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One of our previous picks, the Glider Gloves Urban Style Touchscreen Gloves, has been discontinued. Ethical Athletic Wear
If you’ll excuse the pun, touchscreen gloves can be a handy addition to any winter arsenal. Although no pair is likely to keep your digits quite as toasty as regular gloves—or let you type as well as you would with bare fingers—a good pair will successfully prevent your hands from getting too cold while you dash off a text, rather than a “txtjnZ.”
We’ve tested 80 models, and found that the knit Moshi Digits Touchscreen Gloves were the warmest and performed the most accurately in typing tests; plus, they comfortably fit a wide range of hand sizes. We also recommend a pair of fleece liner gloves, and—if you prefer a different look—two classic and stylish leather options.
Lined with soft microfleece, these are unusually warm for touchscreen gloves—and a specially designed knit pattern and finger seams improve dexterity and typing accuracy. They come in three sizes that fit a wide range of hands.
No pair of touchscreen gloves is going to let you type a message with flawless accuracy and also keep your hands warm for hours on end. But if you need to type when it’s cold out, we recommend the Moshi Digits Touchscreen Gloves. After several years of testing, these are the best touchscreen winter gloves we’ve found. They’re easier to type in than the competition, they’re warm enough to use for your winter commute, and—after a recent redesign to include larger hands—they fit a wide range of hand sizes.
The typing experience with the Digits is pretty good. But keep in mind that “pretty good” here is like saying “unbelievably great!” in another product category. By comparison, when we asked a tester if the Lululemon gloves they were testing kept their hands warm, they typed the response: “By A.G. kk. Not a all.” The Digits’ knitwear pattern is taut and flexible, which is ideal for dexterity. And the seams are thin on the fingertips, which makes typing more predictable and reliable than with most other knit gloves. All of the fingers have the conductive fiber sewn in (that’s what makes it possible to use gloves with a modern touchscreen), so you can type text messages with your thumbs or poke with your pinky.
Our testers thought typing was easy while wearing the Digits and filling out a survey on their phones. In our testing in 2018, we found that the gloves’ thicker insulation caused testers to have to press down hard on their screens to get a response. But even though the gloves are still double-layer, that complaint seems to have been addressed in the new version of the Digits. Single-layer gloves, including those from Agloves, offered more dexterity but were less predictable at typing because the fingertips were too long.
The Digits were the coziest gloves we tested. Think of them as a combination of that fuzzy scarf Nana made you last year and the winter blanket that your pet hogs on the sofa. The gloves have a knitted exterior, are lined in microfleece, and were the softest and among the warmest gloves we looked at. In our thermal camera testing, it didn't show much difference between them. In previous years’ testing, a panelist thought the gloves performed well during high-energy activities, such as shoveling snow, and found they were “plenty warm” for a 15-minute dog walk.
Although most knitted winter wear can be a pain to dry, the Digits dried quickly in our tests—it took only an hour. The Digits’ knit construction easily catches on Velcro, and though the snagging didn’t tear the glove or do any other real damage, it did lead to general fuzziness.
Moshi redesigned the Digits to lengthen the previous version’s annoyingly short fingers and transition from just two sizes (S/M and L/XL) to three (S, M, L), which means that they should now work well for a wide variety of hand sizes. When we tested the large Digits with people who had bigger hands, they said the gloves felt good and fit “much better than the medium-sized gloves. Although they were a little tight around my fingers, it was much more manageable.” Just keep in mind that Moshi measures hand size from wrist to fingertip, as opposed to palm width, so confirm your size before ordering.
Senior staff writer Joel Santo-Domingo has been using the Digits for multiple winter seasons and he’s been happy with their comfortable fit (“they fit like... a glove!” he told us), accuracy, and smooth ability to work with even car touch screens. “As they’re knit, they will let in some wind on a really cold day, though,” he warned.
I’ve been using the Moshi gloves for years—before I even started reporting on touchscreen gloves—and they’ve been easy for me to type accurately with, and they keep my hands cozy throughout the winter season. They’re the warmest gloves we recommend that aren’t leather.
