When Ministry of Supply launched the first iteration of its Mercury Intelligent Heated Jacket in 2018, voice-controlled AI was in its early heyday. The idea of a heated jacket wasn’t novel, but the ability to ask Siri or Alexa to turn it on, or to adjust the temperature through an app the Boston-based clothing company built, was.
But the fourth generation of the MIT-founded apparel brand’s jacket has shirked previous technological capabilities that now feel more gimmicky than groundbreaking. Launched in December, the $595, machine-washable town coat prioritizes wearability and hints at the possibility that minimalistic tech may be back in style.
The app function is gone, for example. No one was really using it, says Gihan Amarasiriwardena, cofounder and president of Ministry of Supply. The button that powers the jacket and allows users to toggle between three heating options has been moved to an interior breast pocket, after the company received feedback that customers wanted the tech to be more “stealthy.”
The coat is powered by a USB-C powered and operated with the same core batteries a Tesla uses. It can generate up to 10 watts of heat at any given time. Amarasiriwardena says that we generate roughly 50 watts of heat from simply standing, which is equivalent to “an old incandescent lightbulb.”
One crucial aspect of the jacket that carried over from previous iterations is the ability to adjust its power levels. “The whole premise of the heated jacket has been around this idea that when you walk outside in the winter, we bundle up and try to be as warm as we can, but after a couple minutes, walking to the train or bus stop, we start to get overheated,” Amarasiriwardena says. Though you may only generate 50 watts of heat while stationary, that number doubles when you’re walking. And when you pick up the pace—which you’re more likely to do on frigid days—people can produce 150 watts.
A supplemental 10 watts might sound insignificant, but Amarasiriwardena says they landed on that number after studying how people used the previous jackets. Older versions of the coat generated up to 30 watts of heat, but that required a substantial amount of battery power, which necessitated frequent recharging. When the coat’s battery died, people simply stopped using the heated feature.
In prior versions, heating capabilities came from the hand pockets. Now, a flat panel made from carbon nanotubes is centered at the back of the garment, which Amarasiriwardena says distributes heat more evenly. Those carbon nanotubes replaced the stainless steel wires used in the initial version of the coat, which weighed the jacket down and gave it a bulky feel.
A battery-powered coat may not scream “water-friendly.” But Amarasiriwardena touts the jacket’s machine washability, which is enabled by the combination of five fabrics that the garment is made from (wool, nylon, polyester, viscose, and cotton) as well as its IPX7 rating, which means a product can handle being submerged one meter of water for up to 30 minutes.
The wires in the jacket are also protected by a nylon core, which ensures the cords are more flexible and less breakable. Every jacket goes through 50 wash tests before it reaches the market, which Amarasiriwardena notes far exceeds how often most people wash their winter layers. A built-in sensor also automatically turns off the jacket’s heating function if it reaches a temperature above 135 degrees Fahrenheit, which he says is equivalent to “a warm cup of coffee.”
And while the heated town coat is notably more expensive than others on the market, Amarasiriwardena says the garment is meant to be design-forward, suitable for wearing during commutes into the office or when traveling to a different climate—a cross-country flight from New York City to San Francisco in December, for example. Amarsiriwardena is hoping to bridge warmth and style, which are often at odds with one another when it comes to winter coats.
“The issue with a lot of heated garments is that they want you to know that they’re heated garments. The controller is on the outside, for example, they’re often times made out of kind of cheap shell material, so it doesn’t look as high quality,” he says. “We think of the heating system as a secondary element, because we think the design of the garment can stand on its own … The question we always like to ask is, ‘Would you still wear this if the battery is dead?’”
Ministry of Supply is continuing to go all-in on heated garments by expanding its collection to include a Mercury Heated Light Layer, which is currently available for preorder. “We’re really trying to figure out how to cultivate the market for this product line,” Amarasiriwardena says. The heating technology is now robust, but it’s about applying it in the right way.”
