Since I bought mine for about 230 bucks Canadian, it’s been my main device charger and it can serve as a UPS.
I decided to buy it after we had a bunch of power outages within a short time span.
It has a 288Wh battery, with an inverter that can deliver 600 Watts of power.
It’s mainly used to keep my headphones, Google Pixel and iPad charged up however it can run my PC for a solid 2-3 hours before running out of power.
What do you think about power stations?
I have a much larger BLUETTI that powers everything. We do not have power from the power company. It’s a quick hassle free way to setup offgrid power. I can run the microwave, air fryer, AC, welder, etc. I like that it’s all self contained and it actually outputs the power it says.
I tried the individual 12v 100Ah batteries and inverter, but these inverters all lie how much power they put out. My 1,200w inverter will beep if i use more then 350w. My 1,500 and 2,000w inverters also barely put out power. Kind of lost confidence in these cheap 12v inverters.
My plan is to setup a much bigger 48v system such as a EG4 system to power my house, once i finally build that.
I have a regular UPS for my computers and a 2kw generator that can run my fridge and computer for longer blackouts. A power station sort of fits between the two, so I don’t have a use case.
Last fall I bought a 1 KWh Anker power station, and I’m loving it. It charges from 800 watts of solar and powers all kinds of random stuff around the house each day. Useful for power outages, too.
Get a solar panel to charge it
I have one with a small solar panel for scout camp. It sits on my tent all day and I can get a charge when I happen to be by. earns the kids some green points in the daily inspection
Bought a Bluetti one last year for emergencies. And recently used it to power my laptop during a scheduled power outage. It worked well. Got me through the day, and that’s all I needed.
Like someone else here recommended, make sure you get a solar panel to go with it.
It doesnt look/sound like you are using solar panels with it, but thats like the main reason to buy one of these. Currently you are just slowly degrading the battery while getting zero benefit out of it unless you have power outages ever day. Would make more sense to just charge it and let it sit unused until there is an outage, otherwise you actually use more power than you would without it due to conversion losses.
I do have a foldable 100W solar panel for it. Unfortunately the battery degradation is real. On one hand, having your computer on backup is nice, but that battery will remain plugged in and full 24/7 which will degrade it with time.
I’m on the fence about using it as a UPS long term for this reason.
Can’t you use it down to like 50% now and again? Might be a hassle.
You could, but you’d have less power available once your lights go out. Best to pair it with a solar panel in that event.
I think you can set the power charge level in the app. I leave my ecoflow at 80%.
They have their place.
You pay a premium for how much power you get, but it comes in a convenient package.
I’ve been thinking of getting one but my main use case is powering the fiber modem and it will be living in the garage mostly. Are there any that handle decent temperature swings? I know batteries hate that sort of thing.
What if I put it in a fridge that is also powered by it?
I got a cheap UPS for this. They’re designed more for this purpose. My fiber modem takes FOREVER to reconnect so it’s moreso for little power dips in my case.
I was thinking of that but it gets both colder and hotter than most UPSes can handle in my garage.
Probably, but they’re likely cheaper per watt hour than the style in the photo.
And recommended resources to learn about this and what to look out for? Appropriate size per use case etc? I like the idea of getting one+solar panel for my rental apartment, but i have zero clue which one would be good or if it’s just a waste of money.
If energy prices double they might become worth it but so far in the UK at least I don’t think they are worth the cost to replace grid energy. Yet. I want to though and if someone does know of a product with the right price/capacity to do so I would be very interested.
DIY options seem to have options that might be financially viable, but its a little high on the amount of risk I would be comfortable taking with 240v AC. I am happy to wire a light, plug or socket. But not so sure on it when solar panels, inverters and rows of batteries get involved. A full home install also might work but I think those are usually for people with bigger houses and higher energy usage than me and the multi kW panels can do a lot of work. The labour cost remains about the same and I live in a pretty small house with fairly low energy costs.
Okay, so same issue as I have. But I think we’re getting there. There is a dedicated section already in my local electronics store which tells me this is becoming mainstream already
Honestly, future landfill unless the battery cells can be serviced or replaced.
If you need one for emergencies, sure. If you need a UPS, get a UPS instead.
All devices are gonna end up in a landfill eventually. LifePO4 should last much longer though.
The battery technology is solid, LiFePO4 cells should be good for 10-15 years if they’re not abused, but my experience with these things is that the electronics are cheap and will fail long before the battery does.
I have one to power my CPAP when I’m at a multi day festival. Those camp grounds don’t have power. So, a literal life saver!
The battery degradation is overblown with lithium iron phosphate batteries, which is what is in the Bluetti Elite 30. If you aren’t putting it through deep discharge (greater than 80%) or high temperatures (above 30°C) it should still work well for a long time. The higher your draw on it, pushing up to that 600W limit, the worse the impact is too.
That said, it can work very well as a UPS for a freezer like what I have mine for, and adding a solar panel extends the usefulness of it a lot. I have a 200W panel which gives around 130-170W at any given time through the day, leading to a full charge in theory in about 2 hours. My freezer pulls around 60-80W with transient spikes to 700W when starting the compressor, but the power station can boost to cover that need for a short time. Over a day I use about 550Wh per day, so about 4 hours of sun per day in theory. It should be covered by the panel I have but the capacity is a little low so I can’t get through the night at this point, it has to switch over to AC after a while. Still, during the hottest hours where I need the most power I am getting solar to do it, so that’s handy.
Anyway, yes, they are useful, another more powerful system is definitely in the cards for me, but they are a great first step and handy as a backup for bad weather.
I usually look at the warranty period. So far not seen any that would pay for themselves in power saved within their warranty. Even 5 year warranty on some isn’t enough, it would take like a decade or more and that assumes the solar panels charge it to 100% every day and you discharge it to 0% every night.
If you are charging it using off peak energy rates you don’t need the solar panels but the payback period is even longer because the electricity is only cheaper rather than free.
I want one, but I want it to make sense financially too and so far everything I see costs so much.
It serves more than one purpose for me, so the calculation is a little different. My freezer has about $1200 of meat in it. If the temperature in there gets up over freezing the meat will start thawing and become damaged or spoiled. Saving that meat from being spoiled would save me spending that $1200 all over again.
The solar panel means that even if the whole power system is out for multiple days I should be able to keep my freezer below zero and keep my meat frozen. Last year we had snow, for the first time here since the early 90s, and it took down power lines on the other side of town. People there were without power for as much as 4 days, which obviously would be enough to heat my meat back up and ruin it, so it isn’t a ridiculous possibility.
Also, I intend to make something larger over time on a trailer which I can move from house to house as I move, being a renter. I want independent power and learning a little with this system is a good stepping stone to building out my own system with much more custom parts, especially including a larger battery system, inverter, and more panels. I plan to run as much as possible from the DC to skip inverter losses, so using cheap modules to pull from the 24-48V system I build to do USB C ports with 100W+ output gives a lot of options, along with using smaller dedicated inverters for required loads like a kettle.
The coolest thing is the fully DC power supplies for a PC. You can run directly from a battery and solar system with just 12V, 5V, 3.3V, and a few little bits and bobs. Very fun stuff.
They have their place and I generally like the concept, however, not crazy about most implementations.
I don’t like the fact that the batteries are not replaceable in most of them and the ones that do have replaceable batteries (Ryobi and Ego come to mind) are generally prohibitively expensive per kwh and usually can’t be used as a UPS like some of the integrated models.
I don’t insist that the batteries be hot swappable like the Ryobi model I have, but there is no reason to toss all that extra plastic and circuitry when the battery itself eventually fails.
