Like is there any actual advantage to wearing them?
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Keep your hands warm while you maintain dexterity for things like touch screens and tying knots?
Hey! I wear fingerless gloves at work all the time! I can tell you why I like them. My favorites are the “framer” variety. You get half-fingers on the thumb, index, and middle. Ring and pinkie get fully covered.
At work, I go between lifting and moving all sorts of rough stuff; lumber, appliances, furniture… And then I spend time typing stuff into the computer. The gloves cover enough of my hands that I can get a good grip on most things, and I can still hop on a computer at a moment’s notice. My uncovered digits hardly ever get hurt (and then, it’s usually a tool mishap).
My hands sweat an unreasonable amount so if I’m doing anything precision with my hands, I like to wear them so I can keep a grip on tools.
The original use of fingerless gloves was for bicycles and motorcycles.
When riding a bicycle or motorcycle, the vibrations of the vehicle will often cause your hands to go numb. Since this obviously poses a difficulty, you want to wear gloves so that you absorb the vibrations.
However, you only really need the palms of your hands covered for that purpose. Since covering the fingers of your hands can cause them to overheat in warm weather and interferes with your ability to manipulate objects, it’s a lot easier to just chop the fingers off and keep the part of the glove you actually need.
The whole point of fingerless gloves is to keep your hands warmer than if they were ungloved, but to keep some dexterity.
Concrete example : I’m a (baroque) cellist, and there have been countless times when I’ve rehearsed in super duper cold churches. I can’t possibly play with cold fingers, I lose all precision and control of my hands. Now while fingerless gloves add a bit of bulk btw the fingers, and need some adjusting time when playing, they cut down by a lot the time my hands need to warm up sufficiently to play comfortably.
For most people, fingerless gloves give up a lot of potential warmth for the ability to use a smart phone. (The ones with contacts that allow you to use smart phones are nowhere near as accurate as an actual finger/thumb.)
Beyond that, you may see fingerless gloves that have a full mitten cover for the fingers. These would be for people who want only occasional full-finger-dexterity. This could be useful if, for instance, you’re walking a dog and need to bag it’s poop.
Obviously they’re less effective than full gloves for the basic purpose of keeping your hands warm, but the exposed fingertips may be necessary for jobs that require you to do precise motions with your hands.
You can swing a sledgehammer with big chonky gloves on, but you’ll struggle to use a screw and screwdriver.
Sometimes they’re also used to protect the palms and knuckles instead of for warmth.
They’re a fashion statement, but also protect the palm from abrasion.
If you use a shovel, for example, you grip it with your fingers somewhat, but you apply the FORCE to work it with the palm of your hand, and that’s where the blisters will be.
Protecting your palms from scratches, abrasions, calluses, etc. while keeping the feeling in your fingers for jobs where you need to be able to sense by touch what you’re working with. They have an added benefit in the current era because of touch screens.
I actually use fingerless when mountain biking and lifting weights. Since my palm forms blisters if I don’t.
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