Sizes: S to L Colors: light gray (S, M), dark gray (L) Materials: acrylic and nylon shell, microfleece lining
These unisex fleece glove liners—available in a wide range of sizes—are stretchy and fit great, making them well-suited for outdoor activities as well as typing. But while they’re effective at blocking wind, they’re only warm enough to wear just on their own in milder temps.
The Black Diamond HeavyWeight ScreenTap Fleece Gloves offer a stretchy fit that hugs your hand and makes it easy and accurate to type. They weren’t quite as warm as our Moshi Digits gloves pick, but their fleece material blocks out wind better than traditional knit fabrics. They’ll work best at keeping you warm if you pair them with an outer glove and save solo use for when you’re being active. Black Diamond offers a more specific range of sizes than Moshi does. Although that means you’re likely to find a more accurate fit for your hand type, it may just be easier to buy one of the simpler elastic options from Moshi.
Of the gloves we tested, the HeavyWeights were among the most accurate at typing, although the difference in accuracy between the HeavyWeights and the Moshi gloves was negligible. The stretchy fleece material covers your hand nicely and offers good dexterity that makes typing easier. Like the fingers on the Moshi Digits, all of the Black Diamond gloves’ fingers are conductive—but it’s easiest to type with your index fingers because the fit there is better (the gloves’ thumbs were either too long or a little too tight on our testers). Most of the typing mistakes we made with the HeavyWeights were due to seam placement on our fingers, which some panelists felt made typing uncomfortable and less accurate, but most didn’t notice.
Although the gloves are about as decent for typing out texts as the Moshi gloves are, they won’t keep your hands very warm. The gloves are from Black Diamond’s liner series (meaning you can wear them with an outer glove) and are recommended solo in temperatures from 25 °F to 40 °F. In 2018, they received mixed reviews on how well they insulated during our walk-in fridge testing: Our panelists thought the elastic cuffs did a pretty good job of preventing the 30 degree Fahrenheit air from seeping into the gloves, but their fingertips were still cold. In real-world testing, these gloves kept our hands warm enough for a short dog walk in mid-30s (Fahrenheit) temps—although we don’t recommend them for those times you’re stuck outside your friend’s Bushwick apartment at 9 p.m. in 10 °F weather.
The manufacturer says these gloves will fight off the cold better when you’re active rather than standing still, stating they’re “ideal for skiing, trail running or hiking with your smartphone.” This is a point commonly made about soft-shell gear: that it will keep you warm enough while you’re active, but that you’ll need something substantially warmer if you’re standing still.
If you get splashed by a passing vehicle during your morning commute, these gloves will dry out by lunchtime. When we melted crushed ice on the gloves, it took just two hours to air-dry them, thanks to their DWR (durable water-repellent) coating.
Of the gloves we tested, the HeavyWeights fit the most hand shapes and sizes, and they come in sizes from XS to XL. Comparatively, the Moshi gloves come in only three sizes (S, M, L), but their simple, more elastic body means the limited sizing will still fit a wide variety of hand sizes. The Black Diamond gloves’ stretchy fleece shell offers just enough give that the gloves were never too loose in the palms nor too snug in the fingers. The stretchiness also made it easy for our testers with long fingernails to move up a size without compromising the overall fit.
The HeavyWeights are all about function, not fashion. While the soft and fluffy gray Digits are practically cuddle-worthy, the HeavyWeights are available only in black, and the stretch-knit fleece design reminded one panelist of what thieves wear in heist films. The only branding is a small Black Diamond logo on the back of the hand. A large patch of black leather on the palm makes it easy to grip slippery phones and metal railings. You can also connect the two gloves with a tiny clasp, so they stay together at the bottom of your bag.
We know from our experience over the past several years of testing that it’s hard to find a good pair of touchscreen winter gloves that are reliably in stock. If you can’t find the Moshi Digits or the Black Diamond HeavyWeights, and none of the other gloves that we highlight here appeal to you, consider a different model from the Black Diamond ScreenTap series, like the LightWeight or MidWeight versions. These gloves are thinner, so they’re not as warm as the HeavyWeight gloves we recommend (and the HeavyWeights aren’t even that warm, so take that into account). But they have the same design, so we’re confident they’ll provide the same level of dexterity and typing accuracy as the HeavyWeight version.
