Flextail Zero Pump

A small, lightweight air pump that quickly inflates sleeping pads. The annoying whine lasts 1 to 3+ minutes depending on mattress size. The rechargeable battery is good for about a week for two people.

When we make camp, my wife was usually the one to inflate the mattresses while I get started on supper. She uses a Therm-a-Rest (T-a-R) AirTap for our old but reliable T-a-R NeoAir All Season mattresses, or a Big Agnes (BA) Pumphouse Ultra for our double BA SLX Tent Floor Pad. The latter in particular takes a lot of refilling and squeezing to get the mattress sleep-ready. And to keep everything clean and dry she usually did this in the tent, with the mattress in her lap, where there’s not enough elbow room to do the job efficiently. It can take a while.

So with her birthday coming up during our 2025 AT section hike, I gave her one of these fancy new pump thingies as an early birthday present. I have to admit I was a bit dubious about taking yet another piece of tech—and a noisy one at that—into the backcountry. But she loves it, and (consequently) I at least appreciate it.

What it is

The Flextail Zero is a lightweight, palm-size (7.5 x 2.5 cm / 3 x 1"), cylindrical pump that is primarily intended for inflating lightweight air mattresses.

It comes with six adapters so that it can be used to inflate most, if not all, backpacker air mattresses currently on the market. It has a simple one-button OS: double click to start, once to stop. Its USB-C rechargeable battery is can be easily replaced as it loses charge capacity. It can be reversed to deflate a mattress, but I think it's easy enough and saves battery to deflate manually.

Weight

Large type on both the box and the pump state that the Zero weighs 1.2 oz (33 g). Let’s check that:

With no battery,  the Zero weighs 35.3 g (1.25 oz), so not quite as light as advertised.

With the battery, it weighs 52.3 g (1.84 oz).

Add in the adapter for the BA mattress and it weighs 61.3 g (2.16 oz). The other adapters probably differ by only a few 0.1 g. So that’s the real trail weight. (I checked all these weights on a 1 g resolution scale and they were the same rounded to the nearest g.)

The USB A to C cable that comes in the box weighs 9.1 g. There's also a little tether that could be used to hang the Zero up somewhere, but I don't see much use for that.

For comparison, our Therm-a-Rest AirTap weighs 52 g (1.8 oz), and the Big Agnes Pumphouse Ultra weighs 72 g (2.5 oz) (but doubles as a waterproof stuff/storage sack).

Inflation times

This little video shows how long it takes to inflate a NeoAir All Season. Turn on the sound if you want to hear what it sounds like.

So that’s about 1 minute 20 seconds for a 50 x 183 cm (20 x 72") x 6.3 cm (2.5") thick mattress. It takes about 3 minutes 20 seconds to inflate our extra-large BA SLX Tent Floor Pad. (127 cm / 50" wide tapering to 102 cm / 40" at the foot, 198 cm/ 78" long, 8.9 cm/ 3.5" thick).

Noise

Like the micro jet engine that it is, the Zero makes a high-pitched whine (sound in video above) during operation. Given the inflation times above, at least the noise doesn’t last long. When camping on tent platforms in the New Hampshire White Mountains, we occasionally noticed the whine of a pump device coming from a neighboring platform, so it might briefly annoy quiet neighbors in that kind of situation. And I suppose birds, squirrels, and the like might find it a bit alarming. But humans, with all our talking, rustling about, and camp stoves are generally a lot noisier for a lot longer than these little pumps.

Convenience

With the Zero, inflating a mattress inside a small tent goes from being awkward to easy. The short inflation time for lower volume mattresses doesn’t give much time for doing anything else, but 3+ minutes for the big double frees up time for arranging things in the vestibule, fluffing up a quilt, or puting some water on to boil. Those are the rewards for putting up with the alien noise and the intrusion of one more piece of tech into backcountry life. Maybe not for everyone, but we can expect that whine will join the purr and roar of stoves and the jaunty back-and-forth of camp conversation at busy backcountry sites.

Battery life

Flextail says the 3 V, 350 mAh battery is good for 25 minutes of operation. That’s enough to fill one of our T-a-Rs at least 18 times, or both of them for 9 nights on the trail. For the big BA we’re good for about 7 nights. So far, it has never run out on us but we were doing mostly 3-5 days between resupplies, and had a backup battery to keep our phones charged so we could top off the Zero battery if we needed to.

