5 Pros and 5 Cons of The Bluetti EB3A Portable Power Station

in the spirit of less is more blue Eddie has launched its latest portable power station offering the eb-3a and I've got to say there is a lot in this smaller package to get excited about so much so that CNET even acknowledged it as their favorite value Power Station what makes it so special well let's take a look first the basics this is a power station with a 268 watt hour battery yet features a 600 watt pure sine wave inverter capable of a 1200 watt surge rating more on that later they've packaged this nicely into that same familiar clean squared off design I've appreciated an all blue Woody power stations before it complete with fold out carrying handle and top mounted wireless phone charger the entire package tips the scales at just over 10 pounds as with previous blue Eddy power stations the ev3a features lithium iron phosphate batteries versus the lithium ion ones found in other mainstream Power Station Brands while lithium-ion may have a somewhat higher power to weight ratio they still have one-fifth the service life of a Lithium-Ion phosphate battery and are also much more reactive and prone to Catching Fire or explosion now I can sit here and go down the rabbit hole of boilerplate press release material but I think I'd rather just tell you what I like and didn't like about the eb-3a and you hopefully you can make up your own decision on whether or not you're interested if at any time during this list you'd ultimately like to find out more or purchase your own eb3a I'll put an affiliate Link in the description below to Blue Eddie's website disclaimer blue Eddie did provide this unit to me for free in exchange for this video and review however the opinions expressed herein are my own and are not influenced in any way by Blue Eddie first up the pro number one the integrated charger out of all the power Banks I've tested over the last year only one had the AC charger integrated into the unit and that was a rather large 2 000 watt hour battery pack portable power station where the extra space and weight of an AC charger inside the unit really wouldn't have been an issue everything else in the 500 to 800 watt range I tested had some sort of external brick charger that converted AC to DC input in the case of the blewetti eb-55 this was a rather noisy unit that added to the already noisy internal fan on the unit and was another cumbersome bulky item to have to pack along if I thought I needed a recharge from AC with the eb3a you simply use a three pin socket cable just like the one that powers most PCS and computer monitors to supply AC power to the unit I like this for two reasons one that cable is a lot easier to take with you than a cable plus a brick two if you do get somewhere and don't have your cable you can rob one off a nearby computer monitor or desktop piece see if need be or Source One from your closest Consumer Electronics store with relative ease Pro number two turbo AC charging in all blue Eddie stresses that there are six possible ways to get electrons into this thing AC DC via your car a generator solar or the AC plus solar or AC plus AC converter options as standard the eb3a is rated to charge at a rate of 268 Watts on AC and blue Eddie says that's good for about an hour and a half to two hours to a full charge kicking up the turbo mode increases that rate on AC to 350 Watts which is a 30 Improvement giving you a full charge in an hour and 20 to an hour and 50 minutes this can be improved upon further by doubling down on the DC side you can use Ace Plus up to 200 watt solar or AC plus the sold separately T200 AC to DC adapter to pump in a combined 430 Watts at 1 time this blue Eddie claims gives you an eighty percent charge in 30 minutes and will improve your time to full charge to an hour and 15 to an hour and 40 minutes Pro number three power lifting mode unlike most portable power stations of this size that only feature an AC output roughly the same as their watt hour rating blue Eddie more than double that by giving the eb3a 600 watt pure sine wave inverter output that's good because one major consideration people have when buying a power unit is if it will run all of their Electronics sometimes they end up having to buy a bigger station than what they really mostly needed in anticipation of occasionally having to use something with a bigger draw than what the unit's AC output was rated for this usually manifests itself into something like a hair dryer or a coffee maker typically some machine with a higher than normal draw due to its use of resistive heating what's this I said take only what you need to survive it's my industrial strength hair dryer and I can't live without it blue Eddie took that into account in the ev3a and designed a feature called power lifting this raised the amount of available wattage from 600 to 1200 to allow for the excess load in doing so however this takes away the AC inverter's ability to produce a pure sine wave which means during this process it's not the best source of clean power for more sensitive Electronics like laptops and it's also not recommended to use with induction type heaters in my testing I tried using this feature with a Keurig coffee maker that initially tripped the overload before I put it into the power lifting mode while it did provide enough power to work the maker it burned over 15 percent of the available battery bank and took noticeably longer to heat enough water to brew one cup of coffee I don't think I'd use this feature every day but it's something that's there in case you do need it and blue Eddie has stated multiple times this is a safe practice and does not lead to premature battery degradation Pro number four the Bluetooth app this