New Tarptent Aeon Li

Potentially fair point on the condensation (though I don’t know the Aeon has been tested enough to rule out condensation issues of its own), but it’s not immediately apparent to me that the Aeon is that much larger that the Wisp. I find the diagrams both companies use a little confusing.

They both appear to have 47 inch heights. The Wisp is 91 inches long to the Aeon’s 88 inches. The Aeon is clearly wider at the extreme foot and head (30 inches to the Wisp’s 24), but the Wisp also extends wider near the head to 39 inches. I assume this would equate to greater floor space. The Aeon uses 14 inch struts and the Wisp has a 15 inch strut at the foot end. The Wisp appears to have a 30 inch vestibule to the Aeon’s 25. What I cannot determine is the relative slopes.

If I had any graphical/technical skills, I’d try to overlay the dimensions of each on top of one another (*cough* Lester Moore *cough*).

Here is a scaled sketch of the Wisp and Aeon:

Notice that the floor area of the Wisp extends right to the fly, whereas the Aeon has a floor and then you have a gap (with bug mesh) until the fly wall. So presumably you can utilize the entire floor area of the Aeon, while in the Wisp if you reach the edge of the floor you’ve also reached the potentially condensation covered fly.

These sketches also don’t show the difference in volume that all the struts in the Aeon add. But certainly the Aeon is a much more “liveable” shelter. The struts prop up the fly at the low corners so you have more space here, whereas the Wisp would be really small because you only have 24″ at the ends and the fly leans inward a lot from that, so the area say 6″ off the ground would be much smaller. It looks pretty much impossible not to hit the fly regularly in the Wisp.

Thanks, Dan, that’s very helpful. I imagine the gap helps considerably with condensation as well.

how does that floor area compare to x mid?

I like all these variations on one person pyramid tent

As far as I can tell, the Aeon uses a similar floor style as Zpacks where the edges of the bathtub are pulled up, and then mesh angles down from there to the bottom edge of the fly. This ensures that any condensation running down the fly doesn’t wind up on the floor and also means there is a decent gap for airflow:

I can’t quite see how the Wisp does it, but it doesn’t look like they are doing this. The DCF floor might be directly connected (no mesh) or connected via a small strip of mesh, but I don’t think it has this protection. So yeah likely less airflow and less good when you get condensation.

“How does that floor area compare to X-Mid?”
The regular X-Mid is a pretty different tent (woven fabrics, double wall) so I don’t want to hijack this thread with discussion on that. The DCF X-Mid will be a very different design that is much more comparable, but there won’t be any details on that for a few more months.

you can see this video review with someone inside Gone Bush Product Review: Big Sky International Wisp Bivy Tent  .