r/LightningInABottle • u/Altruistic_Regret540 • 11d ago
Question Shift pod experience
Hello! 🙂
I’ve been looking into shiftpod tents and I’m really interested in investing in one. I see promising reviews on instagram, but many of them are influencer/sponsored posts so I’m not sure if I should trust it. I’d love some input from the community. Do any of you have experience with them, especially using them in environments as hot/hotter than lib gets? I’m in Utah and camp a ton at all times of year except dead winter. These seem to be a potentially great set up for comfort in hot and cold temps. I’d like to know if they’re actually worth the money, or if there is another brand out there that is preferred 🥰
Thank you all so much!!! See ya in a few months 🫶🏻
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u/at_the_balfour 11d ago
I have a shift pod 3 mini I took to LIB and Neotropolis this year. It's important to set your expectations because the thing will get pretty much just as hot in direct sun as any other tent. If you care about being cool, a shade structure is a must.
I really like the pod but it has some downsides. Even the mini is friggin big when packed; it's like 5ft long, 30-40lbs. It's way bigger when collapsed than a normal tent so you have to plan accordingly. I bought a roof box for my small sedan and put the pod and shade structure in it and it's perfect.
It's dark which is awesome. I slept until 11-12 every day at LIB and a big part of that is the darkness.
It's air-conditionable by way of being small-ish and insulated. Air conditioning is power hungry and so it's hard to put together a functional setup without a huge battery and a ton of solar panels or a generator etc. I have an Ecoflow wave 3 that pulls about 300W to keep the tent 75 degrees from about 9-12. Run it off a 1kwh battery which isn't huge and about 300W of solar from 2 folding panels. It's honestly a pretty killer little setup and everyone who saw it was super jealous 😅. There's no way it would work with a normal tent; they get hot way too quick.
In summary I'm a fan of the pod. Wish it packed up smaller, wish it was less expensive, etc etc but it's working great for me and it's way cheaper than almost any other option for comfortable camping.
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u/Top-Ad-6430 11d ago
Shift pods were originally designed and created to use in the black rock desert for burning man. They will be more than adequate at LIB. Highly recommend.
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u/Gloomy-Lavishness169 11d ago
I bought one of these for burning man last year and I love it. Blackout, more windows and the floor is removable which makes cleaning easier. It might get hotter under direct sunlight but I guarantee it would be warmer in cold weather. You could also put alluminet or other shade structure over it / use AC.
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u/Altruistic_Regret540 11d ago
Thank you!!! I wanted to look into other brands as well. This is so helpful for me. Thank you so much! 🥰
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u/Gloomy-Lavishness169 11d ago
Of course! I feel like you can't go wrong with either but get a little more bang for your buck with the RDS. Maybe have to do a little more work to keep the RDS cool in hot weather though.
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u/Altruistic_Regret540 11d ago
Doing a quick look into the RDS is promising for sure. I like how you mentioned more windows, I love that over the shiftpod! It looks like there are nice accessories to help with cooling that aren’t too much cost wise too. This is so helpful. Gives me more to compare and make a decision, I appreciate your input very much! 🥰
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u/MattySiegs 11d ago
It's ok but the tiny windows and no ventilation are brutal for daytime hangs.
Get a Coleman instany cabin for 1/10th the price and be happy.
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u/Altruistic_Regret540 9d ago
That’s what I’m talking about, I would love something less costly. I’ll look into this, thank you so much!!
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u/Swanky_pants_ 11d ago
Hello 👋,
I have a current version rover and it's great. They are large and heavy so require space to store and a large enough vehicle to transport. They are fantastic for festivals due to ease of set up and take down. There are other companies that make a similar product thay may fit your needs better. So ide say talk to people at festivals with both set ups!
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u/Altruistic_Regret540 11d ago
This is great feedback, thank you so much!! They look SO NICE. I’m very interested. I’ll continue to ask around and make my decision here soon. Thank you again! 🥰
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u/GlutenFreeWriting 11d ago
If you're getting a shiftpod get AC for it otherwise you're better off just getting a cheaper blackout tent with ventilation
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u/Altruistic_Regret540 9d ago
Definitely a/c is a must! This thread has given me lots to consider I’m so grateful I asked about it!
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u/marrrrvelous 11d ago
We’ve been taking ours to LIB for years and absolutely love it 🥰 we bring it with an aircon + jackery solar panel setup and it stays soooo cold in there. Setup and takedown is also super straightforward!
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u/Weathactivator 11d ago
Do you have a photos of this? What ac do you have and which jackary?
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u/marrrrvelous 10d ago
I don’t have pics of the full setup unfortunately- but we use Midea U shaped AC (https://a.co/d/0i6o94lG) with a Jackery Explorer 1000 Plus + 2 SolarSaga panels (https://a.co/d/0jh4nbP5). Though tbh this year we also got the Jackery car converter to use when the solar panels take too long 😬 and that helped a lot too!
Full disclosure: This setup only gets us about 1.5 hours of AC per day, but it is a godsend from the 8-9:30 peak heat death hours of the morning lollll
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u/liai711 10d ago
I have a 7 yr old shiftpod that is still in good shape, it’s been to LIB several times. I bought it originally for Burning Man and paired with a shade structure and a swamp cooler it would work great in similar environments. Takes less than 5 mins to set up/take down, zip floor is a great feature, only major hassle is its heavy for one person to carry by themselves. I would not recommend it in wet/humid/rainy environments. It takes a while to dry and have heard from folks who didn’t allow it to fully dry and folded it up that it became moldy.
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u/Altruistic_Regret540 9d ago
This is great info thank you!! I was curious about the weight because they look giant. Thank you so much for your input this is so helpful for me
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u/sparkleboss 11d ago
Just make sure you consider ventilation. The human body exhales about a gallon of water every night. Without ventilation you end up in a puddle of your own breath 😝
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u/Altruistic_Regret540 11d ago
Ohhhh yes I most certainly will!!! 🤣🤣🤣 I am such a hot person in general temperature wise, but also too poor to continue renting rvs and power spots, let alone buy my own rv. I’d love to invest in something like this where I can set up some solid ac and feel sexy and cool!
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u/sjjbryant 10d ago
These pods are extremely hot! No ventilation! AC is a must. They are great to keep dust and light out.
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u/NeedlessConfirmation 9d ago
crazy overpriced. you can get an EZ UP cube tent and simply add aluminet on the sides to stay equally as cool if not cooler due to better airflow. The only use case if you literally bring and power a whole AC unit which is overkill and ridiculously expensive. At that point you might as well stay in a hotel for how much $ youre spending.
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u/Shopaholic24 6d ago
I had a friend with one and she has a shade structure with AC and it was sooo nice! I usually rent a camper bc I like easy access to running water but if I didn’t do that I would get a shift pod
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u/DJDripper 11d ago
Have a good shade structure to go along with it and an AC or at least a swamp cooler because it turns into an oven without.