Why We Chose The Vaude Meglis Eco 700 Syn: World-first technology and environmentally friendly
When it comes to sleeping bags, which for non-campers will always just seem like glorified bin bags, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there wasn’t much innovating left to do with them. Add a zip here, take off a zip there, use more sustainable insulation – there’s stuff you can do with them, sure, but for an outsider looking in it’d be easy to think that sleeping bags have been taken as far as they can go. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.
Enter stage left: the Meglis Eco 700 Syn, an ISPO Gold Award winning sleeping bag from Vaude. Probably the most game-changing and revolutionary sleeping bag we’ve ever come across, this innovative bit of camping kit is a massive great big, zero-gravity, leap into the future. We like it. We like it a lot.
Who Is The Vaude Meglis Eco 700 Syn For?
If you’re doing some trekking and want a sleeping bag that’s going to show the world how serious you are when it comes to looking after the environment, look no further than the Vaude Meglis Eco 700 Syn. This sustainably produced, and surprisingly warm, sleeping bag will serve you well on your multi-day hiking missions.
Not one for your midwinter camping holiday in Siberia maybe, the three-season Meglis Eco 700 Syn will still do a job for you in more scenarios than it won’t. It has a temperature comfort of 2 °C, a temperature limit of -3 °C, and a temperature extreme of -20 °C.
Materials
Because of the materials used, the Meglis Eco 700 Syn is quite possibly the most environmentally friendly sleeping bag in existence. The inner and outer fabric is 100% recycled polyamide, while the guts of it contains a mixture of 70% Primaloft Silver Insulation (bringing its warm-when-wet qualities) and then 30% Kapok. Kapok, for those not in the know, is a tree found in southern Asia and the East Indies that produces little pods which contain a cotton-like material inside. For a number of years its been used for mattresses and stuffed toys but companies are starting to find new ways to create yarns from it, with Vaude being the latest. They’ve managed to turn it into their own natural and biodegradable alternative to down and the results are impressive.
Features
The ingenious spiral pattern on the Meglis Eco 700 Syn is, believe it or not, a world’s first. Using less fabric than more traditional sleeping bag patterns, the bag’s design is, according to Vaude, better at preventing cold spots while it also keeps fabric waste to a minimum.
“The ingenious spiral pattern on the Meglis Eco 700 Syn is, believe it or not, a world’s first”
The two-way spiral zipper here means the foot area can be easily ventilated from the bottom, while the two arm openings are perfect if you’re doing some cooking, or fancy a bit of late-night reading by head torch. Like all the best sleeping bags, you can alter this to suit the context.
Vaude’s Meglis Eco 700 Syn has a stretch construction. It offers about 25% – 30% more freedom of direction, in all directions, meaning it doesn’t have that same ‘locked in’ feeling that can make some sleeping bag nights a rather claustrophobic experience. It’ll give you a nice and snug feeling but it’ll still stretch enough to let you sit crossed-legged in it.
