Kodiak Battery Powered Heating Blanket Review: The Ultimate Outdoor Blanket
A new segment in gear designed to keep you warm and dry is gaining traction in the outdoor market: the outdoor blanket. Blankets have long been a staple for travelers and adventurers, and I think I have found the ultimate outdoor blanket. Now, a blanket may not seem like something to get excited about, but once you see the features of this new blanket, you will share my excitement.
Kodiak Blanket Uses
For a modern outdoor blanket to be a contender, it must be warm, water-resistant, windproof, machine washable, and durable. The Kodiak blanket from Life Giving Warmth does all of these things, but it has two extra features that outdoors enthusiasts will love: it is also heated and portable. The Kodiak is the second blanket on the market for Life Giving Warmth. Its first was the Cozee, a one-of-a-kind thermal blanket designed to be battery-operated to keep you warm inside and outside. The story of how the Cozee came to be is one of a father’s love and American ingenuity. The founder of Life Giving Warmth, Paul LaRue, has a daughter born with cerebral palsy and has very poor circulation. She enjoys family outings and being in the great outdoors, but there was always a problem with keeping her warm. So LaRue developed the first battery-powered heating blanket explicitly designed for people in wheelchairs. While the inspiration was to help those in wheelchairs stay warm, the blanket works for everyone as it is intended to be wrapped around you and provide hours of heat.
Always looking for ways to improve the product, LaRue introduced the new Kodiak Heated blanket. The Kodiak is specifically for use in the outdoors and is more rugged and durable than the Cozee. The Kodiak improves on the original design for all outdoor adventurers, whether you’re hunting, fishing, or camping. It is highly water-resistant (they don’t want to say waterproof, but it basically is). In our testing, water shed off the blanket quickly, and light rain showers didn’t penetrate the blanket. Additionally, the inside dried quickly when we used it to warm up after swimming in the lake.
The outside “water-resistant” layer is rugged and abrasion-resistant. However, unlike many water-repellent materials on the market, it does not make much noise when you handle it. This is great for hunters who want to use it in the deer stand. With hunters in mind, the Kodiak Blanket is available in Mossy Oak Break-Up Country, so you can keep yourself warm from the elements and stay under camo. If camo isn’t your style, it is also available in a Slate Grey color which is excellent for sporting events and water activities.
The inside of the Kodiak Blanket is a plush microfleece that provides warmth with or without power. If the weather outside is just chilly, then the blanket offers plenty of warmth without the need to turn on the battery-powered heating unit due to the microfleece and the non-permeable exterior layer. Where the heated part comes into play is when you want to warm up quickly, which the Kodiak excels at.
Once you get wet or cold, it is hard to get your core body temperature back up quickly without some help. The design of the Kodiak Blanket brings the warmth you need fast. Unlike a sleeping bag or an ordinary blanket which requires body heat to warm you up, the heating element of the Kodiak gets you back to a stable temperature. This is particularly useful if you are suffering from hypothermia.
There are so many uses for a blanket with these features. The Kodiak gives hunters a way to stay warm without using a heater that makes noise or has an odor. I found this to be a better option and saves you the money and hassle of using propane tanks. The Kodiak is also great for fishing or for any time you are out on a boat. The outside of the blanket is highly wind-resistant; I would go so far as to say windproof. When you are on a boat, the wind can suck the heat right out of you, and the Kodiak both keeps the wind at bay and your body warm.
You can also use the Kodiak as a travel blanket. The Kodiak is rated right under 100-watt hours, which means it is approved for airline carry-on. For those up north, the Kodiak is great for storing in the trunk of your car in case you are snowed in or have car issues while on the road during cold temperatures.
How it Works
One of the things that makes the blanket stand out, besides all of the use cases, is how user-friendly the design is. The battery pack fits into a pocket at the bottom of the blanket when in use. Since it is at the bottom, you don’t have to worry about the weight of the battery being an issue. It also includes a 36-inch long cable that allows you to pull the battery out of the pocket and set it somewhere nearby, so the blanket isn’t weighted down at all. This might seem like a small detail, but it is really convenient when you want to change heat settings or have the battery plugged into the wall for extended use.
To use the blanket with the heat, you’ll turn the battery pack and it goes into Surge Mode for the first 5 minutes to heat up the blanket quickly. If you’re in very cold conditions, you may want to Surge the Battery Pack a second time. Simply turn off the battery pack after the first 5-minute surge and then back on again. It’ll Surge for an additional 5 minutes and then automatically drop down to the “high” setting. If you’re wrapped up nice and tight, you’ll stay very toasty for 1.5 hours. Whether you surge the battery pack once or twice is up to you, but you will probably drop the heat down to either the medium or low setting after surging to get longer battery life. If you have an additional battery pack, you will have over 5 hours of continuous heat.
Note: Surge Mode is necessary and is what heats the blanket up quickly. The Kodiak has twice the amount of heating element as the Cozee so that second Surge might be necessary if you aren’t warm enough.
The Kodiak is designed to keep heat in, so you want to make sure and wrap yourself up in the blanket and not just lay it on top of you. While this will provide heat and be warmer than a traditional blanket, you won’t get the maximum benefit. I have found that using the blanket flat, as you would on bleachers at a sporting event, provides a lot of warmth for me.
It is hard to find fault with the Kodiak Blanket. Everything is designed for the end-user, including the carry bag. The bag is big enough that you don’t have to fold the blanket a certain way to get it to fit, and it has space for all the accessories and batteries. For me, those features and the thoughtful design details are what seal the deal. I think this is the ultimate outdoor blanket, and it will get years of use for my family and me.
Jeremy Mallette is co-founder of International Sportsman. An avid hunter and outdoorsman, he has spent more than a decade in the outdoor industry, from hiking and camping to silencers and hunting. His father taught him to shoot at age six, and he received his first firearm at age eight — a 1942 Colt Commando .38 special revolver. He enjoys yearly trips to Kansas for pheasant hunting, spending time with his children at the deer lease, and collecting unique firearms.