My Experience:
Alright, folks, I want to talk about the RoofNeset Sparrow RTT I have been running on my Jeep Wrangler for a few months. Before I begin, I want to make a few things clear. This model was provided to me free of any charge from the company directly. Additionally, I will not continue to use the tent further as this review will conclude my obligation to the company, and I do not personally find the system is the right fit for my setup. The height of my Jeep with the full pop up style leads to a real hassle for packing up with just one person quickly being my main issue. That is not to say it is not right for anyone; hopefully, by the end of this, you can decide if you want to run this tent on your setup.
The Facts:
RoofNest's Sparrow is their most popular model, Coming in at 2895$ or £1595. The tent is a sturdy molded design featuring a fiberglass-reinforced ABS construction allowing support for up to 650 lbs. The Sparrow is a full pop up style two-person tent, meaning both ends of the tent raise when open. The system is 85"L and 50"W and comes in at 130 lbs, making it useable on nearly any vehicle. Along with the tent, you get an anti-condensation mat, ladder, and a few other small detail items like detachable pockets and a groundsheet. The box is under a foot tall when closed coming in at 11" and offers up 40" of headroom when fully opened up for camping. The model features a 3" foam mattress cut to form around the interior struts. Now that we have covered the facts let's move forward with what could be improved, what needs to be fixed, and what was done well.
The Good:
First off, I love how sleek the tent is. One of my biggest complaints with my old Alu-Cab was how crude and obtrusive the tent looked on the truck. The Sparrow is sleek and aerodynamic; I am also a big fan of how well the glossy finish pairs with my vehicles all-black look. Additionally, the tent comes fitted with some incredibly strong struts allowing the canopy to deploy very quickly. You will find windows on all sides of the canvas making the direction you park a little less of a concern when making camp and yearning for those picturesque views. The sturdy struts also mean that wind, one of my main concerns with going to this fully open style, is not much of a concern.
Some of the smaller details on the tent surprised me as well. I am happy with the mattress and find it to be much more comfortable than my older Alu-Cab. I am a side sleeper as well and have not found any issue with the 3" mattress. The storage bags that clip in are great for muddy shoes, although I wish you could attach the pockets to either side. This way, I could always hang them by my feet, avoiding the Gortex foot smell we all love. Another great addition is a zipper along the edges allowing you to remove the tent material for washing or replacing in case of mold, wear and tear, or other needs. Lastly, the Sparrow includes a netting on the roof for storing away the blankets when packing down or for your jackets before bed. Really enjoy this feature a few companies have overlooked.
What’s Not Loved:
I don't want to come out and slash the tent. These "models" (being the Chinese copies of the James Baroud or Magnolia Autohome designs) are great for folks looking to get into the RTT market while not wasting money on the cheaper canvas designs. I can't go on without saying that not much differs the models between brands, so it is typically a smart man's move to find the cheapest one and go with that as they all seem to come from some random factory sporting the same or very similar specs. Speaking of cost, I can think of a fair few options comparable in price or a bit more that are better. These would be from brands you can trust and have been in the business for much longer and who test their products in the field to find small issues like the ones below. The same brands these Chinese companies are copying to make these cheap knock-off alternatives. Without hating too much, I will state that I would not spend this much money on what is, in my opinion, a middle ground option, I am more of a go big and get what I pay for type of person. I think what the companies are paying for these setups is fair to the consumer and would place them in a reasonable window for purchase; this would not allow any profit margin, though, so I understand the upcharge.
Some quality control issues exist on this tent. Maybe it is me and that I am putting it through much more use than a typical weekender type person who would ordinarily be buying this sort of product. Still, it is a critique, regardless of who the consumer is. Two of the Zipper Pulls have shit the bed ripping from their homes; this is why folks pay good money for YKK brand folks. The straps meant to bring the tent down for storing on a standard height vehicle are pointless for my tall truck, understandable, yet these straps are sewn on and not removable. Worse still, they slap around in the wind making tons of noise keeping you up in the night; this would be a non-issue if the straps had a system to tuck them away or buckled on.
