He says “it’s all in a days work”

that rig you designed will have more use the more jackets you test. Over time the data set you create can be compared to industry data and subjective opinions with patterns in the data being used to either correlate the data or to tune you own rig. In the end the use of a test you devised yourself covering these articles of definitely kept me watching.

​@@MyLifeOutdoors we will never forget!!!

@@MyLifeOutdoors Is there anything you won't promote, given enough money?

Thank you Fred.

It's so wide it's almost meaningless.

A range that wide is indicative of a lack of, or just bad testing

Yeah, that range was already a red flag and indicative for marketing bs.

Makes sense if you’re comparing it against different existing insulation materials, which appears to be what they are claiming.

They just forgot to add that down was !

True. Arcteryx has also become a status brand lately too, so you pay a premium for them - tho arguably they have better tech and your dollar goes further than LL Bean (in my experience of gear with both brands.) LL Bean isn't about spending your money on quality of gear but more for the logo and what it 'stands' for to people who see it. North Face is the same these days despite previously being about top quality technical gear, and yes, Arcteryx is heading that way (also Fjallraven.)

Arcteryx products will make you feel warmer and dryer knowing you are better than other people. A feeling you can only buy with money.

I actually was going to agree with you but then I checked the links he provided to the jackets in the description and they're all comparably priced right now, but the down Arcteryx is on sale from 400.

true, although I only buy Arc'teryx when it's on sale :D

@@lolapplesauce Only because the ArcTerex is on closeout on one single color. Even that one closeout color is $80 more than standard retail LLBean pricing.

I’m honored

Rates right up there with Project Farm

Yeah, I question this methodology as someone who owns one of those chest freezers. They're like +/- 10 degrees before they kick on, meaning the freezer may not have turned on at all for the first jacket, just cooling it ambiently. If it reached it's +10 degree trigger temperature for the second jacket, it may have been working to actively cool the second jacket instead, and potentially to a considerably cooler temperature then the first even experienced in its hour. Running the experiment for far longer and averaging each hour would be the easiest way to account for this. I think, if you wanted to absolute BEST experimental conditions though, not only is a control needed, but I'd recommend leaving all of the equipment in the freezer for several hours to let it all come to the same starting temperature, measuring the temperature in the freezer itself at the start of each test to rule out any large ambient temperature differentials between the tests, and THEN turning the heaters on with the freezer unplugged to rule out any interference from the freezer itself. Then you could measure the amount of energy it takes to bring each jacket to temperature, and the amount of time it takes to bring each jacket to temperature, which should give you cleaner data. Energy spent "maintaining temperature," as a real world reference, sounds good in theory, but there's too many variables to account for. This way you would also have the ambient temperature gauge in the freezer itself to provide a secondary data point, where a quicker rising, or higher overall, ambient temperature of the freezer itself would be the direct result of more heat loss from the jacket. Makes for a nice succinct experiment with three data points (time to target temperature, energy used to reach target temperature, freezer ambient temperature) that you can use to help isolate error as well.

And synthetic vs synthetic not vs down. The reason synthetic is potentially better than down is that synthetic can still insulate when wet and down can't.

It would also have been cool to see Steven test under the lens of a thermal camera and time how long it takes down vs primaloft to maintain a certain threshold of body temperature under static conditions.

Have project farm run the test. He definitely had the engineering chops to design an objective test

@@UIairi This defeniterly deserves another more thourough test! The fact that the heavier jacket supposedly from the same material performed worse than the lighter one is already kind of a red flag.

lol…good one!

I agree, this was a really good test setup. I'm impressed!

Out of curiosity, have you ever come across content specifically aimed at hotter climates? It was a pretty miserable year in Texas last summer and I was looking for central and upper South America outdoor gear. Strangely, I discovered Columbia seemed to have an extremely nice climate, even though in my mind, I always just assumed equator equals super hot. Maybe it's just a more intense sun. I found some Columbia hot weather gear but so much was kind ugly with American flags or fish or hunting branding. Thanks in advance!

