I’ve had 2—a Yeti 1000wh from Costco that was overpriced but lasted a few years and now I’ve returned a Duracell 500wh today that failed immediately(also from Costco). I see so many different brands for sale on my deals sites—all Chinese and all names that are unknown to me. I don’t have a problem buying a Chinese product. Like most of us, that’s where all my flashlights came from, but just like with my flashlights, I would like to find the bargains or at least know the quality from the crap. I need to have a power station on hand to power my wife’s cpap during our frequent power outages here in the mountains.
The brands that seem to be more favored are Ecoflow and Jackery. I’ve always been impressed with the wealth of knowledge available to me here at BLF and my first thoughts after returning the dead Duracell power station was to see if my fellow BLF members had any insight on the subject. Thanks in advance.
Check out
Lots of good info on this site
What happened to the Yeti — If it’s just the batteries maybe you can replace them
Well……Costco being Costco, they gave me my money back. 
My boss recently bought one for when he goes camping. Not sure which model he got, but it is from Bluetti Power
Not sure how budget friendly they are, but I’ve read good things about them.
For frequent power shortage I think a small quiet petrol generator can give you better solution.
If Cpap is the only use and it have a12V dc input just get a simple sealed lead acid 12v battery and a charger...
I bought a VTOMAN Jump 600x and the extra battery.
I did so because it has Lifepo4 batteries and some other features I liked.
I am not an expert by any means, I based my decision on articles I read online.
I bought them a few months ago but I have not had a reason to use them yet.
Given that these things are touted as emergency backup power I’d like to see some that act as real UPSs - providing passthrough AC to connected AC devices then switching to battery/inverter when mains power goes down. Some units claim to do this, but glancing at FAQs and community forums I’ve yet to find one that does so reliably.
I have quite a bit of experience with portable power stations… my top recommendations would be
-Always buy with LiFepo4 cells, not lithium ion
-A decent unit should be priced around $1 per Wh, don’t go the cheapest route
-Look for charging rate of >0.5C when connected to AC
-Look for units with pure sinewave output
-Units with UPS function with switching time <100ms are ideal
Budget <$500, get the ecoflow river 2 max
Budget <$1000 Ecoflow Delta 2
Budget <$1500 bluetti AC200 max or cheaper AC200P
Budget <$2000 Anker 767
Budget above that… build your own home size backup station with server rack batteries
I don’t like jackery products, their products always have a flaw that constantly keeps you wanting to upgrade to their newer versions. ecoflow products have excellent app integration and massive input/output capabilities. bluetti are very well built hardware-wise and good warranty. Anker is simply on the top when it comes to design, build quality and customer service.
The market is flooded with literal junk, grade B recycled lithium cells and subpar, inneficient inverters. Naturally it is what happens when people start looking for the highest Wh per $
Hope this helps
Wow, you guys are awesome as always. Thanks for all the comebacks and info. Will34, that is exactly the kind of in-depth knowledge about specific brands that I was hoping for. I’m trying to keep my budget around 500—700 dollars. A 500wh unit appears to be borderline for getting my wife’s cpap through the night. Not sure about that because the Duracell station never made it through a full discharge cycle. I’m definitely in a better position now to do my shopping. Thanks a bunch. 
If you can push your budget to ~$800 you may catch the Delta 2 on sale. It has 1,000 Wh and impressive 1,800W of output. Charges back up extremely fast as well.
20% off coupon on page
This guy has looked at a few in DEPTH…
Also, you might want to watch this…
I’ve been looking for a unit that can serve as a UPS for some critical loads but I also really want it to be able to accept and use solar which means it needs to be rated for ~150Vdc V_OC to work with “real” solar panels.
I know this isn’t what you’re looking for, but if you really wanted to set some money on fire some tool companies like DeWalt and Milwaukee make portable power stations that use their tool batteries. Like you plug the battery pack into the power station as if it were a tool. And it can also charge them. Each battery pack has its own individual BMS and being tool batteries the high end packs at least usually have quality high drain cells. Although since the pandemic the occasional Eve 18650 has been showing up in the cheap packs, the expensive ones still generally have Sonys, samsungs, LGs,the 10C continuous discharge 2500-3000mah kind of 18650s or Samsung 30/40 21700s.
But I’m talking really setting some money on fire. The MX fuel version with the 21700s is like $2000 just for the thing the battery packs attach to. Then the battery packs themselves are another $500-$1000, and you need two of them. And that’s still only a 1800/3600w power station lmao.
I’d be looking at a gas generator. Or propane if you’re fancy. Propane stores for 12 years. Gasoline starts going back in a few months.
That or solar panels/wind turbine.
i would also like to thank will34
for the detailed post.
my question to will34….
which one (s) do you
personally have?
I really like that Anker 767 with expansion pack. A little over 3000 Watt Hours of actual usable true Sine Wave power - assuming a conservative maximum 75% DOD. I’m tempted to get the package to use as my PC UPS normally and for anything else if the power goes out. I have a Honda 7000W inverter gen plumbed into the house and a Honda 2200W inverter gen for backup but this just sounds fun to have. How krazy is that. Does anyone know if it utilizes a noisy cooling fan? I wouldn’t buy anything like this unless it has LFP batteries. Practically no self-discharge so you can keep it charged fully with no self discharge. And of course the 3000 charge cycles. Lithium Ion units pale in comparison. Keep one charged and it will lose a good portion of its charge every month absolutely wasting charge cycles.
The small inverters from the likes of Ryobi et al are an easy choice if you’ve got a stack of their power tools - inexpensive and handy in a pinch. The larger “lithium generators” from the same tool brands - often with bespoke battery packs to make a reasonable capacity - have not reviewed well from what I’ve seen and relative to the competition seem to be cashing in on brand name and nominal compatibility with power tool packs.
This is great info. I’m going to grab one of these for the garage and a smaller one for the car
All these things are, are a battery with an inverter. Then they cover it with a fancy cover. Add a catchy name and hight price tag.
You can get an excellent battery and inverter for less money that one of these things.
The difference is the one you build yourself would be totally serviceable whereas the one you buy is disposable.
Ya baby, fill it up with the 4680 Tesla cells, assuming they’ll be available for purchase at some point
I’d actually love to build a whole house battery backup. I wanted to get a Tesla power wall but last time I checked they were only selling them bundled with a solar roof which isn’t a good option for me (lack of constant sun, difficulty with current roof, cost…)