Thanks for the tip! I may buy one as soon as this weekend.
Thanks for the tip! I may buy one as soon as this weekend.
Looks heavy and unoriginal. Is it just me or does it bother any one else when a company changes the look a little on someone else's product and call it theirs?
Is that too much to ask? Girls with frikkin' lasers on their heads?
The hanger formly known as "hammock engineer".
That's pretty heavy. Even for synthetic. And they're a little late on the scene with the underquilt. They've only been available for what? 5 or 6 years? How hard is it to quilt some synthetic insulation between two layers of nylon?
And either the details on the site are a mistake, or someone with absolutely no knowledge of materials chose to put silnylon on the outside.
I just can't believe noone has made a commercial version of the down hammock idea. At least that would be semi original.
I would call the Jacks at least semi-commercial. My guess would be that the market is small enough that they didn't see fit to put much R&D into this one, though. Seems easy enough... buy one of the Jacks' quilts, one of Brandon's, and maybe a KAQ and mix all the features you like to build your "new" underquilt.
A lot of gear companies (don't know about ENO) are producing over in china these days, so they have to have a product that can be trained to workers and cranked out efficiently. They would probably come up with an overrun pretty quickly compared to the Jacks', brandon, etc, who handmake their products more or less to order.
They wish they could say that!
They 'premiered' the Ember in their new catalog several months ago with an anticipated release in mid spring, then late spring, then early summer. Now that fall has rolled around, they actually released it. All the while making claims of refining the design ; I have emails from ENO saying as much.
Color me very unimpressed. Probably one of the few 'new' items I honestly don't want anymore and they had me ready to swipe the plastic if they would have released it even almost on schedule.
Trust nobody!
The Jacks are semi commercial. But they make underquilts. Not the down hammock idea. Check out Risk, Just Jeff or my gallery for pics of the down hammock. Basically a hammock with underquilt incorporated, coming to around 500g full weight. A commercial version of this would be something new.
Back to the Ember. Why put silnylon on the outside? Is this a typo?
Anyone heard anything?
At least with the sil outer layer it can be multi-use. The first night it is an UQ. The second night it can be used to haul water. Brilliant! Still, 35 ounces is a bit heavy for a bucket.
There's an aweful lot of hating going on for a bunch of people who've apparently never used this uq. (and obviously never plan to)
I'm certainly not an expert on uq design, and I suppose I can see a beef with a company making the uq "backwards". (*hint* I'm sure it's reversible... flip it inside-out and voila the silnylon is on the inside! omg)
But I can't see how you can complain about a reasonably large company bringing the price of 3 season hammocking into a more realistic perspective. Which is exactly what they're doing when they "take another's design and call it their own". If that mentality prevailed we'd have one sleeping bag company, one hammock company, and one tent company.
No argument that the price didn't start that way, ENO's website overvalues their product I think but that's not an abnormal practice. They are a wholesale retailer, meaning they overvalue their products directly so that other companies will buy in bulk and sell below their margin at a profit. It's a really very typical process and they're the only "big hammock" guys out there trying to industrialize the industry. I just got one for 100 bucks. With shipping. A google product search will show you what you can get. Considering this product is a month old that means in another 5 years a "good enough" uq might be purchasable for say $60. I'd say as a first timer that's a pretty good place to start. No doubt, if you want lighter/better you'll be paying for it. That's the way of the world. And so it turns.
As for additional insulation, couldn't you just put a pad between the uq and the hammock? Or in the hammock. I'm sure this uq would be better than nothing on the worst days, and most days be better than a sleeping bag and cheaper than a diy. That's the very least we can give it just from the detail-less specs it's got now.
A little industrialization won't hurt hammocking ya'll. Can't knock them for that. In fact as people who enjoy hammocks it's a good thing for us.
As far as performance is concerned lets get a review and go from there.
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