6 Heated Gadgets That Will Keep You Warm In A Freezing Office

Studio Romantic/Shutterstock

As the leaves change and summer sun gives way to autumn chill, your workplace transforms from a sweatbox to a freezer. You may find yourself shivering at your desk, with your fingers tightening up so that it’s difficult to even use a keyboard. Some of your coworkers are still inexplicably wearing short sleeves, and they balk when you complain about the ice-box that is your cubicle. Looks like it’s up to you to provide your own source of heat.

Advertisement

Well, look no further. As a sufferer of poor circulation, it’s easy to get cold faster than most people and need a product warm you up. For the purpose of these recommendations, SlashGear aggregated review scores from multiple storefronts and cross-referenced them with professional reviews and rankings. What we found are a slew of high quality heated gadgets that will keep you snug as an office bug all winter long. So, from heaters that will turn your Siberan workplace into a tropical paradise to all manner of heated clothing, these are the six best heated gadgets to keep you warm in a frigid office. A more thorough explanation for the selection methodology can be found at the end of this article.

Advertisement

The first line of defense against a frigid office is to bring your own portable heater, which can blast hot under your desk throughout the day. However, there are some factors to consider before buying whatever the top result on Amazon is. First of all, space heaters can be dangerous if they do not include safety features like automatic shutoff. And while there are some slightly cheaper and extremely popular options available, the best portable heater is the Dreo DR-HSH004A.

Advertisement

Dreo has done a few things with this heater to earn its spot on this list. First, it has a safety plug with automatic shutoff, which will kill power to the unit if it detects overheating, tip-overs, or surges. You can stay toasty with the knowledge you won’t accidentally burn down your office. You can’t put a price on safety, but you can put a price on this space heater. It’s about $50 at Walmart and Best Buy, or $60 on Amazon (though it gets lower with sales). The fact that it’s sold at so many different retailers increases confidence that it’s not cheap junk, as does the fact that it has between 4.6 and 4.9 stars across those online stores.

The Dreo space heater’s features are also robust. It has a built-in thermostat so you won’t constantly be turning it on and off, along with a simple set of capacitive controls up top. It also oscillates 70 degrees, so you can cover more space, or make sure it’s not constantly directed at you. And because it’s designed to be under a desk according to its marketing copy, it also includes a handy remote, so you won’t need to bend over every time you adjust its settings.

Advertisement

If your office won’t allow a space heater, you can get some extra warmth from a jacket that has a powered heat source. These products are meant to provide a little extra heat for the outdoors, but when your office might as well be Niflheim, they’re equally luxurious indoors. The downside is they can be a bit pricey, but not extraordinarily so compared to other high-end outerwear. One of the most appealing options for heated jackets is the Dewbu Polar Fleece Heated Jacket.

Advertisement

Coming in both men’s and women’s fits, the Dewbu Polar Fleece Heated Jacket isn’t the warmest product the company offers. It strikes a great middle ground between its more insulated Soft Shell Heated Jacket, which is overkill for an office setting, and the Heated Vest, which won’t keep your arms cozy and isn’t very stylish (in this writer’s opinion). With a 12V battery pack and five carbon fiber heating zones, Dewbu claims you can run the Polar Fleece jacket’s heating coils for a solid 3.5 hours at high settings, or nine hours at low ones. You can also connect it to another power source if you’re stationary, such as while sitting at a desk, and you can charge your phone from it, too, assuming you’re okay parting with some of its battery life.

Advertisement

Moreover, these jackets are both decent looking (if you’re into athleisure) and functional, with a clean silhouette and plenty of pockets. You don’t have to sacrifice style to stay artificially warm. Another thing that looks good: its high average rating from Amazon, Walmart, and its constant placement on rankings of the best heated jackets. The Dewbu Polar Fleece Heated Jacket costs $139 at Walmart, and the same on Amazon with sales.

If you’re the kind of person who mainly wants to keep your extremities warm in your chilly office, you might consider heated boots. If your office dress code is extremely lax, you might be able to get away with heated slippers, but for those who prefer something slightly more formal, it’s hard to beat the Volt Heat Heated Lava Boots.

Advertisement

The Volt Heat Heated Lava Boots have heating elements built into the shoes, with two rechargeable, 8V battery packs and a charger included. A faux fur and terry cloth interior helps insulate heat, as does water repellant ripstop nylon upper. The actual heating element is in the insole, so it’s a bit like standing on a heating vent. Volt Heat claims these puppy warmers can get between seven and 14 hours on a charge, which will most likely last you an entire workday at all but the highest heat setting. The temperature is controlled by a button in the tongue, which cycles between off, low, medium, and high. They are available from women’s size 5 up to men’s size 13, so most people should be able to find a proper fit.

