Why no heated gear?

The heat is a byproduct of the electrical current flowing through the stuff. It is waste and just needs to be gotten rid of.
I would say in analogy is like trying to say wearing a heated blanket is (in the same vein) the equivalent of doing warm up exercises.
Obviously the heated blanket is NOT a substitue for the warm up exercises. Both warm one up, but the exercise makes one ready to be active, where the other just makes one warm.
Just so, the external heating of electronic equipment is not really effective.
The ONLY use would be either a standby which keeps some current flowing all the time, or just leaving the item on.

Just so, the external heating of electronic equipment is not really effective.

I have a feeling I'm going to regret asking, but what do you base that on? Experience, some research you've read about, or just a guess? So you are saying an electronic component will behave differently if heated to the same temp if done externally rather than by dropping some voltage?

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Ahh I guess you missed my point. No further explaination forthcoming. Use your heater.... no problem in my book. (it won't hurt much anyway...)

I understand what Elizabeth is saying. Another analogy, if you pour hot water on the body of your car or heat it another way in the winter, is it going to run better? Of course not because it needs to be heated internally, the engine needs to be warmed up. It's the same with your gear.

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Your analogy doesn't hold water. Pouring hot water on your car is a terrible analogy.. A better one would be if you store your car in a heated garage so it is heated all the way through, not just on the surface. In that case it would definitely make a difference, just like raising the internal temperature of an electronic component no matter how it is done will make a difference.

This is done all of the time in precision test equipment. Temperature sensitive components that would affect the precision of the instrument if their temperature was allowed to drift, for instance the components that determine the frequency of a precision oscillator, are kept in little "ovens" inside the device where their temperature is precisely controlled. They are typically heated since it is usually easier to keep something warmer than the ambient temperature than it is to keep it cooler.

Since all Elizabeth can do is claim "you missed my point" and can't offer any reasonable explanation of why heating something up externally or internally will make a difference, I'll consider the case closed.

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