Anker’s biggest battery pack ever is a 43-pound power station with impressive specs

[Canthoney]

What do you all think of this? I think it would be awesome to camp with!

Six AC, 100W USB-C, 1229Wh LiFePO4 battery
Sean HollisterApr 12, 2022, 4:25pm EDT

When the power goes out or you’re visiting the great outdoors with gadgets in tow, you might carry a portable power station — and Anker might have just released the most advanced one yet. The new $1,400 Anker 757 Powerhouseoffers 1500W of power and 1229Wh of capacity from a Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) battery, which it promises is faster to charge, longer-lasting, and might even be safer than the lithium-ion battery packs you’ll typically find in the market.

LiFePO4 batteries aren’t anything new in the battery space. You’ll find them in some electric cars because they don’t need to be replaced as often and because they don’t turn into a raging inferno when hundreds or thousands of them are badly damaged in an accident. The downside is weight: most consumer electronics don’t use them because they’re far heavier than lithium-ion at the same capacity. The Anker 757 Powerhouse weighs 43.8 pounds, nearly twice as much as a 1000Wh Jackery power station but with only around 20 percent more capacity. Jackery has a 1500Wh power station that weighs less, too.

Portable power stations are often sought out by CPAP users, and this one can double as a UPS for a PC. Image; Anker
But we’re starting to see some big, beefy power stations embrace LiFePO4 for the benefits, including upwards of 3,000 battery charge cycles and the ability to charge to 80 percent in just an hour off the wall — things Anker’s 757, the Bluetti AC200P, and the crowdfunded CTECHi ST2000 all boast.

Mind you, those rival products are even larger and heavier and more powerful at 2000W of power and 2000Wh capacity, and the Bluetti appears to have more outputs as well — including six three-prong AC outlets and a pair of wireless charging pads up top to rest your phone. But Anker’s can deliver a full 100W of USB-C PD charging to a powerful laptop (the others top out at 60W PD, which the Anker has, too), as well as three three-prong outlets, three two-prong outlets, four USB-A ports at 12W each, and a car lighter socket port.

A rival LiFePO4 power bank from Bluetti: the AC200P.Image: Bluetti
Anker suggests its battery may be faster to charge from the sun than most, too — it’s able to get to 80 percent in just 3.6 hours with a 300W, triple-solar-panel array Anker will be selling for an undisclosed price soon. TechRadar writes that the Bluetti can technically charge in under three hours from 700W worth of panels, and CTECHi says its battery takes nine hours to fully charge from a set of 500W panels, though both allow you to combine solar and a plug if you need to top up faster.

You need a bunch of solar panels to truly charge a battery this size.Image: Anker
The other notable difference is that Anker is offering a 5-year warranty on its battery, quite a bit longer than the two years the other companies offer, and it claims its battery should still charge up to 100 percent capacity — not the typical 80 percent — after 3,000 charge cycles. And Anker says if you leave it sitting for a year after a charge, it should still have 62 percent capacity remaining.

Oh, and it’s got a nifty light bar, I guess. Might be useful if you’re trying to plug things in when it’s dark.

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[CommodoreAmiga]

So 43 lbs for 1.2kWh of power? Also known as less than 3 miles of range.

Yet people still expect a portable battery pack extender, lol.

 

[jjswan33]

I am not familiar with those products, I have seen reviews of the Bluetti which were mostly positive.

I personally have a Goal Zero in my camper van. I have the 6000X which has the 2000W inverter and 6kWh of battery, they make smaller ones as well.

The only advantage of these I can see over just using the R1T is if you want a second 1500W (or 2000W) inverter.

 

[Forager]

Battery storage capacity in the world of 12v and 18v power supply is typically quoted in “amp hours”, so at 12v, this is a 100 amp hour battery. Just sharing this for anyone cross shopping.

There are manufacturers currently producing 200 and even 300 amp hour 12v batteries for marine, overlanding, and RV applications.