I’ve been using the Black Diamond HeavyWeight ScreenTap Fleece Gloves for the past year. Their stretchiness helps them form around hands better than other gloves, and, though they’re not as warm as the Moshi Digits, they block wind better, too.
Sizes: XS to XL Colors: black Materials: fleece shell, goat leather palm
Made from smooth goatskin leather, these pricey men’s gloves have a sophisticated, dressy look—and work surprisingly well for typing. With ribbed cuffs that keep the cold out and faux fur lining, they’re also the warmest pair we recommend.
These sleek, gift-worthy unisex leather gloves are comfortable, well-made, and offer above-average typing accuracy, but they’re more for style than true warmth. Their sizing is quite specific, so getting the right fit might require some consideration.
Leather touchscreen gloves provide a more formal and refined alternative to the standard knit and fabric options that you see in most stores. Though they’re significantly more expensive, they’re the way to go if you need an option that’s suitable for wearing with a business suit or to a formal event, or if you’re searching for a particularly nice gift for someone.
If you’re looking for a pair of dressy leather gloves that will keep you pretty warm throughout the winter and can be used with a surprising amount of accuracy (considering how heavy they feel), the Canada Goose Workman Gloves are our favorite choice. They’re a good (albeit expensive) option for people who want the look and feel of all-leather gloves while maintaining touchscreen compatibility. The Workman gloves are goatskin leather with wool trim, and their insides are lined with polyester faux fur. Plus, they have ribbed cuffs to keep any cold from reaching your fingertips. Although all of our testers were impressed by their accuracy, the Workman gloves have touchscreen capabilities only on the index fingers. And though they’re the warmest of the gloves we tested, they’re still not designed for truly frigid conditions.
I’ve been wearing the Canada Goose Workman Gloves since we started recommending them in 2019, and I’m happy to report that they still do their job well, and look great doing it. That said, they work best for a specific upscale style: If I’m layering up in a massive parka and snow pants, the Canada Goose gloves won’t be what I slip onto my hands; they’re not snowman-chic. They go great with my costly J. Crew peacoat, though, and they’re accurate and comfortable.
Sizes: S to XL (men’s) Color: black Materials: goatskin leather, wool trim, polyester faux fur lining
If you’re willing to trade a bit of warmth for a more refined look, we like the classically designed Kent Wang Deerskin Gloves, which are made of calf leather and deerskin. They’re cashmere-lined, and even though they’re warmer than our Black Diamond HeavyWeights ScreepTap gloves pick, they’re not on the same level as the Moshi or Canada Goose options. And because they’re leather and are sold in specific sizes, it’s harder to get a proper fit than you would with a softer and stretchier material, like those used in our non-leather picks.
Although the Workman gloves have touchscreen capabilities only on the ends of the index fingers, the entire surface of the Deerskin gloves is touchscreen-compatible. They were better at typing than the other leather gloves we tested in 2018—though not as good as our other picks. The thick seams along the fingers meant we had to use our finger pads (not the tips or sides, which is a natural position) to type and swipe.
The Workman gloves were the warmest pair of gloves we tested that remained accurate to type with. While probably not warm enough for below-zero temperatures, they’re well suited as an everyday, stylish-looking glove for cold commutes, dog walks, or other regular activities in a New England winter. The Deerskin gloves are better suited to the milder seasons of the West Coast and the South, or for dressier occasions like winter weddings or going to the orchestra.
The Kent Wang gloves’ deerskin exterior shed moisture and prevented water stains better than most other leather gloves. If you drop your phone in the snow, you don’t have to think twice about water damage to either the Workman or the Deerskin gloves when you pick it up.
Animal rights advocates have criticized Canada Goose for how it sources both animal fur and goose feathers for its iconic jackets. Neither of these materials is used in these gloves, but some people prefer to avoid the company entirely on ethical grounds.
Both sets of leather gloves fit our testers’ hands well, with a little more give in the knuckles and palms than other leather gloves, which can be too constricting (like the Nordstrom Cashmere Lined Leather Touchscreen Gloves). This helps with typing dexterity and means you’re less likely to take the gloves off in frustration when responding to a quick Slack message or an email. You can buy the Workman Gloves in sizes S to XL. The Deerskin gloves are sold in sizes 7 to 10.5, but aren’t available in whole sizes after 7 (they go from 7 to 7.5 to 8.5, and so on).