@@jinxtacy I’ve started paying attention to this kind of gear too. Outdoor Research has a pretty amazing material, “Ferosi,” which I’ve used in a wide range of climates, including Subsaharan Africa. It blocks sun and dries very quickly. Helly Hansen’s sun shirts are very nice in hot weather. Sitka, a hunting brand, has some items for the heat… but your color choices are limited to earth tones and camouflage. Drying time and protection from the sun seem, to me, to be the best indicators for how comfortable something’s going to be in the heat… covering up in the heat, while it seems counterintuitive, keeps you cooler than exposing skin; not least because sunburned skin is really bad at regulating temperature. I swear we’re all going to be dressed like the Bedouin soon.

@@chrisoffersen thank you for all the insight and recommendations on stuff to look into. I was actually looking at arabian clothes since I had some friends that went to do some work in Saudi Arabia and he was wearing one. I also saw some elderly female Indian immigrant women walking around when it was still quite hot out and it looked like they were wearing a ton of clothes. Been listening to some material engineer podcasts which started me thinking about various textiles. Seems like a pretty constrictive industry as they were saying one and a half cents per whatever unit they measure in can make an alternative material unviable in the marketplace so often the goal is to make a superior material that is equal or cheaper to the standard materials. It's super crappy to think about that we might be able to have much better materials for an extra few cents per garment, but they'll never manifest unless there's a potential marketing angle.

This!

Yesssss

Please!

Would be cool to see side by side w typical thickness wool jacket, down jacket, and winter fleece jacket. Nothing excessive thick, just sort of typical thickness each generally are sold as.

Yes I would love to see how the Torrid Apex by Enlightened Equipment performs. I’d also love to see how different layerings and different materials perform. Primaloft vs Climashield Apex vs Lamilite. Wool vs Alpaca. Omniheat vs non thermal reflective lined garments. I know Omniheat works but just how much better does it work? Love to see some numbers.

Then the pad runs for 60 minutes. What do you learn from that?

@@PhilKulak base line cost. you're assuming it would run the full time.

@@PhilKulak well you personally could start by learning the purpose of a control

Regular synthetic insulation will also probably work just fine for your needs! If you're not backpacking, the slightly higher weight and bulk shouldn't be a huge consideration.

@@mitchellclark2786Agreed, synthetic also works. It’s just heavier and more bulky. Fred should do a comparison with a primaloft gold jacket too. I’m not convinced the primaloft aerogel is much better.

Be careful…my gear hobby became my job. But I love it.

their hard shell jackets are also top notch.. i had mine for 15 years now and only this year it got too shaby to really be useful.

Zero excuse for charging the amount of money they are. They are opportunists.

and "woke" mofos to boot!@@JoeyBoBoey

Eh

what about his subjective test? he did swap back and forth for quite some time

Wicking base, merino sweater mid layer, loose Icelandic wool outer sweater is a GOAT setup

@@highviewbarbell sounds promising setup, but how about the wind?

@@cubertmiso4140 does better than you think even with the holes, but you can always put a thin windbreaker between the two sweaters (giant poofy one still on outside)

@@highviewbarbell thanks! just saw cheap merinowool underwear kit bargain, this pushes even more to finally test it.

💯🎯

Yup! And how breathable they are.

Good idea. It's a bit stiff however so aerogel may detract from cushioning. Plain old foil works well in such insoles with a fleece top layer. The only aerogel insoles I've seen use this primaloft version which is actually sheet insulation with some aerogel fibres woven in. Lundhags sell trekking insoles with primaloft "aerogel"

I think it’d be like making a plate out of chalk? Honestly, it’d be better to just use styrofoam and be careful with it. Super light, insulates well, and is extremely cheap.

He did say that Aerogel is very brittle.

it can be lighter by using plastic and aerogel instead of steel but vacuum is best instulator so it is very hard to make the existing ones better

​@@toastreconso don't make a plate put of it... A mug with a stabilizing external layer and aerogel insulation might be very nice, tho

@@squidge903 Yeah, that would work! I know my old JetBoil mug has a little insulation layer around it. Other people will make something out of "reflectix" that's very cheap. Would be interesting to find out the performance of that aerogel combo and one layer of reflectix.

If your jacket is getting holes in it you have bigger issues than getting wet.

