Campstream One Turns Your Tesla or Rivian Into an Air Conditioning System for Your Tent

Although I don't sympathize, many people prefer spending the nights in a tent at a campsite instead of a cozy hotel room. For unknown reasons, they happily sleep in a bag on the ground, sometimes in suboptimal conditions, in the rain, cold, heat, insects, or whatever mother nature throws at them. What can I say? It's a choice to be made, and I would always choose something else. Still, since camping is such a popular sport, a whole ecosystem of products was created to support it.

The Swedish startup Campstream thought of poor people spending nights in a tent and came up with a brilliant idea to keep them comfy, at least temperature-wise. Heating or cooling the tent is not an option most of the time, but the advent of electric vehicles might change that entirely. Cars like Teslas or Rivians offer a clever Camp Mode, keeping the heat, ventilation, and air conditioning system (HVAC) on to maintain the desired temperature.

Campstream One uses this feature, originally intended to allow people to sleep inside their EV, to cool or heat the tent accordingly via a hose connected to the car. The centerpiece of Campstream One is the window unit, which installs in one of the vehicle's rolled-down front windows. The window unit is connected via a short hose to one of the air vents inside the car. A longer hose runs from the other side of the window unit to your tent, delivering the cool or warm air prepared by your EV.

Campstream One goes a step further and, along with the hose, runs a USB-C cord from the car's dashboard to your tent. This way, you can charge your phone at night or use it for lighting. The best part is that you can control the temperature of the air sent to your tent via your smartphone app. Campstream also offers a set of reversible sleeves for the air hoses, reflective silver on one side and black on the other. This way, you can use solar heat or reflect it to help the HVAC system.

Campstream One is currently the subject of a Kickstarter campaign. If the kit reaches production, a pledge of 3,940 SEK (Swedish Krona, equivalent to about $375) will get you one setup. The planned retail price is $499, with deliveries in the US expected to start in November. Currently, Campstream offers personalized kits for Tesla Model 3, Model Y, and Rivian R1S/R1T.