they’re not designed that way. While I’m not going to snub Uze too much for its not-so-pretty product, I wonder what it will take for heated jacket companies to focus on design finally. Uze could have been the one to integrate some style into it and not make me look like I was wearing a ski jacket to work.
The waterproof material also didn’t make the best fit. In a product like this, I prefer the significant functionality that a waterproof material gives me over some potential discomfort.
Highest Heat Setting
The jacket offers four graphene heating zones—two on the front and two on the back— and three heating settings—120, 140, and 160 degrees. You can cycle between the heating settings by pressing the button on the front of the jacket shown in the picture. Unfortunately, only the two heating zones on the back and one on the front—the right one— worked properly, which resulted in the left side of my jacket being extremely cold the entire time.
Lowest Heat Setting
The heat settings didn’t quite benefit me, as I barely got to cycle through them. Since even the highest 160-degree setting was insufficient on some days, I didn’t find a reason to switch to the blue or green (120 or 140-degree) modes except for one or two instances when I needed to skimp on battery. The higher the heat setting, the more battery the jacket consumes.
Uze Jacket Power Bank
So, how does this thing charge? The jacket comes with a Uze power bank and charging cable, which are built-in in one of its inner pockets. You first charge the power bank via a regular electrical outlet, and once it’s charged all the way, you plug it into the cable coming out of the pocket to charge the jacket. You can use the power bank to charge your other devices, too.
The power bank took five to six hours on the first few charging attempts. Using the jacket with a charging time as high as that was obviously very inconvenient. Upon reaching out to the company, I was told that the charging time would improve after a couple of cycles of charge/discharge. It eventually came down to around two to three hours, which was still remarkably more than what was advertised—45 minutes.
The first time I ran a test, the battery lasted less than an hour. A couple of tests later, it eventually grew to around two hours, which was still unimpressive. It lasted just enough to commute to and back from work, but I can’t imagine an outdoor worker, for instance, being happy with these numbers.
Snow Skirt
This is one of the several little specs the jacket offers. The back of the jacket features a snow skirt that you can unzip to take advantage of. This extra fabric prevents snow or rain from coming up and dirtying your clothes when opened.
Built-In Eyeglass-Cleaning Cloth
This is another hidden feature that might go unnoticed by some. A built-in eyeglass-cleaning cloth is attached to one of the inner pockets that you can pull out anytime without fearing losing it. While I appreciate how thorough and thoughtful some of these features are, I can’t help but wish the same level of thoughtfulness was put into the primary purpose of the jacket: Keeping me warm.
Magnetized Front Strap
Unlike the last two specs, this one helped me quite a bit. The front strap of the jacket sports magnetic buttons from top to bottom for a faster and easier closing. In the cold, when you don’t want to take your gloves off and then spend a few seconds zipping up your jacket, the magnetized strap helps. You must place one atop the other and press along the strap once to ensure they’re firmly locked.