REI Hobitat 6 Tent

Comments about REI Hobitat 6 Tent:

Received the new-and-improved H6, used it this weekend and am really looking forward to using it again. Set up was easy and intuitive. I did it myself in about 15 minutes in about 20 knots of wind. Footprint and fly fit perfectly. Photo is deceptive. H6 is more rectangle than square. Huge inside. I'm 6-1, my son is 6-2. Plenty of headroom. Great view of the sky and trees through the mesh top. Mesh side panels provide good ventilation and adequate privacy without rain fly. Ventilation with rain fly was good as well. Didn't get a chance to flex the system in rain, but redesign seems to have eliminated square top area that some say collected rain on earlier models. Tent held well in 20-35 knots gusts, with and without the rain fly. I staked the tent and rain fly and deployed the tie-downs. Foot print problems noted on earlier posts seem to have been resolved as well. Foot print clipped easily to tent tabs.Inside, mesh pockets on each corner of the four corner panels plus the loft provide great storage. Large doors on either end make easy entry exit. Easily accomodates two cots and camp chairs with plenty of room left for gear. I camp solo sometimes, so the tent is palacial with one cot and the camp chair. Dang near apartment sized. You could live full-time quite comfortablyTent is easy to break down, fold and stow in bag with plenty of room left over for the foot print and addtl stake and mallet box I carry.First impression favorable. Well designed and built. A seemingly good value for the price, [...].Will withould the next star until I see how it handles rain.

Service and delivery comments:

Delivery rapid as advertised. Customer service awesome as always.

Comments about REI Hobitat 6 Tent:

We have the '08 version of the Hobitat 6, and have struggled with the square in the top that tends to collect rain water. So, when we saw the '09 version with the redesigned pole system, we were very excited to try it out given that the top square has been elliminated. However, as another poster has stated, the tent is more rectangular than square, and therein lies the issue. On the '08 model, the doors were on the long sides. This allows you to layout your sleeping bags so you never have to step over someone coming into or going out of the tent. You can also not have your children sleeping right next to a door. However, on the '09 version, the doors have been moved 90 degrees to the short sides. Now, it's impossible to not have to step over someone, and somone in your party will be sleeping right next to the doors. From a security standpoint, this is decidedly sub-optimal. In the end, we went back to our '08 and will just deal with the rain collection issue.

Comments about REI Hobitat 6 Tent:

My husband and myself, both boomers, wanted to get out and do something. Camping is something we have enjoyed in the past so we thought we'd try again. Setting up this tent in our backyard took about 15 minutes (the first time which I thought was really quick). It is a two man operation to set up but it went up very easy. Lots of interior room and there was no out gassing of odors (which I have big problems with) so that was a relief. The tent is cool looking and I'm buying the vestibule next, maybe the kelty sun guard as well to allow for the midnight use of the porta potty! For family camping this would be ideal, my husband tends to get a little claustrophobic with small tents so this worked out well. We are extra large people, set up a queen size blow up bed in the tent and had plenty of room left for 4 or more sleeping bags, a table or whatever. This tent would be too heavy to carry for backpacking. Car camping however or as an extra room for RV camping, perfect!

Comments about REI Hobitat 6 Tent:

I took it out for three days up on Mt Palomar. It went up fast and easy in about 10 minutes, and all the components seem very well made. This tent, for it's packed size and weight, is just huge. Strong gusts of wind caused little distortion as long as you keep the doors down and the screens up. Thunderstorms on the second day had me running for the rainfly, and I had it on in under a minute. With the rainfly on, you better stake it down good as even a moderate wind will knock it off it's footprint. The tent stayed dry, but the fly's overhang over the doors could be larger. Water shedding off the fly was blown into the door by the wind, forcing me to close the door flap.
I Backcountry car camp mostly in the deserts, and this tent is just what I was looking for. It's large vertical size, simplified four pole design, and what I consider quality and value, make this a five star tent.
Plus, the open design roof is perfect for sleeping under the stars.

Comments about REI Hobitat 6 Tent:

We purchased this to add more comfort to our car camping adventures than our 3 person backpacking tent could provide. We tested it in fairly strong winds along Colorado's south Platte, and in 3 days of drizzle at the Grand Canyon. In both cases, I was very happy with the performance.

Setup is very simple once you have done it one time and understand how it all goes together..you won't need the instructions the next time. It is pretty difficult to do alone, although not impossible. The second person is only needed to hold the other side of the pole in place as you flex the pole through nearly a 180 degree bend and lock the opposite corner. It goes up pretty quickly...the only part that is at all tricky is getting the two long corner poles bent and secured. It comes with 4 stakes for the corners of the fly (plus the stakes for the tent), but two additional stakes for the midpoint of the fly can be added (with cord) to pull the fly away from the tent for better ventilation and to pull everything tighter.

