The Arcta Vento roof top tent – 12 ½ roof top tents in direct comparison

Lightning fast setup and plenty of room for additional gear on the roof. With the Vento alloy hard-shell tent, which retails for just under € 2,700, Arcta want to offer a practical complete package for spontaneous weekend trips and thoroughly mapped out off-road expeditions. Can the Arcta roof tent keep up with the competition?

We tested 12 ½ of the most exciting roof top tents in a direct comparison and took along 20 roof tent newbies and experts, 2 small kids, 2 dogs and 1 giant teddy bear on an epic road trip – here for our buying advice, and an overview of all the roof tents we tested.

It’s a family affair: Arcta is a German father/son family business based in the Rhineland-Palatinate region – and grandmother also has her say. The Latin product names are a tribute by the founder to his grandmother, who helped him study Latin when he was a schoolboy. The tent in our comparison test is called the Vento – Latin for wind. That’s an allusion to the speed at which the wedge-shaped alloy hard-shell tent can be set up. However, the Arcta Vento doesn’t just want to impress with lightning-fast setup times, but also with an all-round carefree package that doesn’t require you to buy any additional parts.

Comparing the Arcta roof tent against its direct competitors, the triangular hard-shell tents from Vickywood and Naturbummler, you can tell that all three come from the same factory. Some of the components are identical, and the materials and accessories are similar too. Nevertheless, there are some key differences between the three tents, like the price, accessories and functions, which makes it all the more exciting to see how the Arcta roof tent fares against the other two hard-shell competitors. Can it beat its direct competitors?

Arcta Vento roof box: prepping and installation

If you’re inherently impatient, the Arcta roof tent might be an excellent choice: it requires no additional prep time and can be installed on your roof straight away. The mounting rails are already fitted to the box, allowing you to get started straight away. Ideally, you should have three strong people to help you, because the Arcta tips the scales at a whopping 85 kg with the additional alloy crossbars for outdoor equipment, which come as standard with the roof tent. If you chose the Vento based on the information you get on the manufacturer’s website, you might be a little surprised when it gets delivered to your door: the Arcta shell tent is supposed to be “wafer-thin and light”, weighing just 70 kg. This is definitely not true and, once we asked Arcta for an explanation, they told us that this refers to the weight without the roof rack system and alloy crossbars. However, since these are an integral part of the tent, the extra weight is relevant for assembly and should therefore be taken into account. Given the high system weight, we recommend using a fork lift or similar hacks to lift the tent onto the car roof. You’ll find more details about this in our group test intro.

Once the Arcta roof tent is on the base rack, you can secure it with the rubberised, preformed steel brackets that come in the box. Like most tents in this test field – except the qeedo, Quechua and Yakima – the Arcta Vento relies on locking nuts, which take a great deal of time to tighten – do yourself favour and buy a ratchet if you don’t have one yet! This is an unnecessary waste of time, because there are plenty of other systems that don’t come loose with vibrations, like wing bolts, for example.

The two standard cross bars allow you to attach a roof box or solar panels to the tent – an exceptional additional storage solution! This puts the Arcta one step ahead of the Vickywood Cumaru Light, which also gives you the option of installing additional crossbars too, but not before you’ve bought them for an additional € 100. Naturbummler’s aluminium roof tent also comes with standard cross bars.

The Arcta Vento roof top tent: assembly and disassembly

On your marks, get set, coffee! Setting up the Arcta roof tent only takes a short moment and a few simple steps. All you have to do is open the buckles, slide down the elasticated rope – which also comes in handy for disassembling – give the tent a nudge, and let the gas struts do the rest. So far, the process is the same as with the Naturbummler Alu Kraftkiste and Vickywood’s Cumaru Light. Unlike those, however, the Arcta roof tent doesn’t require you to install the tension rods for the canopy above the tent entrance, because with the Vento they’re already pre-installed. All you have to do before going to bed is open the tent and secure the ladder!

Disassembling the tent is super-fast too. No poles to pull out – just push the rubber rope around the Arcta roof tent and pull the drawstring – job done! The closing mechanism works extremely smoothly and has hardly any resistance. Instant tent rather than instant coffee! Unfortunately, neither the telescopic alloy ladder nor the bedding can stay inside the Arcta roof tent when closed. At most, there’s room for an ultra-thin sleeping bag/blanket or inflatable pillow. With thicker items, the rubber lip on the case just won’t close. This means that you’ll have to stow away your bedding and ladder inside the car. This takes up space and gives the Arcta a big disadvantage over folding tents, which often have enough room for a bulky blanket or a teddy bear under the soft cover. It’s a completely different story with the Arcta’s direct competitor, the Naturbummler – but more on this in its separate review.

The Arcta Vento roof top tent in action

Once you crawl inside the tent, you quickly realise that the sleeping area isn’t fully usable: although the mattress covers the entire base, the tent takes the shape of a pie slice when unfolded, with the narrow end of the roof running at a steep angle towards the floor. This affects the internal space utilisation, meaning that you can only put your feet up straight if you squeeze your head against the other end. And if you turn around, your head won’t fit into the small space on the narrow end. For taller people over 180 cm, like our tester Paul, this can get uncomfortable, and “nocturnal” couples will be more crammed in the Arcta Vento than in the German manufacturer’s pop-up tent, the Radix, which is a far better option.