I’ve been wearing the Canada Goose Workman Gloves since we started recommending them in 2019, and I’m happy to report that they still do their job well, and look great doing it. That said, they work best for a specific upscale style: If I’m layering up in a massive parka and snow pants, the Canada Goose gloves won’t be what I slip onto my hands; they’re not snowman-chic. They go great with my costly J. Crew peacoat, though, and they’re accurate and comfortable.
Sizes: 7, 7.5, 8.5, 9.5, 10.5 Colors: black, dark brown Materials: calf leather palm, deerskin back, cashmere lining
Over the years, we’ve tested a number of cheap gloves that you can buy in person when you’re in a tight spot. And while we’ve never been particularly impressed by any of them, we’ve reliably found that whatever Target is currently selling is good enough. Right now Target offers the Wild Fable Tech Touch Knit Gloves, which we’ve tested and found to be fine but not great. The gloves are generally prone to typos, and aren’t suited to the bitter cold. But they’re better than nothing, cute, affordable, and totally adequate when you’ve run out to complete a few errands but forgot your Moshi Digits, and you need to spend a few bucks on a pair of touchscreen gloves so your hands don’t fall off.
We’ve researched hundreds of gloves over the past six years. In our last large-scale update in 2019, we looked at 47 pairs, tested 20, and panel-tested nine winter gloves with four testers who had various hand sizes and aesthetic preferences. We chose gloves to test based on several factors, including our previous picks, companies with great reputations in outdoor wear, strong owner reviews, availability across major retailers, and a wide variety of styles and fits.
Heavy-duty gloves aren’t great for typing, and the thinnest gloves won’t keep your hands much warmer than if you were wearing no gloves at all. So we focused mostly on the middle ground: gloves that would be warm enough to get you through a commute.
In 2019, I (Justin Krajeski) tested 20 gloves myself. This meant wearing four pairs of gloves each day for a week on my commute, during lunch breaks, and while running errands around New York City in December. After 11 pairs were eliminated, a panel of Wirecutter staffers with very different hand shapes and sizes tested each pair of gloves for accuracy, fit, appearance, comfort, and ease of use (like the ability to pull your keys from your pocket, for instance). We tested the nine finalists on the loading dock of our Long Island City office on a day when the weather oscillated between rain and light snow, with the temperature at about 40 °F. While blaring the latest King Princess record, Wirecutter staffers used each set of gloves as they attempted to fill out a survey on their phones, and we used their responses—and typos—to inform our picks.
In 2018, we tested each glove’s durability and drying time. We ran strips of Velcro across each pair 10 times to see how easily the fabric snagged. We also melted crushed ice on each pair of gloves and tracked the drying time. This told us how fast they’d dry after an afternoon snowball fight with the kids or during the commute home on a sleeting day.
Regular gloves don’t work with the capacitive screens on phones and smartwatches, so if you want to use your device when it’s cold out, you’ll need to either take off a glove or use gloves that are designed to work with touchscreens.
Touchscreen gloves are embedded with special materials—like patches of conductive materials, or, more commonly, conductive threads (typically silver or copper) in the fabric—that tell the capacitive touchscreen on your smartphone or tablet that you’re interacting with it.1 The thread works by conducting electricity from a finger to the tip of the glove covering that finger.
Touchscreen leather gloves, on the other hand, embed the leather itself with nanoparticles of silver, which produces full-hand conductivity. Because the leather can conduct electricity from any part of your hand to any fingertip, this technology is more forgiving of a loose fit than knit gloves.
Unfortunately, every touchscreen glove we’ve tested exists on a continuum of “warm but inaccurate” to “cold but good for typing,” and no glove was truly good at both. Inaccurate gloves led to incoherent text messages, and thin but accurate gloves left us freezing when we wore them in cold weather. In an era in which voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant are increasingly accurate and useful, you may be better off just using a normal glove and talking to your phone instead.
