MOST DETAILED SLEEPING PAD REVIEW EVER // Sea to Summit Ether Light XT Review

this is the most comfortable sleeping pad on the market the cedar summit etherlight xt utilizes some very unique technologies in order to help you get the best sleep ever on backpacking trips but that comfort comes with some sacrifices and today we're going to look at what's good and what's bad about the seed to summon ether light xt to see if it's the right sleeping pad for you starting off with what's good about the etherlate xt first of all the options it comes in five different sizes for both men's and women's versions the women's versions are slightly warmer and then have a different shape that's more geared towards women i have here the men's size large mummy version it's 25 inches wide and is just a very nice all-around solid pad a feature i really like with seat summit pads is that even the regular versions are still wider than normal at 21.5 inches wide most regular width pads out there are only 20 inches wide the pad also comes with a lot of great features and one of my favorites is how you inflate the pad the stuff sack that you use for the pad actually doubles as the inflation bag so you open up the bottom end of the bag and then you have this big inflation bag that comes out the bottom and you blow into the one end the narrow end of the bag it inflates that inflation bag and then you can push that air into the pad by using the stuff sack you're also getting less moisture and warm air into the pad from your breath which as the temperature drops over the course of the night means your pad's gonna deflate less the pump sack integrates really well with the valve system that we have at the head end of the pad here for the valve you have two flaps that are oriented at nine degree angles to each other and we'll get into why that's super important in a second here if you open up the first flap of the valve it exposes a one-way valve that you use for inflation the one-way valve is awesome because as you push air into the pad and inflate it air isn't coming out in between pushes there's a little rubber flap that opens up as you push air into the pad but then it doesn't let air out and this little rubber flap is also really easy to replace which is a nice feature of the valve opening up the second flap of the valve just opens the pad completely up and dumps a ton of air very quickly which makes deflating the pad and packing it up really quick and simple having the flaps oriented 90 degrees to each other is a really nice feature because if you want to open up just the first flap you're not going to accidentally pull out the second flap and dump all the air out of the pad and you may want to do that in order to adjust the firmness of the pad there's a little button right underneath the first flap here you press that and it'll slowly let out a little bit of air and you can fine tune how much air is in the pad and how firm it is another feature that people may find useful is the pillow lock system so each seated summit pad comes with these little velcro strips that you stick onto the head end of the pad and that's in order to lock in your pillow the pillow lock system only works with seat to summit pillows so you have kind of these velcro little strips here and then you have a material on the back of the pillows that sticks to that velcro so you can take a see a summit pillow stick it on there and then it's not going to move around as you toss and turn over the course of the night which is really nice because if your pillow is attached to your sleeping pad in some way whether that's a pillow lock system or pad straps your pillow is going to tend to run away from you in the middle of the night while the pillow lock system is effective at locking your pillow in place you do need to use c to summit pillows in order to make it work and not all seated summit pillows may be comfortable for everybody the last good thing with this pad and probably one of the most important is comfort first of all this pad is four inches thick making it one of the thickest sleeping pads on the market and that thickness means that you're gonna have a lot of troubles bottoming this pad out even if you are a heavier person sleeping on your side and while the thickness is a big reason why i think this pad is super comfortable the magic happens with the baffling system the ether light xt uses what cedar summit calls air sprung baffles and what that consists of is loops of material and rf welds to attach the top of the pad to the bottom of the pad and that creates these little dimples in the pad and these dimples help relieve pressure points as you lay down the dimples are especially effective at relieving pressure points in your shoulder and hip when sleeping on your side the air sprung baffling system is the most effective baffling system that i've come across in any sleeping pad out there and etherlite xt is the only sleeping pad i've ever used where i haven't had my arm fall asleep in the middle of the night with other sleeping pads that use horizontal baffles or vertical baffles at some point when using the pad i've had my arms fall asleep when sleeping on my side and that's just very uncomfortable and will wake you up in the middle of the night the ether light xt is the only sleeping pad where i consistently sleep through the entire night without waking up to toss and turn and that brings us to what's bad about the ether light xt starting with the weight and the size the size regular weighs 455 grams whereas the size large on my scale weighs 590 grams for just the pad or 670 grams for the pad the stuff sack and repair kit while not crazy heavy the ethelet xt is heavier than a lot of other comparable pads out there it's also a little bit of a bulky pad inside the stuff sack i measured it at being 12 inches long and then five inches in diameter if you pack it really well you can crush it down a little bit more but that's pretty bulky for an ultralight pad another negative is noise well this hasn't been a problem for me the surface can be a little bit rubbery feeling as you move around on it it may sound like you're rubbing a balloon and some people find that pretty annoying