What about flip top mittens?

Was going to say this. Mittens are way better at keeping hands warm. All gloves do is allow each of my fingers to be individually frozen.

I understand that mittens are better at keeping fingers warm. And I thought about flip top ones, but does that really work?

I've seen two types:

1. fingers exposed, mitten top flips over them.
2. fingers not exposed, so its like a regular fingered glove with a muffin flip top.

For either, I wonder how effective the flip top portion is since it's like an add on. Does it seal well? Once it open, all the heat it tripped escapes. Is it annoying to constantly flip it open where I'll just keep it open all the time. If I'm walking in an area I've never been before, I might want to look at my cell phone as often as every 30 seconds.

If you've had personal experience comparing, I'd be interested to hear

I use the kind that are like a fingerless glove with a mitten top that flips over.

The mitten top has conductive material on the index finger & thumb area, so you can use it without taking the mitten part off. But you can also just poke your index finger out, which is what I do.

I've worn them in some very cold places - Iceland in November, Amsterdam in February, Boston in January - and stayed warm.

In the shoulder season I like lined knitted fingerless gloves. Mine are alpaca with polar fleece lining and came from a fair trade store. You can use these longer than you think with a secret weapon...handwarmers. I have a few kinds. One is small stick kind I got from Lee Valley that is
small enough to slip into the mitts. These also fit well in mittens, but are a little bulky for gloves. Once it gets too cold for those, I often will do one hand in a mitten and one in a mitt and swap them when out using my phone. (If I want to play gps-based phone games when it is really cold, I wear mittens with handwarmers in them and use a stylus!). I also have larger ubs handwarmers that are more pocket sized. I have sometimes just held one though, esp when it is cold enough to make a phone battery drain fast! Usually I just use them to make my pockets all toasty so I can warm my hands up fast. The other game-changer was disposable handwarmers. You can actually make these last way longer if you put them away between uses! They are oxygen activated, so if I stick them in a loksak or even a good ziplock when I am done, I can happily open that bag later and have a new round of toasty hands! Not BIFL, but seriously improved my hand pain. Another type of handwarmer I have tried are reusable, but need to be boiled to re-activate. These are the warmest of all the options! For about 15 minutes or so. But they are small enough to slip into gloves and great for times when you aren't out very long.

I've enjoyed my Head brand touchscreen gloves from Costco for several years now. They're a bit light for sub-zero temperatures but block the wind just fine.

I just bought some of these today, as I started biking to work a couple months ago and it's begun to be cold in the mornings. They were $10.99 today.

oh interesting. which one do you have?

I have a thin pair of liner gloves that work with tech. I wear mittens over them, and pull the mittens off if I have to use my phone. Not ideal if you need your phone constantly, but I'm so much warmer in mittens that I'd rather have warm hands most of the time than freeze all of the time like I do in gloves.

Honestly, I cut the tags off. I've had them for ages - I think from REI or Eddie Bauer?

You coud get a stylus pen at Dollar Tree (for $1.25). I am not sure if they work well for the action of sliding a finger. And it is easy to misplace the stylus pen. I would try out the sliding finger action, except I don't remember where I put my stylus.

Can one hold a phone and stylus while in mittens?

You can buy that special touchscreen thread at a sewing supply store and use it on your gloves. It can be tricky to see in, depending on the glove fabric, but works. I paid $6, and it’s enough for the rest of my life, likely. You don’t need much.

I found my stylus which was in a pencil caddy and the sliding/dragging action works fine.

I don't have mittens, but if I put my hand with the four fingers opposing the thumb, then I am able to hold the stylus in a winter glove. Feels a bit awkward, but definitely able to use the phone. You can't do multi-finger gestures though and that could be useful to zoom in/out on a map.

Sullivan Glove Company will sew cell phone compatible tips into any of their gloves for $20. I bought my wife a pair of their lined gloves last year and added touch screen compatibility to hers. he loves them. These are as close to BIFL you'll get.

I can confirm they work well, I’ve used them through several Canadian winters and they’re quite warm. The tricky part is that cheaper ones can start to unravel along where the flap attaches to the rest of the glove. So probably worth buying from a good brand.

Oh yea, I do it all the time in the winter, no problem.

well I guess I can do both. Get mittens like the other person suggested and then try a stylus.

and reccomendation?

I just bought some from Eddie Bauer that seem to be pretty good quality.

The flip top mittens I have are thick felted wool with a leather palm. I would use my thumb to stretch the opening so just my index finger would pop out to tap my smartphone.

There are removable caps on the thumbs

I get cold very easily and get numb fingers too. The best thing that has worked for me for hiking in the cold is something like a pair of outdoor research gloves that have the tech touch so can use my phone, paired with some black diamond mittens that fit over them. I have yet to find any gloves that will keep my hands warm and still can use my phone.

I would get a pair of knit gloves with touch sensitivity and layer then under flip top mittens.

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My combination for cold weather is flip top mittens, the ones that are fingerless gloves underneath, with an underlayer underneath. I really needed my fingers so the "touch" gloves didn't help, so I cut just the tips of the underlayer. You can try both ways and see with one is best. I would search for thinsulate material if you can.

Are they the ultra fit men’s ones?