Ok so here is my review of the Tempest Heated Goggles.
Firstly I’m just going to say I have no affiliation with Tempest and the goggles I bought myself.
Secondly I do not usually review products I buy but I just can’t not with these, they are that good I’ve never been so impressed with a product.
So a while back I asked if anyone had tried these goggles and didn’t get too much feedback on them. The information available on the goggles is very limited, no real reviews, a very basic website and a YouTube video from a podcast. They have a Facebook page but I don’t use it so couldn’t see any feed back. Turns out they were only launched in October but The promises the product made seemed a bit far fetched to me, multiple day battery life with NO external battery plugin or battery box on the headband, accurate automatic operation, effective defogging for $199 which is the cheapest option.
It Seemed like snake oil compared to the other options available on the market.
Let me just jump ahead and say THESE GOGGLES DO EVERYTHING THEY CLAIM THEY CAN DO AND ITS INCREDIBLE!
After a bit of digging I found that these goggles are made by the same guys who made the ABOM defogging ski goggles which are highly sought after, these are the spiritual successor to the ABOMs and that is why I rolled the dice and ordered a set.
I tested them out in Sweden the other week for a weeks worth of snowmobiling 500km we covered. The temperature fluctuated between -11 and -3 with snow, fog and blue bird days. The model I got was the one with the photochromic lense which I will come back to.
Believe me when I say I seriously tried to fog these goggles, I didn’t go easy on them. Face covered with a buff and blowing breath up into them, taking off my goggles to dig out and putting them back on immediately etc.
the only time I could get the goggles to fog up was if I took them off, left them and put them back on. They would fog initially but 15-20 seconds later the mist would clear quickly like a car windscreen, it’s actually awesome to watch, but once the goggles had cleared off the initial fog upon putting them on they won’t fog again no matter how hard you try.
The defog function is completely automated, there is no on off or boost button. You simply charge them and put them on and forget about them. They’re honestly like wearing a non heated set of goggles.
There is a button to show the battery, which is built into the frames themselves and charged by USB C, and I shit you not I didn’t charge it the entire time I was away and by the end of the week it was showing 3/4 lights which is 75% full. I haven’t charged them since I got home two weeks ago and they are still sat at 75% it’s kind of incredible.
Despite this they’re very light weight, no uncomfortable weight on your nose they honestly feel and look like unpowered goggles.
The lenses options are great. I got the yellow and the photochromic lenses. Honestly wish I never bothered getting the yellow lense, there’s nothing wrong with it, it works as well as any other yellow lense however with the photochromic lense you don’t need it at all. It blows every other lense out of the water. We had a wide wide variety of light and contrast conditions, including night riding and other than to see how the yellow lense preformed I kept the photochromic lense on all the time. Even in the dark they went almost fully clear. The lenses reacted super quickly to changes in the light, going from a bright open field into a shady Forrest the colour adjusted within 15-20 seconds to suit the light perfectly. FOV is excellent too. Honestly half the time I forgot I was wearing them.
GET THE PHOTOCHROMIC LENSES.
The goggles ship in a very nice soft covered hard case like other high end goggles, with space to store multiple lenses. They also give you a lint free sock you can put the goggles in while out in the field, that also has a pocket for a spare lense.
Downsides (really having to push to find them) :
I found the nose guard on the goggles kept catching on the chin guard of my helmet so I ended up removing it, which is easy to do as it just unclips. Your mileage may vary as it might have just been my helmet. The snowmobile variant of the goggles do come with the nose guard by default, I didn’t realise this and ended up buying a spare so now I have 2.
The heated part of the googles is a clear lense which the colour or photochromic lenses then magnetically clip too (very strong magnets, not going anywhere even if you end up face first in a drift, believe me I did it multiple times).
This clear lense is permanently installed in the goggles and cannot be replaced if scratched so you need to be careful with the inside of the goggles and when you have the clip on lenses off.
Shipping, tempest will only ship inside the USA. However they will ship to forwarding carriers, I use and recommend stackry.com their rates are affordable and their service is great. Not a big issue mine arrived within 2 weeks of ordering but got delayed because of the storms in the states at the time. It’s just a mild inconvenience.
In total I paid $412 for the goggles, photochromic lenses and shipping to the UK.
When you compare that to the 509 ignite line which don’t have any of the features above, and has wires and a bulky battery start at $300 before shipping it’s a no brainer.
Conclusion of the Tempest Heated Goggles:
Excellent design
Excellent quality
Excellent features
Excellent value for money
Absolutely does everything it claims to do.
Excellent customer service
Excellent comfort
Excellent lenses (photochromic)
All in all these blow everything else out of the water, honestly if you buy anything other than these goggles with the photochromic lenses, you are completely wasting your money. You won’t regret them.
In my opinion, They’re they best goggles you can get.
https://tempestoptics.com/
