The Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 is a beautifully designed, detailed, self-supporting four-season dome tent for three people. Read the review!
- Price: € 1099,95
- Weight: 5320 gram (claimed 4790 gram)
- Packed size: 24 cm x 50 cm
The Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 is a beautifully designed, detailed, self-supporting four-season dome tent for three people. It is not lightweight. According to the Swedes, the dome weighs a total of 4790 grams. On the scale I weigh a little more: 5320 grams. That weight is then nicely divided into an inner tent of 1229 grams, an outer tent of 2427 grams, 3 arch poles of 1164 grams, a bag of pegs (18 pieces) of 321 grams and finally the packing bag of 207 grams. A footprint is also available for purchase for the Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 (€ 124.95) and it weighs 600 grams (as stated by Fjällräven).
For whom
With that total weight, the Keb is not a tent that you take with you alone, except perhaps on a cycling holiday. No, the Keb is really a tent for a backpacking couple, three friends, young parents, motorcyclists or for a winter sledding trip.
Stuff bag
With such a tent you also expect a good stuff bag and that is the case here. It is spacious so you never have to struggle to get the tent into your pocket. Thanks to two compression straps you can easily make the bag smaller. The opening is also provided with a trunk; Handy if you need to put some extra in the bag. The packing bag also contains a repair stick, a sleeve, cloth and gauze repair cloth, a tube of seamseal and a waterproof manual!
Materials
The weight of almost 5.5 kg obviously comes from somewhere and that has everything to do with solidity. Fjällräven does not opt for ultra-thin and therefore lightweight fabric for the Keb Dome 3.
The outer tent is made of rock-solid 40D polyamide ripstop. 40D stands for the fabric thickness (D=Denier). In the world of lightweight tents, a 15-20 Denier canvas is the trend. Ripstop means that if a small hole or tear appears in the cloth, the cloth cannot tear further. To make the cloth waterproof, it has a silicone coating on the inside and outside. The seams are therefore not taped, because that is not possible with silicone cloth*.
The inner tent is made of thinner 30D ripstop polyamide and is of course not waterproof but water-repellent. Handy for any condensation droplets that may occasionally fall off the outer tent. The anti-mosquito mesh cloth used is 20D polyester while the groundsheet is made of thick 70D polyamide with a polyurethane coating that makes it waterproof.
The poles come from the Korean top stick manufacturer DAC. In the case of the Fjällräven Keb Dome 3, these are poles with a diameter of 10 mm. All three sticks are the same length, making color coding unnecessary.
Fjällräven also chooses DAC for the pegs. 18 pegs are included, which is enough to set up the tent and use all the guy lines.
Pitching the tent
Pitching the Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 is easy. It will take you between 5 and 15 minutes depending on how you set it up. In most cases, the inner tent is already tied into the outer tent. Then it is a matter of laying out the dome tent, unfolding the poles and inserting them through the pole slots. When explaining this, you must take into account the strings that run under the tent and that connect all the corners so that the tent immediately looks nice. If you accidentally put the poles under it, you will not be able to get the tent upright. When breaking up, packing neatly is also important because the guy lines have a tendency to become knotted. Just packing makes setting up faster.
Pole sleaves
The Swedes have done something clever with the pole sleaves. They do not run in one piece from one side of the tent to the other; a part is missing in the ridge, as it were. When setting up, this creates much less tension when sliding and the tent is in principle easier and faster to set up. It does take some getting used to. It is good that at the top of the ridge the opposite stick slots are coded so that you never let the stick go into the wrong slot.
The pole sleaves have one entrance, the other side is closed tightly. There are good tensioners on the open side to fix the stick, which can also be used with winter gloves thanks to extra drawstrings. What is special is that the pole slots are extra spacious so that you can put two poles – the accessories Dome 3 pole set € 214.95 – – in the slots. This makes the tent extra snow-resistant. To cover the roof and ventilation openings, the dome has a kind of yarmulke (cap).
Free-standing dome tent
The Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 is a free-standing dome tent. This means that the tent is standing with the poles. No pegs or guy ropes are needed to keep it upright. The smart thing about this is that you can now pick it up and move it to find that right straight spot for a good night’s sleep. In light winds, the Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 stays in place even without pegs as soon as you put some weight on it. Securing with a few pegs is also easy. These pegs are nice and long and wide, which gives them a lot of holding power.
Inner tent with toggles
The inner tent is tied into the outer tent with loops and toggles at the factory and setting up is quick. If you have to leave in wet weather, it is useful to first pack your belongings and then unclip the inner tent – protected by the outer tent. This way you can pack it as dry as possible. The only thing you really need to take with you when wet is the outer tent. This saves weight (no wet inner tent) and drying time later. And… a wet inner tent is colder because it extracts heat from the environment when drying. So, especially in cold, wet weather, it is advisable to pack the inner tent dry. The longer setup time of about 15 minutes is achieved if you still have to tie the inner tent into the outer tent.
