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?
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Project Farm recently did a video on them.
Based on his testing it seems like the Bluetti is best for computer UPS stuff, and Jackery is best for general long term outages.
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.
If I discharge it now and again while using it as a UPS, I don’t think it would make that much of a difference. It would on average be full which is still stressful on the LifePO4 cells.
Keeping my computer powered with my power station is doable, and would protect my data from corruption, but the battery drains fast powering my PC, and if the power goes out while I am away or sleeping it’ll be depleted within a few hours. It also adds friction when I wanna use it for something else because I gotta power off my computer first.
For the size of the power station I’ve got, I think it is best used for DC powered devices, or small AC devices. I mainly use it for bedside power. I plug my personal devices into it, and they all charge at maximum speed. I cycle it and charge it when it needs it. This way it can be moved and used for anything without friction, and isn’t full 24/7.
The solar panel I have eases the idea of me forgetting to charge it and the lights going out after. The sun is an option in case that ever happens.
I think you can set the power charge level in the app. I leave my ecoflow at 80%.
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.
Solar panel and battery tech are finally mature enough to keep small electronics powered off grid near indefinitely now if you take the time to understand its capacity and build properly.
If your system is too small you might run into problems cooking, charging a car, gaming, or running an ac, basically things that draw huge amounts of power, but it can run a freezer, phone and laptop, and led lights pretty well. And those things can get you 75 percent of the way to feeling civilized if weather or disaster affects your neighborhood power.
So I’m a fan of this stuff, we are nearly in sci-fi territory with it, and think smart people with a backyard and some space should consider it for storm preparedness and the like. The tech will only improve with time, there’s some recent developments with new battery tech on the horizon that are hopeful.
When I’m elderly in 40 years, I hope to live in a home with plenty of solar and a huge house battery setup in the basement. If I can cover all my electric off grid including cooking, I would feel very rich and secure.
Everyone’s saying “get solar” which is cool and all,
But the focus should be: hehe blue titty
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.
Handy at times but worse value overall compared to a regular UPS
One thing I can add, don’t let batteries completely die. If you leave them dead for a long time, the BMS which controls the battery loses power, and if that happens, many kinds of batteries and power stations become bricks that you cannot charge. You gotta take it apart and slowly charge and balance the cells to recover it.
I have an Anker Solix 2kwh unit backing up my sump pumps. I’m looking to expand it.
In the next 5 years my plan is to add solar to my home with at least 10kwh of battery storage, or more if I can afford it.
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.
Part of disaster-planning is to figure out the blast radius. If it’s just your house, or a small brownout, then something like this would work. As long as you plug your router so wifi can keep running, or maybe you can tether to a cell.
If it’s a neighborhood-wide outage, chances are internet is down and possibly nearby cell towers. Most of them are suposed to have battery backup.
We once had a six day outage and it turned out the cell towers ran out of power after a few hours. Phone companies brought in diesel generators just to keep emergency phone lines open (with degraded data). All the food in the fridges had to be thrown out after day 3.
It was right after that when a lot of people went and bought gas-powered generators as home backups. Many signed up for satellite data. Those who could afford it got solar panels and home-size batteries.
Good question. I think we shouldn’t have any electricity
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!
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
Looks like it will probably be more cost effective for me to just go full home/solar. Was speaking to someone else and if I had his price would take me almost a decade to pay for its self but his system produces so much more energy than I use. Not sure how much cheaper it would be for me with a smaller setup but I suppose at least a bit even though it likely isn’t a linear scale.
Or I get it and use it to justify recklessly using energy on things I normally wouldn’t. Get a large inflatable pool with a heater? That should burn through a lot of energy. Not sure if I could get my heat pump to heat the pool but if it’s to use excess energy anyway then efficiency isn’t so important.
Wtf do you do with 4kW of excess energy in March? I don’t drive so don’t even need to charge a car off it either.