While the Arcta might lack some space in length, it’s reasonably wide. Just like the Vickywood tent (and unlike the Naturbummler), it mounts the gas struts on the outside of the box, meaning that it doesn’t require cut-outs in the mattress, so can be used in its full width. In addition, the zipper is easy to operate, because you don’t have to reach around the gas struts, as you do in the Naturbummler Alu Kraftkiste. However, if you want to sleep a bit longer on the 6 cm thick mattress in the morning after a wild night, the black alloy case quickly warms up in the first sunshine. As a result, daytime sleeping in the Arcta is only possible if there’s a draught.

At the very front of the Arcta roof tent, it’s almost like sitting outside with the windows open. At 140 cm, the roof is pleasantly high. However, by the time you get back to the centre of the tent, the 80 cm headroom in the centre of the tent means you can no longer sit upright. This is a disadvantage compared to some of the higher roof tents in this test, like the Intrepid GEO 3.0 and our test winner, the qeedo Freedom Air 2, especially if you want to spend more time in your roof tent.

Although the triangular design only allows for openings on three sides, the windows are nice and big – not quite as expansive as the GEO 3.0 from Intrepid, but still 135 cm wide and 85 cm high. This means that the Arcta roof tent offers good ventilation options, great views and plenty of light. However, if you want to turn day into night and take a siesta in the tent, you can close all the openings and make it pitch dark inside, even in broad daylight.

In terms of accessories, the Arcta roof tent is generously equipped, just like Naturbummler’s triangular hard shell tent. There’s a dimmable LED strip with USB controls, which creates a cosy atmosphere for reading and snuggling up. Practical large mesh pockets on the roof liner can hold all of your small cables, and you can mount your tablet in a see-through pocket. A shoe bag is also included, which can be clipped into a keder rail to give more floor space.

Tip: Arcta’s € 2,890 Radix model relies on the same lifting mechanism as Naturbummler’s Alu-Kraftkiste, the Vento’s direct competitor, which provides more room for the feet, ladder and sleeping gear.

Arcta include a remarkably wide range of accessories with their roof tent, including a 1 cm mesh underlay for better ventilation, which prevents damp and mould from forming. Most manufacturers offer anti-condensation mats separately, often at a relatively high price. These are a real must in hard-shell tents like the Arcta however, with clear moist patches appearing all over the tent in the morning. Despite the anti-condensation pad and open ventilation window, water just runs down the ceiling, at least during our DOWNTOWN road trip, with two people inside the tent and temperatures dropping into single-digits at night. A pair of jeans left at the edge of the tent were wet in the morning. In summer, condensation might be less of an issue with the big windows open and only the mosquito nets closed.

Who should take a closer look at the Arcta Vento?

The Arcta roof tent is the ideal choice if you’re lazy, or simply don’t fancy fiddling around with a tent on holiday. Set up takes about thirty times less time than with the most complex model in our comparison test, the GentleTent roof tent. At 19 cm tall, the Arcta has a pretty low profile, which comes in particularly handy if you have a tall vehicle, but still want to leave your car in an underground car park from time to time. Only the Vickywood Cumaru Light Eco 127 (15 cm) and Intrepid GEO 3.0 (18 cm) pack even flatter. However, the tapered shape isn’t ideal for taller people over 180 cm.

If you want to use the additional roof bars of the Arcta tent to carry luggage or sports equipment, you should take a look at your vehicle’s tech specs, because only very few vehicles are allowed to carry the maximum legal additional load of 100 kg specified by the manufacturer. It’s therefore essential to observe the permissible dynamic roof load. And then, of course, don’t drive into the underground car park with your bike on the roof 😉 .

Our conclusions about the Arcta roof top tent

The Arcta Vento roof tent is super quick and easy to set up and fold up, and comes with some super cool features, including an anti-condensation mat and LED light strip. In the race against the other near-identical triangular hard-shell tents, it comes out on top against the Vickywood, which is € 100 more expensive and has fewer features. Compared to the Naturbummler, the Arcta roof tent scores with a faster assembly and wider effective mattress surface, but loses out in terms of packing volume and in-tent storage when closed.

Tops

• Super quick and easy to assemble and disassemble thanks to the gas struts and built-in window tension rods
• Extensive and well thought-out standard equipment
• Impressive quality of workmanship and materials
• Extra roof bars for bike rack and similar

Flops

• WeightLocking nuts slow down the assembly process
• Triangular shape limits space utilisation
  
• Comparatively high amount of condensation

For more info, visit arcta.de

The test field

Click here for our big comparison test – 12 ½ roof top tents in direct comparison

All roof tents in test: Front Runner Feather Lite (Click here) | Decathlon MH 900 (Click here) | Vickywood Cumaru Light 127 ECO (Click here) | Yakima SkyRise HD Tent MD (Click here) | Qeedo Freedom Air 2 (Click here) | Thule Foothill (Click here) | Gentle Tent Sky Loft (Click here) | Arcta Vento | Thule Approach M (Click here) | Intrepid Geo 3.0 (Click here) | Naturbummler Alu-Kraftkiste (Click here) | Thule Outset (Click here) | Naturbummler Flitzer I L (Zum Test)

Words: Felicia Nastal, Julian Schwede Photos: Mike Hunger, Robin Schmitt