New Thermarest Evolite – any details known?

If it's a lightweight prolite plus, sign me up.

You may want to contact Cascade Designs and see if they have any preliminary specs that they'd be willing to release:

http://www.cascadedesigns.com/Home/Contact-Us

A problem with prolite is it delaminates – where the outer fabric is glued to the foam

From that picture, it looks like the fabric to foam connection is wider – maybe it delaminates less?

Yes, I guess there is a larger surface for the lamination to hold on to, since the foam seems solid rather than punched-through. But on the other hand, the pressure in those air chambers will probably put a much larger stress on the lamination around the edges of the "bubbles". If the construction is what it seems to be, that is.

But if the foam is solid, will there be any weight benefit? Of course, it might be punched through where the bubbles are.

(I know it's a bit futile to speculate about a product that will be shown in just a few weeks, but hey, that's what the internet is for…)

I've only seen one prolite delaminate (and it had had about 230 nights under it when it started…), but once the bubbles start, they increase in size fast. It just takes a bit of an edge to get started, then they get worse and worse at an increasing rate as there is more and more pressure on the edge from the bubble. After a couple of nights most of the mat was a big bubble, and was apparently pretty awful to sleep on…much nice just to leave the valve open.

So, this actually looks like a bad idea to me. It looks like a whole heap of big bubbles to pull away on big edges under pressure.

Of course, its quite possible that they now have different foam and outer fabric, and better glue, so that they are more than strong enough not to delaminate under this pressure. That wouldn't surprise me. If this mat saves a lot of interior foam and has a lighter outer fabric than the prolites, and gets some neoair style baffles in the "bubbles", then it could be a bit of a neoair killer. It would be great for people like me who want a lighter mat (than a prolite) but can't sleep on a neoair due to the weird sensation (too thick, too spongy, feels strange…I prefer a thin ccf by far).

I've received some more info about the Evolite. It seems they are using a new type of foam, so one can hope that they deal better with delamination (I have no personal experience of that, my only self inflater is a standard Thermarest from 1994).

Here is the data for size R:

Weight: 480 g
Thickness: 5 cm
Dimensions: 51 x 183 cm
R-Value: 2,1

In short: a tiny bit heavier than the Prolite, but with twice the thickness. Not a Neoair killer, but rather a more comfortable alternative to Prolite.

I have the current Prolite.

After maybe 100 nights it started to delaminate. Fairly small bubbles that got bigger over maybe 10 nights, at which point I replaced it.

The delamination was where I sometimes put my hand and put all my body pressure.

I quit doing this and have no delamination after 200 nights.

Someone reported that she used Prolite full time, and a couple times a year (?) had to replace it due to delamination. Manufacturer replaced it for free.

If I made this product, I think I'de just call this a characteristic, warn users not to apply full pressure, and only replace it in the first year or so. Maybe they replace few enough it doesn't matter.

Over the long haul, TAR self inflating pads have been pretty bomber for me. I've used them since the early '80s and for half of my military career after they replaced our old CCF pads. I've owned my prolite for a year now so not long enough to give a long term review but so far so good. It's discouraging to hear that others have had delaminating problems with this pad, and I really like it, so hopefully I'll dodge a bullet. My one and only gripe with it is that it doesn't really self inflate for me regardless of how I store it. The upside is that at size small, it doesn't take much effort to fill it up.

I'll compare specs later but at first glance, this pad looks like it has the comfort of the Prolite Plus, the R value of the Prolite, and a weight that's somewhere in between?

"…warn users not to apply full pressure…"

Please explain how to accomplish this. It would greatly improve the comfort of a relatively thin pad.

Thanks.

I meant warn user not to apply full weight of body with hand on pad.

When you go to lay down, hold your body up with your hand off the pad, to the side.

This is just a theory – that doing this causes delamination, but that is where my pad delaminated, and since I quit doing it on new pad it hasn't delaminated.

I've had my prolite plus for about a year and have seen no delam. It has been the most comfortable pad I ever owned, but is obviously not UL. A 1lb pad that can accomplish the same level of comfort would be awesome.

Thanks for posting the details, Martin.

I recently purchased the size regular Evolite from REI. I've used it a total of two nights at the GGG this year.

Why did I buy it? It appeared to be all of the comfort of a prolite plus at the low weight of a prolite. Also, I sleep warm so I’m not concerned about losing some R value for weight.

Here are my highly scientific findings.

They advertise that it weighs 17oz. Mine weighs 18 without the stuff sack. (edited to update the weight discrepancy. I must have been tired when I weighed it the first time)

"Self-inflating" is becoming more and more of a misnomer with each and every generation of "self-inflating" TAR mattresses. It was cool but by no means freezing the second night of the GGG. Mid 50*s I believe when I was setting this up which is fairly typical in the Cascades many nights during the summer. The pad would not self-inflate at that temperature. I've noticed that my prolite misbehaves in a similar manner but is perhaps a little better in this regard.

The largest difference is that my prolite 3/4 only requires a few puffs of air to inflate. While not requiring the same calorie/lung burning workout to inflate as an Exped synmat, it is more than what I want to deal with. I also have a schnozzle bag (doubles as a dry bag) that makes inflating my synmat a snap.

My thoughts are, if I'm going to put in all this effort to inflate this mattress, I would have just brought my Synmat UL which delivers a higher R value (3.1 vs 2.1) and comfort or just bought a Neoair and saved some weight.

It was comfortable to sleep on. I can't speak to its durability.