In fairly strong, gusty winds, you could certainly tell that it is not as aerodynamic as a full dome tent, but I never felt it was in danger of collapse. The tent would flex with strong gusts, and obviously with it's near straight sides it catches plenty of wind, but the poles are strong and I was quite confident they could take the stress.

The tent did a good job of keeping the rain out, we never had a drop inside the tent. However, I played with the roof over the door many times trying to find a way to tighten it so that it would shed the rain rather than collect it, without success. The rain tends to collect a little in this one spot until a small gust comes along and then it all pours out. Adding the optional vestibule may address that issue.

We like the pockets and the mesh locations on the walls. It provides good airflow, a nice view of the stars, yet enough privacy with the fly removed.

The tent seems well constructed and a good value. I would recommend it to someone looking for a quality tent with plenty of room for standing, room for using cots or a large air matress, good rain protection and great ventilation. If you need a cold weather 3 season or a 4 season tent, engineered to shed strong wind, then there are other tents that better target those requirements. This tent is all about maximizing comfort and space.

Comments about REI Hobitat 6 Tent:

I had owned the old Hobitat 6 for 2.5 years and loved it. The only design flaw was the fly design. I saw the new Hobitat 6 with a new Fly design to the ground and jumped on it. WHAT A DISSAPOINTMENT. The new tent was redesigned and in a word is horrible. How could anyone have taken an almost perfect design and hacked up so bad. It is flimsy compared to the old model. The new fly is poorly designed. The worst change was a screen window placed about two feet off the ground. I sleep on a cot. The first night in the mountains the temperature dropped and there was a steady breeze across my face. I am a doctor and will venture to guess that this will be the first tent in history that causes people to develop bells palsy. To whoever redesigned this tent the only thing I can say is "what were you thinking?". I would not recommend this new and unimproved Hobitat 6 to anyone.

Comments about REI Hobitat 6 Tent:

Used this tent for the first time for a couple of nights near Great Smokey Mtns Natl. Park. The tent was easy to set up in 10-15 minutes. It was large enough to accomodate a queen size air matress and two twin size air matresses with a little room to spare. Inside, there are plenty of handy storage pockets with a gear loft that proved very useful. We had a little rain, but not a down pour, and the fly seemed to be fine except for possibly wind blown rain against the doors. I liked being able to stand up inside the tent with plenty of head room. As with most REI branded items, this tent is superbly constructed of quality materials and should last for years.

Comments about REI Hobitat 6 Tent:

Updating my originial 4-star review after having several chances to observe the H6 in the wind and rain of coastal Virginia.

In gale-force winds, driven rain and a few torential downpours, H6 endured and I and all inside remained comfortable and dry. The H6 gets my up-check for the fifth star. I'd recommend staking the tent so the entryways are not facing into the teeth of the prevailing winds.

I reckon the vestibule is probably next on my list to add to the tent.

Comments about REI Hobitat 6 Tent:

We bought this tent pretty much, site unseen, not even setting it up beforehand. We set it up in the dark at 11pm without any real effort. The weather was decent and we were happy with the tent.
Over labor day we took it for a long weekend of camping, planning on sunny weather with a chance of some rain showers Sunday afternoon.However, it rained the WHOLE weekend.
I'm not talking the typical Washington drizzle...Oh no. This was torrential downpour. It was raining so hard it was bouncing off the ground. For 3 nights straight it rained off and on. The last night it was windy and rainy. But we did not even have a drop of water in our tent. In fact, under the floor of our tent, there was so much water it kind of looked like we were on a waterbed.
Everyone around us got wet, had to use our extra tarp, or packed up and went home. The only other person who didn't get wet had an earlier model of the Hobitat 6.
The only downside was when we opened the door, sometimes water from the top of the room would fall onto our heads. The vestibule should take care of that though.
Definitely recommend this tent!

Comments about REI Hobitat 6 Tent:

This is an awesome tent. I just came back from a 4 day trip to Kings Canyon and this tent was perfect for my family of four including two kids age 2 and 4 years. The tent roof is raised so that you can stand straight up in all areas of the tent. There was plenty of room for all of our sleeping mats, a pack and play crib, and all our gear. We camped with a friend who has an REI Basecamp 6 tent and even he was impressed with the quality of this shelter. REI did it again with this well made product as it should last us for many years to come.