Unfortunately, once daylight has broken through your tent fabric, it can be hard to catch those extra zzz’s – especially in the bright light of summer. Luckily for late risers, there is a solution. Blackout tents. A growing trend in tent technology, blackout tents have been designed to help solve one of the oldest camping problems – getting a good night’s sleep!
Want to learn more about this technology? Keep reading our guide to camping blackout tents below to find out what they are, how they work, and which ones are available to buy…
What is a blackout tent?
Sometimes also known as ‘dark rest’ or ‘dark room’ tents, a blackout tent uses a specific fabric that has light-diffusing or light-absorbing qualities. The purpose of this is to keep the inside of the tent as dark as possible, so you don’t have to wake up when the sun does.
Top tip: blackout tents are especially ideal for those camping with babies and children, but also for anyone sensitive to light when trying to get to sleep.
Typically, tents have always been a lighter colour to help keep them cooler inside. However, thanks to innovations in ventilation and climate control fabric, the temperature inside blackout tents can still be kept comfortable.
This means brands have more freedom with which to make better sleeping areas for you to enjoy. Whilst some, like Coleman, use a fully blacked out fabric, others simply feature a dark coloured fabric to block the light. This also means that while the most heavy-duty blackout tents claim to block out up to 99% of daylight, others tend to only promise reduced morning light or glare.
Another thing to be aware of is that certain outdoor brands also have their own specific term for a blackout tent, such as Vango’s ‘Lights Out’ tents. This is especially true for Coleman, who have trademarked the term ‘BlackOut’ for their tent technology.
Note – we will be using the term blackout to describe many tents throughout this blog, as this proprietary term has evolved to cover the whole category (like Hoover, or Cellotape). However, only Coleman tents are strictly ‘BlackOut’.