Advertisement

There are three obvious downsides to the Volt Heat Heated Lava Boots. First, they’re heavier than normal boots of this style, weighing in at 1.5 pounds each if Walmart’s three-pound measurement is accurate. Second, you will need to charge your shoes regularly, which is not a sentence you probably expected to read today. Lastly, the lowest I could find them listed for is $159, a price that could buy you multiple space heaters to point at your feet. Still, if you specifically want heated footwear, these have the best reviews across the web.

If you don’t want to bundle up in the office or have a heating fan pointed in your direction, you can opt to keep warm in your cubicle by grabbing a heated seat cushion for your office chair. If you’ve experienced a heated car seat in the dead of winter, you’ve probably wished your office chair could deliver the same comfort. And when it comes to heated seat cushions, you can even get a massage at the same time. That’s why the Snailax Massage Seat Cushion with Heat is the perfect choice to put you quite literally in the hot seat.

Advertisement

This seat-shaped heating and massage pad simply lays on top of your chair, then draws corded power for its heating coils and vibration motors. The latter of those is important to note. If you’re looking primarily for massage, you’ll probably want a shiatsu style massager with mechanical parts rather than this vibration-only massage. But if you consider the massaging element merely an added bonus to the heating it provides, the Snailax looks to be a great buy according to customer reviews on Walmart and Amazon, especially for the $57.99 and $59.99 price tag at those stores, respectively. It includes separate heating controls for the seat and back, with an overheating protection system and an automatic 30-minute shutoff (in case you get so relaxed you fall asleep in it). It will most likely work with any standard office chair, and won’t be obtrusive, so your coworkers might not even notice its presence unless the vibration motors, which can be turned on or off regardless of the heat setting, get too loud.

Advertisement

Sometimes, the cure to a cold office is a hot cup of tea or coffee. While warming from the outside can help, the temporary relief of internal warmth might be all you need in an office that’s chilly, but not oppressively cold. And when it comes to hot drinks, no gadget is quite as effective as the Ember Temperature Control Smart Mug. The Ember mug is so good that, aside from SlashGear’s positive Ember mug review, we also included it on our 2022 holiday gifts for tech lovers, and it even made the top spot in our list of tech accessories to take your coffee to the next level.

Advertisement

It’s an idea as simple as it is genius. The Ember mug contains a built-in heating source that can be dialed in to maintain your beverage at a precise temperature. This is fantastic for two reasons. First, your drink will never get cold, no matter how long you leave it sitting. Second, coffee and tea each have rather slim temperatures at which they taste best according to experts, so nailing that temperature every time means your drink will always taste its best.

In testing, SlashGear found that the Ember mug itself has a disappointing battery life of about one hour, but that’s not a big problem if you don’t leave your desk often. The saucer bundled with the mug is also a charging plate, which means that you can keep the plate plugged in on your desk and, unless the power goes out, your drink will stay forever toasty. The entire kit is controlled with a companion app on your phone. Yes, you can now pair your coffee mug to your phone. Welcome to the future.

Advertisement

The most annoying part of a cold office is that your motor function may decline as your fingers feel stiff and unable to comfortably use a keyboard. Keeping your hands warm is good for them, and for your productivity. That’s why you might want to consider a USB-powered hand warmer, such as the OCOOPA HotPal Hand Warmer, to keep at your office. Most of the time, you’d prefer to stop your handheld gadgets from overheating, but this oblong puck is meant to do just that, pumping heat into your hands to warm them up. It’s like the analog hand warmers you can buy at gas stations, but with many more use cycles before the rechargeable batteries inside give out.

Advertisement

The OCOOPA HotPal only comes in packs of one, which is a bit of a bummer. But what aren’t bummers are the price  — $24.29 from Walmart or $26.99 from Amazon — and the excellent reviews on both storefronts across over 35,000 ratings at the time of this writing. Looking at the product, it’s easy to see why people like it. The whole thing is controlled with a single button for on/off, heat adjustment, and checking battery levels. According to the marketing copy, it can reach up to 131 degrees Fahrenheit, which is quite toasty, charges with USB C (which is somehow still not something to take for granted on cheaper devices), and has security features to make sure it gets hot but doesn’t overheat. Its aluminum and ABS plastic construction are nice, and reviews seem to confirm that, with multiple customers mentioning how nicely it fits in the palm.

Advertisement

Vithun Khamsong/Getty Images

Each product on this list was either reviewed by SlashGear with hands-on testing, or chosen based on trustworthy reviews from around the web. In the latter cases, reviews from multiple stores were aggregated to ensure a high average score, and they were cross-referenced with hands-on reviews from reputable and journalistically sound sources.

Advertisement