- Ben from Snowys here folks.
This is the Sea to Summit Ether Light XT Extreme Mat.
♪ Hit it ♪ (upbeat music)
This is one of the warmest air-filled mats.
We've got dual layers of Thermolite insulation
and 10 centimetres of thickness
to make ultra-lightweight warm adventures possible.
This is how the Ether Light XT Extreme Insulated Mats look
when you get them in their stuff sack.
This is the women's regular, they're six different sizes.
So this weighs about just under 700 grammes, about 685 grammes
and the largest rectangular size
goes up to just over a kilo.
So there's six in the range and different weights there.
And pack size doesn't vary a lot,
this one's about 24 centimetres
by about just over 17 centimetres in diameter.
And the larger version is about
another four centimetres long,
and this is about 28 centimetres long
and about 18 to 19 centimetres in diameter.
I'll start by pulling it out of the bag.
Now there's two ends to this bag.
You wanna open the red end first.
This allows you to take the actual mat out.
And what you're left with once the mat comes out
is a bag that doubles as an inflation aid.
Now as with any self-inflating mat, it's not a good idea
to blow into it with your breath because of the moisture
that can go inside the mat.
This give you this Airstream, they call it Airstream yeah,
A-stream they call it, pump sack.
Now it's included with the mat.
Allows you to inflate in about three inflations of these
without having to use your breath to blow it up.
Having a look at the mat, I'm gonna roll this out.
Just talk about the sizes to start with.
As I mentioned this is the women's regular.
Now there's a women's regular, a women's large
which is a little bit wider and longer.
So this one measures 168 by 55.
The women's large goes up to 183 centimetres in length
and 64 centimetres in width.
And then you've got just a regular
which is also 184 centimetres in length,
but back to 55 in width.
And then there's three that are a rectangular size as well
and they don't taper off on the corners here,
they're actually square in their length.
So they start at 198 centimetres in length
and they're all 64 wide.
So you've got 198, 183, and then 201 centimetres in length.
So lots of different size options with these mats here.
And these mats are made out of a 30
and 40 denier nylon face fabric here.
Now there's a lot of talk about these mats being crinkly
or noisy at night.
I'll give this a bit of a crinkly now.
(mat rustling)
See so they do make a bit of noise,
so yes they are noisier
then your standard self-inflating mat
which have kind of a softer
sometimes a velour top finish on it.
But you get 10 centimetres of thickness
for a lot lighter weight here,
so there's a little bit of a balance.
A mat that makes just a little bit more noise at night
with the extra thickness
so when you're not moving you get more comfort
or do you go for something a bit heavier
and not as thick that doesn't make any noise.
But this isn't as noisy as the original mats
that Sea to Summit brought out.
This is all the same fabric on the top and the bottom
and there's these little dots here.
It's an upgraded construction method that they make.
And this is a little bit like baffle construction
in sleeping bags,
and this dot here is welded to the bottom here
with a little baffle in between.
So there's about probably about that much gap
between this weld point here
and this weld point on the bottom.
So the top layer of fabric and the bottom layer of fabric
never actually come together,
there's a complete separate layer in there.
And inside here is dual layers of Thermolite insulation
and you can feel it.
If I pinch two layers of this together now,
you can see my fingers are probably a good five millimetres
apart there, so there's a nice thick layer of insulation.
One that's stuck to the top, one that's stuck to the bottom.
So you've got heaps of insulation
and that gives these mats an R-Value of 6.2 or 6.3
depending on which size you're looking at.
Not much other features to show.
There is their PillowLock system here.
So these little dots here are there to be used
with a little pack of, and I don't have one with me now,
but a little pack of 3M Velcro tabs
or sort of hook and loop tabs that you put on here.
You stick 'em on and the pillow, Sea to Summit's pillow
then stick here to stop them sliding off the mat.
So it's what they call their PillowLock system.
You don't have to use it
but the feature's there if you want it.
And next to that is their multi-use valve.
Now, this has got a few different uses
or a few different ways of using it.
We pull this off, we've got inflate valve there.
If we pull the whole thing off
that's the deflate valve option there,
so that just the complete access to inside the mat there.
Actually, if we can, ah there we go,
we can see the actual insulation inside there now.
So that's what the insulation inside looks like.
A really soft synthetic fill.
This orange valve in here is the one-way valve,
I'll show you shortly.
But when this is blown up you can press in the middle here
and micro-adjust the firmness of the mat.
So blow it up really tight lie on it
and then pull this cap off
and you can just press this to adjust it.
But we'll show you that shortly.
What I wanna do now is show you how to inflate it.
So we grab our A-Stream pump sack here.
We leave the bottom section of this done up.