@@joewee I mean aerogel was first developed in 1931 and continued to be developed for decades before NASA became a customer of one of the developers.

what needs to be done, if not already, is to create tiny little packets of aerogel, like tiny beanbags or those silica gel packets you find in medication bottles and everywhere else, and pack those into jacket voids. Thereby you would have isolated little nuggets of warmth but it would not impede vapor or gas transmission if you want that as that all can pass around the packets. And you can make the packets sealed waterproof and tight in these little packet nuggets so if they get crushed or whatever it will not matter as I imagine it would last a long time before crumbling into nothingness. If you want to take it further you make the aerogel into a more rigid scaffolding like the pockets of waffles then seal that material. Lots of options could work. Even if the aerogel is crushed into 0.1cm pieces the particles of air trapped are still much much much smaller, so it would not affect the properties of insulation that much at all.

@@johnjingleheimersmith9259 Aerogel doesn't just crush. It collapses into dust.

@@wisenber all that matters is that the "dust" particle sizes are larger than the air voids.

@@johnjingleheimersmith9259 No. The structure is where the insulating properties exist and the structure traps the air. A pile of silica dust doesn't offer any meaningful insulation value as the airvoids no longer exist.

The problem is Primaloft are not selling aerogel jackets. Aerogel is stiff and dense. I own one of those Oros Aerogel jackets and a Haglofs lightweight primaloft aerogel insulator. The Haglofs one is pleasant to wear and pretty packable as it's using aerogel infused sheet synthetic insulation. Sheet insulation can be better than down for wind resistance (stitching issues in light down jackets) but it's not as good an insulator. Adding aerogel merely closes the gap to a hugh quality goose down of day 750-800 fill power. The Oros jacket is an amazing insulator for its thickness. It is heavier than any of my down jackets. It's comparable in weight to my old school waxed cotton and wool insulating coats. My wife sent hers back because she didn't like how hefty it was. Indeed it's like wearing a suit of insulating armour. There's not a huge market for heavy insulating jackets anymore, no matter how "high tech". Oros seems to be in financial difficulty and are out of stock. Primaloft have produced a good piece of marketing which also insulates well. It's not comparable to pure aerogel or even Oros' tech but it's more marketable.

Unfortunately, not peer reviewed or tested widely like science would.

I kept track of the freezer temperature too. It stayed between 9-11F for both jackets. Ironically it got up to 16F for the BD jacket which performed the worst.

@@MyLifeOutdoors ive always wondered: how repeatable is a comercial freezer? when the target is 5F and one where to start at room temp, how much would it overshoot its target (if at all)? would it always take the same time? how close does it stick to its target over a period of time? such variables need to be known to interpret the numbers correctly

A lot of down is ethically sourced and I would wager that all the top brands are using GTDS or RDS certified sources which are the strictest. All that cheap ChinaCo. crap on Amazon that ignorant people suck up like water because "Name brands are a rip off!" is where the force fed and live plucked down is going. Even Decathlon uses RDS down and they're able to keep their prices low by using duck down instead of goose or eider down.

I agree down is totally cruel which is why I had a custom made aerogel winter coat made by Prez Atelier and it’s warm and cosy to -10 degrees Celsius. Please understand not all aerogel is created equal. The hybrid material like the aerogels jackets used in this video are not as effective. My jacket is full aerogel blanket 3mm thick and I have used it for 3 years now living in Norway. So for him to say aerogel in general is not as warm as down feather is misleading. Proper aerogel lining which is a bit spongy like mine works brilliantly and I feel the cold easily. It can also be ordered in other thicknesses for colder than -10 degrees Celsius temps. Also, some companies cheat by just using aerogel panels and this doesn’t work either, needs to be full coverage of the whole garment. When NASA made it work for their spacesuits it obviously works and it absolutely works for me.

The whole thing is lame and misleading, from the thumbnail to the actual content of the video.

Re down and ethical considerations: Down is a byproduct of the meat industry, FWIW.

Thanks for mentioning the ethical considerations. Down production is absolutely horrendous and I'm not sure people are aware of it. Yes down performs really well in dry conditions but at what cost to your conscious.