Product review: Warmee self heating pouch
We deal with cold in some form or the other - whether it's an early morning ride or a ten day tour of the Himalayas. The key is finding a way to beat the chill so you can focus on the important things. The Warmee is a simple but effective way of dealing with cold - especially for your hands. The concept is straightforward- it is a pouch containing iron, activated carbon and vermiculite. The iron is inactive until it gets exposed to air, which happens when you tear open the packet. The instructions suggest that you shake the packet for ten to fifteen seconds which activates the iron once it gets oxidised and the vermiculite helps spread the heat evenly.
The packet gets warm within ten minutes and we found that it starts to get quite hot after a couple of hours. Hot enough to cause burns so you want to be careful with prolonged direct contact with skin. The packet can be slipped into a jacket or pant pocket or you can simply use it to warm numb fingers. Varun who had a bad back on one of our shoots got some relief by using it as a hot pack as well. What's impressive is that despite the claimed 8 hours, we found that the pack retains usable warmth for nearly ten hours.
Warmee is surprisingly affordable and comes in two sizes. The smaller 70x90mm pouch costs Rs 30 and the larger 100x140mm pouch costs Rs 50.