The battery is recharged via a USB-C port under the positive terminal. It’s a small battery and so uses only a small fraction of the overall capacity of a phone backup battery. With sufficient backup capacity and civilized opportunities to recharge the backup battery and other devices, it should go the distance for long haul thru hikers.

The Zero will also accept a standard CR123A lithium battery. The Duracell version delivers 1400 mAh, and I see that Nitecore produces a 950 mAh USB-C rechargeable version, so you don’t have to deal with Flextail for suitable replacements.

Pressure

The Zero inflates to 2.5 kPa. The pitch of the pump's whine increases when it reaches the max pressure, as you can hear in the video. That's more than enough for a comfortable night's sleep -- in fact, we usually let a little air back out to get the right amount of squish. 

Durability

We/I have used the Zero for about 50 days on the trail. On one evening when I was going solo, I flopped it just out of the tent door while inflating. It inhaled a small piece of leaf litter (I think), which jammed the blades and it stopped working. I tried to backflush by blowing through it but it still wouldn’t work, so I ended up switching to a manual inflater for a while. But then at a hostel I tried backflushing again and must have dislodged the intruder because it started working again. All’s well that ends well, and lesson learned—keep the intake away from inhalable particles! Maybe a future version could have a little screen to help prevent this problem.

Ultimately, the high-speed motor may have a limited lifespan. The user manual for a handheld milk foamer that I bought a while back was honest about this, specifying the number of uses I could expect to get out of it. We’ll see how long this one lasts.

Verdict

Despite my philosophical misgivings, the Zero will be in my or my wife’s pack on overnight trips of any length for the foreseeable future. If it dies, we’ll probably want to replace it with the same or something similar. Hopefully it works out to dimes or nickels, if not pennies, per use on the trail.

Background

We have used the Zero on about 50 nights so far, for inflating coupled single mattresses or a big double mattress. Previously, we used various manual inflation devices. In over 50 years of backcountry travel, I have used sleeping pads ranging from 1/4" Ensolite through to foam-filled self-inflating mattresses and insulated air mattresses in a wide range sizes and levels of comfort.

Amazing small and light camp pad pump.

Until about 3 years ago I have always blown my camp pad up with my lungs. I do have one Exped pad that has a pump built into it, but admittedly it takes a long time to pump up that way anyway.

About three years ago I saw a small Flextail pump online and before taking the time to research it like I normally do for most gear, I ordered it unknowing if it was good quality and perhaps just a gimmick. It turned out to be one of the best pieces of gear I’ve taken with me.

No more warm moist air from my lungs getting into my pads to potentially create mold and no more time taken to blow the pad up that can now be used for other tasks. This is the newest idea/version of that initial pump from the same company. Even smaller and lighter.

One of the better aspects of this pump compared to the first Flextail I bought is they provide 6 different adapters for different common pads with it. They  fit so well on the pads I have that you can connect them and walk away while they blow your pad up.

The pitch of the pump changes so that if you are moderately close by you can hear it when it is done. I had never run out of battery power with my first Flextail pump and have not with this either.  To be fair though I have only used it to pump up a Nemo Tensor Wide 3 times on one charge. I have read from other people who say they’ve used it 5 times with no reason to believe it would run out of power any time soon. This thing weighs so little and is so small it's absolutely worth it in my mind to take it with you.

Also, I do not know if this is  good idea or not, but I am contemplating designing something that will allow me to focus the air coming out of this to help with lighting small campfires when the area allows for it.

So far the only real con, if any, is that it’s a little loud.  Not in volume but in pitch when running.

Background

Decades of using my lungs to pump pads up. Three years of using a similar battery powered pump

Don’t waste your money on this product! I think this product has been promoted by putting out false claims on its usefulness and reliability.

Useless piece of equipment. I followed every manufacturer recommendation to make sure the Flextail stays on until the pad is inflated, but it keeps turning off every few seconds. It simply does not inflate the pad fully no matter how much time you spend turning it back on.

At first use, it stays on for about 10 seconds and then the time it it stays on decreases quickly to a point that it will turn off every two seconds or so.

I have ended up fully inflating my pad by breathing into it every time. I think is product has been promoted by putting out false claims.

Don’t waste your money on this product.

Background

Weekend hiker.