Zempire Aerodome 2 Inflatable Tent

Review Score

The Zempire brings their unique design to the world of inflatable tents, creating a family sized tent that is fast to pitch.

Our Score: 8.1/10

We've given the Zempire Aerodome 2 Inflatable Tent the Thumbs Up award.

Value for MoneyQualityFeaturesFamily Friendly

The good

• The Zempire Aerodome 2 is fast to pitch as you can simply inflate it. It also comes with a built in porch, which provides a great place to store wet things and provides a rain-proof way of entering the tent.

The not so good

• The ventilation mesh on the exterior of the tent with little rain protection may not be for everyone, but from our testing this wasn't a problem at all.

This was a hands-on product review. The product was loaned to us to conduct the review.

Price Guide

Zempire Aerodome 2 Inflatable Tent Videos

Zempire Aerodome 2 Inflatable Tent Photos

Our Review

Since they arrived in the UK a few years ago I've been very keen to see what these tents are like.

Zempire, the New Zealand-based company, brought a slight twist on family tent designs that we often see in Europe and the UK.

...just what are they like in practice?

But my big question was: what are they like in practice?

Well, our friends over at Camping World lent us one so that we could get a hands-on look, and see what these new tents are like.

The Zempire Aerodome 2 Test Pitch

Camping World sells several Zempire Tents, and they sent us over one of the Zempire air framed tents.

As we've featured before with the Outwell Hornet XL, air-framed tents are so much quicker to pitch, taking a lot of the hassle out of family camping.

The Zempire Aerodome 2 didn't disappoint and was quite fast to pitch. Depending on how fast you want to pump, you should have it up in 10 to 20 minutes.

We gave it a test pitch in our back garden...

The Zempire Aerodome 2 has a hand pump and a built-in pressure gauge. You inflate each air tube to around 7 psi.

There are 4 inflation points in the tent.

The hand pump also comes with an attachment and extra nozzle so you can pump two valves at once, which should, in theory, reduce the pitching time even further....though we kept things simple and inflated one tube at a time.

Aerodome 2 Layout

The Zempire Aerodome 2 has two bedrooms.

Each bedroom should take 3 people, though if only two people are sharing, you will have plenty of space.

In the middle dome part of the tent is the shared living space.

The Zempire Aerodome 2 comes with a porch area already attached that provides additional storage place, and great place to leave wet and muddy boots.

Little Design Touches

Unlike many air framed tents, the Aerodome 2 has its inflation valves inside the tent. You can access these through a flap that you unzip in the side of the tent.

Inside the tent bedrooms, you get plenty of storage pockets. These can also be found on the outside of the tent too.

Each bedroom can have its own cable entry point if you need power in the bedrooms, and there is a large lantern hanging point in the main living space.

Ventilation and Mesh

The Zempire tents certainly have a lot of ventilation built in, with points for air flow to enter low dow and leave through the top of the tent.

One of the common design features you see across the range of Zempire tents are the large ventilation mesh panels.

Unlike many tents designed for the UK, these mesh panels are not covered but left exposed. This looks very different, as we're used to rain flaps that shelter the ventilation mesh.

This was something I was keen to investigate. It was time for our simulated rain downpour (also known as the garden hose!).

Although the mesh is on the outside of the tent, it does have rain protection on the inside of the tent. So despite giving it a good soaking, no water entered the tent at all.

Only when I undid all the layers and the flysheet did I see water...which is not surprising: if you open a window when it is raining right at you, you are bound to get a little wet ;-)

the ventilation mesh on the outside of the tent didn't appear to be a problem in the rain at all

So, after my reservations about that aspect of the Zempire design, the ventilation mesh on the outside of the tent didn't appear to be a problem in the rain at all.

Conclusion

Although we only did a test pitch in the garden, from what we saw of the Zempire Aerodome 2, it was a well-made tent with some different design features that worked well.

The large layout would mean a family of 4 could have quite a bit of bedroom space, and the built-in awning means there's a lot of practical living and storage space too.

it's a fast and straightforward tent to pitch

Most importantly, it's a fast and straightforward tent to pitch.

Details