as well i've heard from some people that with certain tents as the sleeping pad kind of shifts on the tent floor it can be really noisy the biggest negative with the ether light xt sleeping pads in my opinion is warmth and we're going to get really in-depth into why this pad isn't quite up to snuff when it comes to sleeping warm sea summit has independently tested the etholite xt to have an r value of 3.2 based on the astm f3340-18 testing standard that testing standard was adopted pretty much by every sleeping pad manufacturer across the board back in 2020 and is a great way to compare the warmth between different sleeping pads but there are some issues with the testing standard and those come to light with the ether light xt cedar summit has recommendations based on the r-value of their sleeping pads for different people whether they're cold or warm sleepers i consider myself about an average warmth sleeper and cedar summit recommends that the etherlight xt should be good for me in sub-freezing conditions on cold ground but i find that that recommendation is not reflected in my real world experience but before i explain why that is let's take a look at the different technologies for installation that csum is using inside the etherlight xt first of all you have a sheet of synthetic insulation that's loose inside of the pad and then on one side of that installation you also have a reflective layer well i've been testing this sleeping pad out in the real world for last three years i've had this sleeping pad basically since it first came out i want to do some lab testing as well so i tested the installation by placing the sleeping pad on top of a heating pad that heated to about 37 to 40 degrees after that i used an infrared camera to see what the surface temperature of the ethernet xt was to see what the difference was between the bottom temperature and the top temperature of the pad and this kind of simulates a real world experience where you have the ground which is trying to suck heat out of you who are on top of the pad and the difference i saw was 11 degrees celsius which gives me an indication of how well the sleeping pad is insulating but you'll notice on the infrared image that there's some hot spots some little circles where their heat is coming through the pad a lot more than other areas those hot spots are occurring because there's gaps in the insulation where the loops that connect the top to the bottom of the pad are located for the air sprung technology and those gaps in installation that results in those hot spots are one of the reasons why i find that the ethelite xt doesn't sleep as warm as the r value would indicate those little gaps in insulation are acting as channels for cold air to come up through the pad and cool you off throughout the night and the reason why the r-value testing doesn't pick that up is because it looks at the average temperature across the entire pad and doesn't look for hot spots and while looking at the average ability for a pad to insulate is great you're only as weak as your weakest link and the ethelite has a weak link and those little gaps in installation do the air sprung cells as well because the insulation is loose inside of the pad and the pad is so thick you have more opportunities for there to be gaps between the top of the pad and the insulation and for cold air to sneak in from the side especially if you toss and turn a lot due to those gaps in the installation as well as the installation being loose inside the pad you're gonna be pumping air throughout the pad and there's gonna be more opportunity for cold air to get close to you and cool you off for me i find that the etherlite xt is a two season pad i can use it in the summer and fall in sub-freezing temperatures but when the ground isn't frozen or cold i've used the pad in spring conditions when air temperatures were quite warm but the ground was still frozen and quite cold and it led to some pretty miserable nights i'm a little bit on the fence with durability with this pad it's made with really durable materials the shelf fabric is 30 by 40 rip stop nylon and is a really nice thick durable material it just feels durable in your hand it uses an extrusion lamination method on the inside of the pad in order to create an airtight seal and cedar summit has told me that they have not had any failures due to delamination with the ethelete xt pads as well for all the air sprung locations where you have connection points between the top of the pad and the bottom of the pad they use rf welding which is one of the strongest welds that you can use but i have a confession to make this isn't the same etherlight xt that i bought three years ago my first pad actually failed on me just a couple weeks ago and that was because one of these airsprung welds failed on me i hadn't used the pad all winter so i took it out to test it out before a trip and it started leaking on me so i did a soap and water test and then right away i found that there's two spots leaking air i actually bought my first etherlight xt before i started the youtube channel a few years ago so i went through the warranty process as myself without telling them that i had a youtube channel one week later i had the pad in the mail i don't think i've ever had such a straightforward and easy warranty process with anything that i've ever had not just outdoor gear with cs summit and their warranty process i'm super impressed through my contacts at sea summit i reached out about the failure and they told me that they can count on one hand how many failures they've had at the weld points on the etherlight xt they told me that they purposely use heavier materials and processes so they make a pad that's gonna be more durable and have longer longevity if comfort is your priority and you don't need a super warm sleeping pad then definitely check out the ether light xt check out this video where i go over my entire ultra comfort gear list the ethernet xt is a central piece of that gear list

Channel: Justin Outdoors - Gear Priority

Views: 39,345

Keywords: justin outdoors

Id: BvqEtCugTIo

Length: 9min 19sec (559 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 14 2022