OEX - Flux 7R UL Inflatable Mat

So my main mat is the Rab Ionosphere 5 mummy, and while it's super warm (r of 4.8), it's definitely not the most comfortable or cheap so I wouldn't recommend it. I recently bought the OEX Flux 7R for about £60ish for my partner as shes a cold sleeper. I've tested it out on a few wild camps recently and I have been very impressed. Not quite as warm as the Rab, even though the r value is supposed to be 7.2, but its by far the most comfortable mat I've used, and plenty warm enough for most UK conditions. But from a personal pov, I don't really trust the OEX range from a quality standpoint so I don't know how long it would last. Time will tell. But given this, if comfort and warmth are priority, Sea to Summit does some very nice looking mats in the same style as the OEX, and should hopefully be better quality, so I would be tempted to try one of those.

The Vango does have good reviews. I’ve never used it personally, and the only negative at the price point is it’s a little crinkly, but for £80, I reckon it’s a good deal. Remember when looking at more expensive mats, a lot of websites have 10% off your first order. It may not seem like a lot, but it might make a more expensive mat within your price range (a £200 mat might be on sale at £150, and with 10% off, you’re looking at £135, which is way closer to your budget). I have heard terrible things about Naturehike mats, but lots of brands use the exact same mats and rebrand them. I also have had terrible experiences with OEX mats, I owned 2 and lucky managed to get my money back, the 2 that I had flux 5 and flux 7 both deflated while leaving them inflated for a week at home and using occasionally (this was last year before I owned a tent as was building my first wild camp set up). I wanted to find warm, cheap, comfy, and durable, but in the end, I decided I just wasn’t going to achieve them all. I personally decided to get the Neoloft, £250 or something RRP. I found it online for £180, and they were offering 10% first orders, so it was £162, which was way above my budget, but I decided that it was cheaper than two £80 mats that would fail within their first year. Hopefully, I now have this for life. It’s not the warmest (4.7R), but I tend to stay away from minus temperatures camps, so it’s plenty warm for me, and if the forecast looks like it might drop to -1 to -2, I take a closed-cell mat with me (Naturehike one with an R rating of 1.8; it cost me £14 ish from AliExpress with an X discount when you spend X). The Neoloft isn’t the lightest and isn’t the best value, but I love it and am very happy with it. I sleep very well, not just down to the comfort or R-value but having faith in the brand (I guess this is how people that sleep in heliburgs feel in a storm; I get panicked if the wind changes from the predicted 10-20mph winds to 20-30mph winds). I hope you find what’s right for you but if you will use it often and enjoy wild camping then maybe consider a dearer mat and maybe a path to purchase it, (walk to work for a week and save £20 travel costs, make sandwiches instead of buying lunch, have beans on toast for dinner instead of more expensive food, don’t drink for a month… so on).

I got something similar to this... https://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/19602163/oex-flux-7r-ul-inflatable-mat-19602163 Lightweight, self inflating.