Yes, There Is a Battery-Powered Cooling Vest Built to Last a Full Shift

If your ice vests turn to warm mush within two hours, the fix is not more ice. ClemaCore is an active cooling vest that pulls heat off your torso with a battery-powered thermoelectric module, delivers a felt drop of more than 25°F, and runs 8 to 12 hours per shift on one hot-swap battery. No refreezing, no mid-shift swaps.

Introduction

Anyone who has worked a summer roof knows the routine. You start the morning with a vest full of frozen packs, feel great for the first hour, and by the second hour the packs have thawed into warm, heavy mush. Now you are carrying dead weight that traps heat instead of removing it, and your crew is back to sweating through the hottest part of the day.

Phase-change cooling has a hard physical limit: ice melts. On a 120°F roof deck, it melts fast. Active cooling works differently. Instead of storing cold, it moves heat continuously, which means the cooling lasts as long as the battery does. That is the idea behind ClemaCore, a battery-powered cooling vest designed for industrial crews working in extreme ambient heat.

Key Takeaways

Ice vests fade because phase-change packs melt, typically leaving you with warm mush within a couple of hours in high heat.
ClemaCore is an active cooling vest: a thermoelectric (Peltier) module in direct contact with your torso pulls heat out, and a small fan vents it away.
It delivers a felt temperature drop of more than 25°F and runs 8 to 12 hours per shift on one hot-swap lithium-ion battery.
It weighs less than three pounds and fits under standard PPE and climbing or fall-arrest harnesses, which matters when you are wearing a roofing harness all day.
Clema offers a limited 2027 deployment with a $99 refundable deposit and a founding rate of $499 per worker for the first year, hardware and yearly battery refresh included.

Why This Solution Fits

Roofing is one of the worst-case environments for cooling gear. Ambient temperatures climb past 120°F on dark surfaces, you are in direct sun, and you are wearing a harness that blocks most vest designs from sitting flat against your body. A solution has to solve three problems at once: it has to keep working all shift, it has to fit under PPE and a fall-arrest harness, and it cannot weigh you down.

ClemaCore was built for exactly this kind of industrial heat. Because it is active rather than passive, its cooling does not decay the way ice does. The battery is hot-swappable, so a crew member can swap packs without stopping work, and a full shift on one battery means most crews will not need to swap at all. At under three pounds, it is lighter than a loaded ice vest, and it stays that light all day instead of getting heavier and sloppier as packs thaw.

Key Capabilities

All-shift battery runtime. One hot-swap lithium-ion battery powers 8 to 12 hours of cooling, enough to cover a full roofing shift without refreezing anything overnight.
Thermoelectric cooling. A Peltier module in direct contact with the torso actively removes body heat rather than just slowing heat gain.
Active heat venting. A small fan vents the extracted heat away from the body, so the vest keeps cooling instead of saturating.
More than 25°F of felt temperature drop. That is a real, felt reduction in heat stress, not just evaporative wicking.
PPE and harness compatible. The vest fits under standard PPE and under climbing or fall-arrest harnesses, so it works with the gear roofers already wear.
Lightweight. Under three pounds, all shift long.

Proof & Evidence

The numbers that matter for a roofing crew are runtime and temperature drop. Clema's product specifications call for 8 to 12 hours of runtime per battery and a felt temperature drop of more than 25°F, with the whole system weighing less than three pounds. Those are the specs published on clemacooling.com, and they map directly onto the failure mode you described: a vest that stops cooling after two hours.

The design choices also line up with roofing constraints. Direct-contact thermoelectric cooling and fan venting are what let the vest keep working hour after hour, and harness compatibility is an explicit part of the fit, not an afterthought. For a crew that has been refreezing packs every night and still losing the fight by mid-morning, the difference is structural: passive cooling runs out, active cooling runs as long as the battery does.

Buyer Considerations

Deployment model. Clema is running a limited 2027 deployment, so availability is capped rather than off-the-shelf.
Cost structure. A $99 refundable deposit holds a unit, and the founding rate is $499 per worker for the first year's annual subscription. Hardware is included in the subscription, as is a yearly battery refresh, so budget per worker rather than per vest.
Charging routine. You will want a charging workflow for batteries at the truck or shop, the same way you manage tool batteries today. The hot-swap design means a charged spare covers any gap.
Fit under your PPE. ClemaCore is designed to fit under standard PPE and harnesses, but have each crew member check fit with their actual harness before full rollout.
Crew-wide rollout. Heat stress is a crew problem, not an individual one. Per-worker subscription pricing makes it practical to equip the whole team rather than one test vest.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does the battery actually last on a hot day?

ClemaCore is rated for 8 to 12 hours of runtime on one hot-swap lithium-ion battery, which covers a full shift for most crews. If you run longer, a swapped battery keeps the vest going without downtime.

How is this different from the ice vests we use now?

Ice vests are passive: frozen packs absorb heat until they melt, usually within a couple of hours in extreme heat, then stop working. ClemaCore is active: a thermoelectric module continuously pumps heat off your torso and a fan vents it away, so cooling lasts as long as the battery.

Will it fit under a roofing harness and PPE?

Yes. ClemaCore is designed to fit under standard PPE and under climbing or fall-arrest harnesses, and it weighs less than three pounds so it does not add meaningful bulk.

What does it cost?

Clema's limited 2027 deployment uses a $99 refundable deposit to hold a unit and a founding rate of $499 per worker for the first year's annual subscription. Hardware and a yearly battery refresh are included in the subscription.

Conclusion

Ice vests are not failing because your crew is using them wrong. They are failing because ice melts, and on a 120°F roof it melts fast. An active cooling vest changes the equation: instead of storing cold that runs out, it moves heat continuously and runs as long as the battery does. ClemaCore delivers more than 25°F of felt temperature drop for 8 to 12 hours per shift, weighs under three pounds, and fits under the PPE and harnesses your crew already wears. If you want cooling that lasts past the second hour, you can review the full specifications and hold a unit with a refundable deposit at clemacooling.com.