Therm-a-Rest NeoAir® Micro Pump

Before I bought the NeoAir® Micro Pump I read the Amazon reviews and I really couldn't understand why some people were giving it 5 stars but others were saying it was useless 1 star. If you're wondering the same I believe the answer is below: The small instruction leaflet that comes with the NeoAir® Micro Pump is not very clear. When it refers to the valves on your actual Therm-a-Rest inflatable mattress the diagram is not great unless you already know what you are looking for/at. Your mattress probably has two types of values, a Red Winged Value and also a blue circular Twinlock Value which you unscrew counter clockwise to reveal a grey thread (see the grey thread indicated by the yellow arrow in attached photo). The NeoAir® Micro Pump will only inflate your mattress correctly if you have unscrewed the blue circular Twinlock Value to reveal the grey thread (if the blue curcular Twinlock value is closed you will not be able to see the grey thread). You do not need to unscrew the Red Winged Value in order to inflate your mattress but if you do not unscrew the blue circular Twinlock Value then your mattress will not inflate very effectively. I have found the NeoAir® Micro Pump to work extremely well for such a small lightweight item but unlike powerful car pumps it is not fast and you should not expect it to pump your mattress up to be completely solid/rigid. I view the NeoAir® Micro Pump as the perfect solution for inflating your matress 90% of the way (whilst you're busy putting up your tent or doing other things) and then you'll just need to put the last 10% in using a couple of manually breaths to make it perfectly solid/rigid ready for sleep. In an ideal world the NeoAir® Micro Pump would be a little quieter and it would be more powerful but it is so small and light that I'm very happy with the compromise. Using the NeoAir® Micro Pump also reduces the amount of breath moisture inside the matress so should reduce the chances of mould long-term.

It is lightweight and small, but that is where the positives end. It is quite useless device, especially for this premium price. You need to use 2xAAA batteries so not very practical for longer trips. Internal battery would make more sense since most people carry powerbanks anyway. The most frustrating is the power though. It takes absolute ages to inflate my NeoAir XTherm pad. Returned the item, bought a cheaper alternative which is of similar size, with built in battery and inflates 10x faster.

Excellent so far.

Things I like: affirmative clicking onto the thermarest Not obnoxiously loud (but it does take more time than the flextail) Batteries will last a long time (I use rechargeable) Small & lightweight Well constructed Things I don’t like: Batteries.. would of preferred usb charging Not as powerful as the flextail - takes about 3-4 minutes longer (but you don’t have to baby sit it like you do with the flextail - you literally just plug it in and get on with other things while it works) All in all, the thermarest pump is superior & I would recommend to any compatible thermarest owner.

Firstly I shall say that this pump does inflate my Topo Luxe XLarge but it takes 30 minutes, not 3 as advertised. If you wanted the pad to be very firm you would still need to add a few bagfuls of air. For me it inflates it just to my liking which is on the soft side and I'm happy to get on with other things around camp while I wait. It works with rechargeable batteries so no problems there. The pad needs to be completely rolled out and flat too. On the twin valve mat I have you cannot use the deflate option but that's not a problem as it deflates pretty quickly on it's own, I suspect if the pump did fit it would probably take longer to deflate rather than speed the process up. Considering its size it doesn't do a bad job but I suspect there are better options available.

This is a crappy product, it is not powerful and it does probably take 15 min to barely fill the mattress with fully charged batteries. I had to finish it off with my mouth. It is lightweight but who cares if it doesn't pump?! I have a Thermarest mattress, so I wanted to test it but it is not good. I recommend the pumps from Flextail Gear, they are much more powerful and it fits the valve. I got the Max Pump 2 Pro.

I bought the Therm-a-Rest Neo Air Micro Pump on the 1st June 2024 but did not use it until my holiday trip starting on 8th July. The pump failed after the 8th night of camping. I am not entitled to a return/ replacement as the failure occurred outside the 30 day window. The pump was sold by Amazon Export Sales LLC and there seems no easy method of contacting them. An expensive item for so little use.

A tiny little pump that barely adds any weight and saves lots of time inflating a Thermarest. Deflating also works very well. It’s not exactly cheap, but overall it’s a good little tool.