is the first power unit I've been able to test that featured a bluetooth app and it is certainly something I appreciate most of us don't keep these power Banks within a direct line of sight when we're traveling down the road so in order to ensure the thing was functioning properly uh well that either involved pulling over to look myself or having my co-pilot turn around and take a look with the ability to remotely monitor the unit via the app now that need is gone which is especially helpful in my case since I'm mostly flying solo these days and keep the unit plugged in the back of the vehicle the app also allows for changing the various settings on the eb3a turning on the AC and DC outputs and powering down the unit entirely one thing to note here once you have fully powered the unit down you'll have to manually start it from the control panel before you're able to reconnect it via Bluetooth which you'll be pleased to do because of pro number five the new display one of the more constant complaints myself and other reviewers had with previous blue Eddie products was the display actually one particular aspect of the display power remaining previous models were only able to give you that number in 20 increments leading to some serious nail biting as your power started to dwindle into the final bar and you had no idea when it would all come to an end kind of like my marriage apparently they've listened to the criticism man the ev3a Now features a fully digital readout of power remaining displayed as a percentage so you know what you've got left at all times thanks for fixing that aspect louetti now let's talk about some things that might be corrected on the eb-3a number one the only standard USB outputs the eb3a is only going to give you two of the standard 5 volt 3 amp usba outputs other units I've tested previously have included the Qualcomm 3.0 outputs for fast charge USB devices this is offset in the eb-3a a little bit by the inclusion of a 100 watt USBC output however if that particular output is occupied and you need to charge another Quick Charge capable device you're kind of out of luck con number two the flashlight the eb-55 had a brilliant diffused light on the backside of it that I found super helpful for lighting up workspace areas around camp with the eb-3a they've gone back to a more focused narrow beam flashlight approach that being said because the eb3a weighs significantly less than other power stations it is a bit easier for me to assume that you might actually be okay using it as a flashlight and as it is quite a lot less cumbersome to have to sling around con number three car cable not included this one was kind of disappointing considering it included a solar cable but not the 12 volt DC cable for the car I feel like because of this form factor and price point more people would actually get greater use out of the car cable than the solar cable especially considering solar panels aren't included so in the the end you're still gonna be buying an additional accessory either way to make DC charging work for this thing that being said this does take a pretty generic DC cable and I'll include one in a link in the description below if you're interested number four turbo charging is not that big of a game well it does create a pretty impressive step in charging intensity the overall Time Savings isn't that great thirty percent of 268 Watt hours is significantly less than five or six hundred Watt hours it literally equates to a Time Savings of less than 15 or 20 minutes in most instances to me I can probably hang out for an additional 15 minutes if that means it's going to save on wear and tear on my battery speaking of the turbo charging setting if you want to engage or disengage it you'll quickly realize my fifth and final Point app required to change some settings that's right features like turbo charging power lifting eco mode timeouts and others are only able to be changed via the Bluetooth app while I appreciate shade the convenience this app brings to my life I also appreciate not having to keep a cell phone on standby just to change the settings on an appliance I get it they had to keep the costs down and by eliminating some buttons on the front they probably saved quite a bit however I'd have rather sacrificed the wireless charging pad on the top if it meant I could have had buttons available to change the settings with it's just me and my weird quirks in conclusion though I do think that the eb3a is a nicely done little portable power station I think it's a great choice for someone who's looking for the ability to keep their smaller Electronics charged up on the road power their laptop and have the power to run something like a coffee maker if the need occasionally arose at under 300 watt hours I don't know if I'd use it to manage a 12 volt fridge plus expected to handle double duty keeping other electronics powered at that point I would be looking for something a little bit bigger quality wise I think it's as good as anything else in this segment and blue Eddie does ship it with a two year warranty and lifetime customer support for your peace of mind to answer the ultimate question would I buy it with my own money well I wouldn't hesitate I do feel that this is quite a lot of value for the price and well worth the price the blue Eddie charges for it I don't know what do you think let me know in the comments section below if you found this video helpful and you haven't already please consider subscribing to the channel I'd greatly appreciate it until next time be good

Channel: Matt Kester

Views: 46,627

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Id: oMy8PK10zjg

Length: 11min 16sec (676 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 18 2022