We just pull the top cap off
and we push this into this cap here, like that.
From there we lay the mat out flat and stand up
and give this a bit of shake
and just a light puff of air inside here.
(blows air)
And trap that air inside and then we just roll the bag
towards the mat and push the air inside.
It's not hard it goes in nice and easy
once the first one's done.
Unroll it, do it again and it'll take about three of these
to get the mat inflated.
(blows air)
This is a nice lightweight material
so it doesn't take much breath for it to expand
and take the air inside.
So we can see that's almost, actually that's pumped up now
just after two...
It's nice and firm now just after two fills
of that pump sack.
So that's nice and firm.
I can now take this off
and because of the one-way valve in here
it's not gonna let any air out
and I can lock it closed, like that.
So we're now all set up
and we can see that the Air Sprung Cells here
have kinda taken shape now the air's inside.
And on this point here and the same point underneath here
are not touching.
I have to push them down for them to join.
There's a little sort of join here between the two.
So we've now got 10 centimetres of mat here.
If I were to adjust this now.
If I say sit on the mat or lie on the mat,
I can open this and while I'm lying on it,
if I just press in the middle here
we can hear it hiss a little bit.
(air whooshing)
That's just letting out little puffs of air
(air whooshing)
until we can get this to the comfort level that we want.
I won't let too much out now
'cause I've blown it up pretty firm
and I've let a little bit of air out.
I wanna just kinda sit on this
and give you a bit of a judgement of how comfortable it is.
Now if I, it's a bit hard to sort of show you here
but I pumped a fair bit of air in.
I can just push down on the top there,
so there's a reasonable amount of pressure in there.
Now, this is a women's regular mat on here.
And I'm 185 centimetres so I am too tall for this mat.
If I sit right in the middle there
you can see the mat kinda pulls up a bit
and I do just go through to the bottom there.
So obviously one point of pressure
on the mat you gonna hit the bottom
but if I lay flat on this now
I'm not touching the base at all
and it probably, it feels quite firm.
I'd probably actually be more comfortable
if I let a bit more air out
and just let myself sink down into the mat there.
If I lie on my side, again if I had a pillow
it would be much more comfortable,
but if I let this air down my shoulder
feels a little bit tight here
but if I let it down a little bit flatter my shoulders
is just gonna drop down into the mat here.
(air whooshing)
And I can feel that adjusting already
and so I'm actually letting quite a bit of air out there.
So I've let quite a bit out
and I'm not touching the bottom there.
Now my shoulder's now dipping into the mat a bit more
and I feel pretty comfortable
and none of me is touching the floor at all,
I'm still up on top of the mat here.
So actually if I push really hard on my shoulder
it goes just through to the bottom there now.
But lying still, if I had a pillow there now,
I'd sleep pretty comfortably on this mat.
So with 10 centimetres of thickness
and an R-Valve that is ASTM tested as well of over six
this is the lightest and warmest mat we've got.
So if it's winter adventures you're after
this is a great option.
One other thing I mentioned too is the way you should
wherever possible use this bag to pump the mat up.
There is an anti-microbial layer
on the TPU lining on the inside,
so it's not gonna kill us straight away,
if you get a bit of moisture inside of that.
But at least make sure you store with these valves open
so the moisture can escape.
But you can avoid all of that
by just using this handy little stuff sack.
Now packing the mat up is nice and easy.
Go to the valve here,
if you undo the inflate valve
obviously, nothings gonna happen.
If we undo the whole valve we're gonna hear
the air just whoosh out really quickly.
So that now has gone flat now.
So with self-inflating mats, we would now need to
sort of squash all the air out
but this is actually gone completely flat already
and pack up of this mat now is super easy.
Just fold it in half and start to roll from the bottom
towards the valve.
The air squeezes out super easy and the stuff sack,
that see the some that's provided is
provided with consideration
that maybe your hands are cold
or you're tired or can't roll it up really tight every time.
So it goes back inside nice and easily.
So it's an oversized stuff sack there so slide that back in.
I didn't put a lot of effort into rolling that up
but it still rolled up pretty firmly or pretty tightly.
You can then grab the pump sack on the bottom.
Tuck that in its little pocket on the end there
and tighten that up as well
and we're all packed up ready to go back in your pack
to tackle the snow, the slopes, the rain,
whatever it is your doing on your winter activity.
That is the Sea to Summit Ether Light XT Extreme Mat
from Sea to Summit the ultimate lightweight
winter adventure camp mat with 10 centimetres of thickness.
You can check these out online as snowys.com.au
where you'll find 'em at our lowest prices everyday.
If you've got any questions let us know
down in the comments below.
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(upbeat music)