Ultralight air beds

Guy Hurst wrote (see)

 So have I just been unlucky, or are these things basically unreliable?

well, by it's very nature, statistically a proportion of inflatable mats/tyres/innertubes/footballs etc will get a puncture

 There does seem to be a huge amount of anecdotal stuff out there of all flavours of airmat leaking sooner or later.

often reparable, but personally I wouldn't fancy attempting a repair when wildcamping.

At least with a SI mat you get a little bit of insulation if it goes flat. And less faff to inflate - especially in a tiny tent in bad weather (or bivying!)

I have been trialling using just a ccf mat again this last year, and have suceeded sleeping ok when solo and can back-sleep (with my other half I have to side-sleep usually cos of the snoring with the former). Most times it's just 3/4 SI TAR. (I add a ccf in winter)

I bought a POE ether something for my OH, (one of the tougher ones) but that sprung a tiny leak right next to a seam (so not a part in contact with the ground even)...  Never again -

(except maybe an exped downmat for deep winter- which appear to have better reliability)

What ed says.

Closed cell mats -

There is a tougher version of the NeoAir (Trekker) available if you're worried, and you can carry a puncture repair kit.

Not used our (original) NeoAirs that much, but they're just back from a 2 week cycling holiday where I've been most impressed with their comfort, both as beds and chairs.  More of a faff blowing them up, but the savings in space (weight too, but especially space) combined with much better comfort than a light SIM are well worth the cost for me.

Pete.

One thing I have seen is mentioned somewhere is that apparently each new type of mat tends to need the way its produced adapting a bit. Combine that with the way thats its very hard to properly test the things for relatively rare failures and there's a potential (non trivial) risk to early adoption in terms of models.

Although the better folk do at least happily replace them.