The tent also has some substantial condensation or wet weather issues. I think RoofNest did a lot to combat this while the solution could have been much more straightforward. I think it is a design flaw at its core; A combination of a few small factors all pointing to the same result. Firstly, the doors, they zip to the top on the small windows and zip to the bottom of the big windows. The small windows have to be shut in the rain due to having no cover that can go over them. The larger doors or windows (I say this because the door serves as a window or is lifted to provide rain cover or shade) have to be shut because the rain shade is the door and there are no sides to the shade so in driving rain the wetness hits your mattress with ease. If the tent had a dedicated rain cover portion over any of the openings and they all rolled to the bottom, you could leave the tops of the windows covered unzipped to vent hot air and prevent condensation. This solution is a simple and tried method across tent brands for nearly as long as they have been around. A further complaint with the current design of the large side doors is that they do not fully zip across the bottom, a bar exists, and the sides zip far down to mostly secure the flap to the tent's side when closed. This bar is never entirely secure though and again in high winds slaps the bottom of the canvas creating unnecessary noise.
Further contributing is a metal band on the tent's interior along the top of the model's tub. You can always find the metal covered in a nice bit of moisture sadly. Additionally, if not folded down correctly, the skirt of the tent allows water pools to form as well, and I suspect these pools can penetrate the zipper that allows the canvas to be removed for replacement or cleaning. The top of the tent does drip right into these pockets or hits the tent, further contributing to the problem and adding more annoying small noises in the night. I can not be confident of this being a specific issue with the zipper penetration though, after a night raining in the lakes leaving me with a 60% saturated mattress, I heavily suspect it is part of the problem.
Continuing with quality control issues and lack of forethought in design, the branding on the tent fades quickly and even peels off at times. That is not nearly as big of a problem as the zippers, but it doesn't go unnoticed by consumers. The buckles securing the tent closed are in wrong positions, specifically those on the front of the box. Why would they ever be placed here? On any given platform, the hood would be in your way to reach these, and on my system creates significant hassle, often requiring us to stand on our hood or the cowl. These positions, coupled with the struts' strength, make shutting this tent with one person an incredibly significant, tedious, horrendous pain in the ass. I can not downplay this point. It is the reason I will not run any fully open tent setup ever again and why the tent will be swapped off my system. My friends and wife can attest to my frustration, and even with two people, it’s usually a 2-5 minute job to close up, making sure the tent closes and all the fabric is tucked inside. That may not sound like much, but my main reason for running roof tents is the convenience and speed of setup, allowing me never to dread setting up camp. I may never dread setting up with the Sparrow, but boy does putting this thing away suck. Two or five minutes is not much time until its pissing rain on you the whole time, or you have woken up late and need to make some miles. I think a big step in fixing this issue would be to re-design the elastic retention system for the canvas to something built-in as James Baroud has done. Even when stretched into an X shape, the current straps do not pull in the fabric's bottoms well. The struts positioning makes pushing the material in more strenuous as well.
Final Words:
All in, the tent is not lousy and will work for some folks, just not for me. I would not pay full retail for one, and I think RoofNest could put in a bit of work, and this tent would be a much better system because of it. The good part of working with those Chinese warehouses is that you can adjust things and change them.
They could move the latches to all be on the long side for starters. Next, they could adapt the windows' opening styles to combat the moisture problem further and solve some of the noise issues. I would love to see a platform on top of the tent for a solar system or gear bags considering the struts' insane power. They should hire a few folks for QC, considering this is the most substantial risk when going through the Chinese manufacturing process. If the budget allows, a good selling and marketing point over similar competitors could be the YKK brand zippers. I think adjusting the mold to include the logo hard could prevent further copying and solve the fading branding problems. These small details are usually what sets you apart for the consumer and help brand recognition.
I don't write reviews as a crude asshole, even if I feel like one at times writing them or speaking my mind on the things I noticed while using others' hard work. I want to be clear I appreciate RoofNest sending this to test. I do hope they as a brand are dedicated and passionate in their craft and can take some of these critiques and suggestions from properly abusing their product to make their line of tents better overall. That makes this whole process worth it to both parties. These partnerships and unique way of R&D could easily be what sets them and their range of products apart from the many folks trying similar business strategies and selling competing products.
I do hope this and my other reviews can serve as notice to any readers or brands looking to work with me. I will always strive to offer an honest assessment and opinion. Whether I paid full price or got the product provided for testing at no cost is irrelevant because I am going to test them always as if I had put down my hard-earned money. I will always expect even the best products to improve from their users' feedback and knowledge gained while abusing them in the field—That's how we innovate and make improvements for the community as a whole in my humble opinion. Today's top-of-the-line tent technology is tomorrow’s bargain brand, look at the backpacking market and how quickly its innovations have spread down to the budget lines.