Living space
The inner tent is 177 cm wide and 224 cm long. That’s fine for three adults and more than spacious for two or parents with a child. With a ridge height of 114 cm, even tall people can sit upright quite well. In the ridge you will find a gear loft (mesh ceiling) where you can dry a pair of wet socks or where you can place a headlamp for lighting. The inner tent has 4 pockets. Both doors on the longitudinal side have a double design: a solid door and a mesh door.
Canopies
Because a dome is symmetrical, the Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 has two identical canopies. The awnings are 84 cm deep and offer enough space for a large backpack or a set of bicycle bags. You also always have a place sheltered from the wind to cook. The awnings extend sufficiently over the entrance to the inner tent to prevent rain when you crawl in and out of the tent. You can also zip the door halfway for even more shelter.
Mosquito door
Each awning has a door that is also equipped with a mosquito door. The great thing about the latter is that they are really separate and not a mesh part in the door itself. This means that the mesh fits all the way to the ground and allows you to fully ventilate in warm weather without too much risk of mosquitoes. It is also great that both – the mesh door and the solid door – each have their own system to roll them away. A loop is often used here, which is inconvenient in practice.
Weatherproof
The Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 is a true four-season tent. You can especially see it in the outer tent that extends all the way to the ground. This means that no matter how hard the wind blows, you are always sheltered from everything mother nature throws at you. It is also nice that the bottom 15 centimeters are made of a thicker (70D) and therefore more wear-resistant cloth.
I was able to test the tent in quite miserable weather in the Alps with a lot of rain and wind and the Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 holds its own. It has proven to be waterproof; also on the seams. If a stitching seam leaks, you can use the supplied Seamseal. The many Dyneema (3mm/200 kg) guy lines, all of which are double-designed – a guy line with two fixed points on the tent – make the tent super windproof. And…The fact that it is a dome also helps of course.
Reflective guy lines
The guy ropes are reflective; useful if you are looking for your tent again at night after peeing. By the way, there are also two reflection piping in the ‘yarmulke’ of the ridge, but they are not above the entrance and that is strange; if you look for the entrance in the dark they should be up there. A small miss as far as I’m concerned.
The bathtub height of the groundsheet of the inner tent is also bad weather resistant at 12 centimeters high, so a mini-flood of your tent site will not be a drama. The groundsheet has proven to be waterproof in practice. What is striking about the fabric of the Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 is that it hardly stretches or shrinks with temperature changes or wet versus dry. The great thing about this is that you hardly have to re-tension it once the tent is up.
Ventilation
The Keb has a lot of mesh and ventilation opening in the ridge of the tent and at the two short ends of the inner and outer tent. It is a pity that the ventilation openings in the ridge cannot be operated from the inner tent. When it is snowing, you can also use the openings on the sides as a hatch to scoop snow from the inside with a pan.
The idea of ventilation high and low is that a kind of chimney effect is created. This is usually correct, but especially on warmer days with cold nights, the Keb still suffers from condensation on the inside. Is this bad? No, actually not because it is part of lightweight four-season tents.
I tested the Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 without a footprint and that usually makes a difference because with a footprint you do not have condensation from, for example, breathable grass. In short: the Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 is primarily a tent for areas with lesser weather. A tent for the tropics as Fjäll writes on the website… I don’t think so.
Accessories
And while I’m writing that… The inner tent that comes standard with the Keb Dome 3 can also be used independently with some fiddling. Handy in dry, warm weather. However, Fjällräven also has a real loose warm-weather anti-mosquito inner tent in the accessories package for the Keb Dome 3. You can use this Dome 3 Mesh Innertent with the poles and pegs of the Keb, so you get a real tropical tent. The price is € 254.95 and that is quite strong. In the tropics I would opt for a hammock and tarp.
Conclusion
I don’t think I’ve ever written more words about a tent. The Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 is one hell of a dome tent. It is beautiful down to the last detail: the extra loops for gloves, the slightly thicker protective edge where the cloth touches the ground, the openwork pole slots with color coding… It is easy to set up, offers a lot of comfort, is versatile and spacious for three.
The tent is particularly windproof and due to its dome shape and sturdy 10 mm poles, a pack of snow is no problem. The Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 is a true all-season tent, but performs mainly in poor weather conditions. I think placing the reflective piping just above the entrance is a mistake. The price of the Fjällräven Keb Dome 3 is € 1099.95 and as crazy as it sounds: you get a lot for your money and a rating of 9.2 out of 10 points!
Information: www.fjallraven.com
