Why we do what we do!
Over the 20 plus years we have been developing the Heat-troller and heated clothing we have had a few people, mainly engineers, wondering why we needed it to turn fully off and then increment to fully on without steps, why we have not made it with an up/down buttons, a touch screen, a Q-slide like the early IPod or even make an app for the IPhone. Others were doing it this way so why not us. None of these “others” are bikers because if they were they would see the beauty of our simple rotary design.
To begin to understand why all these other methods actually are more of a danger to use on a motorcycle, you need to actually ride. Then you actually have to understand how the brain works. Did you know that the brain can interpret the information from an analog display faster than a digital? When it comes to turning a knob it is faster and more accurate action than holding your finger on a button as it turns the power up and down. It is even worse if you must take your eyes off the road to see just what the number read out is. A touch slide or a mechanical one is not much better since you need more time to adjust them. A knob, one that is big enough to use with gloves and requires extraordinarily little turn to make a change, is very quick and simple to use.
As for an IPhone app, that is the craziest of all, or so I thought. You must have the phone out in the weather mounted on the bike where you can see it. You would have to have the app running all the time or else you are turning it on and off and if you are doing some serious riding, adjusting the heat could mean making adjustment numerous times. So, every time you are going to go into the app, take your eyes off the road to make sure you are hitting the correct part of the screen. And, oh yes, you either have to have gloves that will allow the touch screen to work or take the gloves off which means stopping.
What about setting the power level and leaving it that way? Please! You are riding along and the next thing you know you are heading up a mountain. Wait, the setting you have for 100 ft elevation is going to be the same at 2000ft? Or 4000ft? How about riding the along the water where the temperature will drop, then the road cuts inland for a mile and then it cuts back and you are next to the water again. Then there was the time we came out of Mexico, turned west into the mountains and a storm. Unless I got that iPhone in a waterproof case, we would have to pull over every time we had to adjust the heat.
Then there are those who want us to set the temperature. Say set the liner to get to a nice constant 75 degrees. Sure, we can do that. Except for one problem, the body does not know what 75 degrees is. It knows it is warm or cold and that depends on all sorts of internal and external factors from what you eat to when you ate to a small thing called chill factor.
Now the Chinese competitors have come up with a new gimmick, a 3-level button controller. They originally put these on the 7.4V heated jackets they were making and now think it is appropriate for motorcycle use. The first ones were put on the chest of the jacket liner. Which means to use it you either had to push through the outer riding jacket or unzip it to get at the button. Either way you are taking you hand off the throttle because the button is on the left side of the liner. Then someone decided to put it in your lap hanging out the bottom of the jacket liner. So now you not only have to take your hand off the throttle but look down in your lap to find the button and see what color it is to know the heat level. And let us say you want to turn it off and you are at the lowest temperature, you must either press the button 3 times or hold it for 3 seconds. It may not seem that long to someone that does not ride but going through twists and turns with you hand off the throttle or the handlebars that long, is crazy. Now they are making gloves with these buttons on the back of them to control the heat. Just think, you are going up a mountain, it is getting colder, you are going through switch backs, you want to adjust the heat. You now have to take you hand off the grip, cross your body, look to see where the button it and what color it is, press it and get you hand back on either the throttle or clutch before you hit the car coming at you or miss the curve. Do people not think about this before buying?
Warm & Safe is not just a pretty face. We are bikers that use our products in real-world situations and are committed to making products that not only work but also make sense in the real world. Which might be why people replace their 3-position heated handgrip or heated seat switches with one of our Heat-trollers. We also understand design, both electronics and apparel which is why others try to copy us but never seem to get it right. Which is why we heat the thumb top and bottom on our gloves. Try as you might, and I have, you can't get the thumb on the heated grips! Only a real motorcyclist would know this or care.