In our trials, we focused on gloves that existed in that middle ground of the continuum—those suited to when you’re out walking the dog or waiting for a train, rather than those designed for Arctic conditions or heavy labor. They’ll keep your fingers from freezing while you’re brushing the snow off your windscreen, and they will allow you to fire off a quick text or get Google directions.
Touchscreen gloves can also lose their effectiveness over time, since the conductive material that enables touchscreen compatibility wears down.
This is not a comprehensive list of everything we tested in previous iterations of this guide, just what’s still available.
The Aegend and TrailHeads running gloves worked poorly with our capacitive touchscreens, and they were thin, so they didn’t keep our panelists’ hands warm during testing.
The Agloves Polar Sport gloves are thin, and they just don’t compare to our Moshi Digits pick in warmth or quality.
The Black Diamond Lightweight Wooltech Glove and Heavyweight Wooltech Liner are made by the same manufacturer as our HeavyWeight ScreenTap fleece glove liner pick. Although they were comfortable to wear, both Wooltech gloves caused lots of typos. Plus, they were looser around the wrist, and less protective winter weather conditions, than our Black Diamond pick. We also tried Black Diamond’s Softshell Gloves; they were so baggy on all of our testers that typing was nearly impossible.
The Burton Men’s Touch N Go Glove was baggy, and its poor fit didn’t help when it came to typing on our phones.When I say that I could not type more than “t fdkf hag” while wearing my Dimore Winter Gloves and that they ripped at the seams when I pulled them over my knuckles, I mean that literally.
The Glider Gloves Winter Style Touchscreen Gloves were our previous main pick. They offered the best combination of warmth, touchscreen sensitivity, and grip at the time. In 2015, Glider added a longer cuff and an improved conductive mix. But in our tests, the touchscreen sensitivity was worse, not better.
The Nordstrom Cashmere Lined Leather Touchscreen Gloves are sold in a women’s cut, so they fit petite hands better than our Kent Wang pick. But they fit a little tighter, which makes them harder to wear, and they’re thinner, so they’re not as warm.
We retested the North Face Commutr Etip Gloves. The arc of the gloves (which the North Face calls “radiametric articulation”) left our hands frozen at an uncomfortable angle, and we couldn’t flex our fingers. All of this made typing on our devices impossible. The North Face Etip Recycled Gloves have clunky conductive panels, while the North Face Denali Etip Gloves gloves had a boxy fit, making precise typing almost impossible.
This article was edited by Ingela Ratledge Amundson and Jennifer Hunter.
The touchscreen gloves we’ve tested over the past few years have mostly fallen in two categories: very warm but fairly inaccurate or thinner but good for typing. The inaccurate gloves led to incoherent text messages, thus negating the point of having touchscreen abilities at all. The thin but accurate gloves did help to insulate in mild to medium temps but left us chilly in extra-cold weather. They’re better than no gloves at all, but when the temps truly drop, you may want to avoid typing while outdoors altogether and rely instead on voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant.
Regular leather gloves aren’t as easy to use on screens as versions made and sold as “touchscreen gloves,” which use technology in the fingertips to help with touchscreen accuracy. We do recommend two pairs of leather touchscreen gloves, the Canada Goose Workman Gloves and the Kent Wang Deerskin Gloves. Both pairs are well made and good-looking, and they offer above-average accuracy in typing, but they aren’t as warm as gloves we tried that were made from other materials.
Nick Guy is a former senior staff writer covering Apple and accessories at Wirecutter. He has been reviewing iPhones, iPads, and related tech since 2011—and stopped counting after he tested his 1,000th case. It’s impossible for him not to mentally catalog any case he sees. He once had the bright idea to build and burn down a room to test fireproof safes.
Kaitlyn Wells is a senior staff writer who advocates for greater work flexibility by showing you how to work smarter remotely without losing yourself. Previously, she covered pets and style for Wirecutter. She's never met a pet she didn’t like, although she can’t say the same thing about productivity apps. Her first picture book, A Family Looks Like Love, follows a pup who learns that love, rather than how you look, is what makes a family.
Justin Krajeski is a former staff writer reporting on everyday carry at Wirecutter. He previously wrote about tech at Wirecutter. He carries things every day. He’s very well versed in carrying.
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