The nice feature of this supply and rivals like Blueti is the integrated form —it already includes an AC invertor along with multiple power connections for USB, 12v DC in/out (Anderson and cigarette plugs), and 120v AC in/out. The features on these supplies can be very impressive.

I see the appeal of these for ICE vehicles and marine applications, but it’s not doing anything I need that the Rivian won’t do for my application.

 

[COdogman]

I've always had good luck with Anker products. I've purchased smaller battery packs for mobile charging, charger wall plugs, and even a pair of their Liberty ear buds. All well made and a great value.

43 lbs?

 

[kylealden]

This is very cool but you're a little nuts if you carry one in your Rivian unless you have a verrrry specific use case in mind. It's about 1% the size of the Rivian's battery but with worse output.

Anything that this pack can power, your Rivian can also power without you noticing the range loss. (In fact it may come out ahead thanks to saving 45lbs of payload...).

 

[kylealden]

On the other hand, the Rivian does look like a really good deal if you think of it as 100 Anker batteries that just happen to Voltron together into a really kickass truck.

 

[zipzag]

Lawn mower batteries usually make more sense. The typical cost per hour of use for this sort of device is extraordinary.

 

[Zac]

This is very cool but you're a little nuts if you carry one in your Rivian unless you have a verrrry specific use case in mind.

What about to power an electric cooler overnight that you need to put into a bear box while camping in bear country, i.e., most of the Sierra Nevadas? I am looking for something inexpensive that can do that.

 

[ajdelange]

I'd guess the biggest markets for these things are camping (glamping) and home power backup. But i find I use them a lot whenever it seems I need a long extension cord. As I type this my laptop is being recharged by a Jackery because the nearest outlet is too far for the power supply charger to reach and to rumage for an extension cord, unwind it and, when finished here, rewind it and put it away is a lot more trouble than to just grab the Jackery. Any time a plug in power tool (though they are getting rare) is needed outdoors it seems easier to grab a Jackery, In another application i use one to charge my headphones as there is no outlet near where I sit when watching TV. I've also used them to keep a portable fridge cool over night on road trips though I suppose i could have just as easily used the cigarette lighter outlet in the car.

I can back up my garage lights, garage door openers and heat (using propane heaters that back up the heat pumps) with a Yeti 6000 for days and, in fact, powered the building this way for the final months of its completion. Obviously Goal 0 has this in mind as they sell a transfer switch kit for this purpose. Construction sites are another possible application.

So if you have such an appliction then these things are pretty neat but they are still expensive and still heavy. Now that my garage is complete I really have no use for the Yeti (unless the Powerwall system fails or the sun goes in for a week) and so it becomes another "nice to have" in my ever growing collection.

One thing I caution people to look for with these devices is their "phantom drain" when the inverter is operating. It can be substantial. It's a couple of watts for a 1 kWh Jackery and 9 W in the Yeti6000. That doesn't seem like much but 9 W represents 0.216 kWh/day which is 3.6% of the device's capacity with nothing plugged in. Some of the manufacurers have substantially greater overhead than this and I have seen reports of people expecting to camp for a week finding their battery packs almost fully discharged in appreciably less than that.

 

[zipzag]

What about to power an electric cooler overnight that you need to put into a bear box while camping in bear country, i.e., most of the Sierra Nevadas? I am looking for something inexpensive that can do that.

Freeze ice packs during the day with a compressor based cooler in the Rivian. The you don't need power in the bear box.

My lawn mower battery with a 150w inverter will run by Engle cooler for about a day and a half.

 

[Lsthrz]

Ecoflow (Delta Pro) makes some very nice products in this space. I just got their Delta Pro 3600W beast. 99lbs of backup goodness but they have smaller more portable models. I’ve had good luck with Goal Zeros as well.

 

[kylealden]

What about to power an electric cooler overnight that you need to put into a bear box while camping in bear country, i.e., most of the Sierra Nevadas? I am looking for something inexpensive that can do that.

I'd file that under "very specific use case" But yes, makes sense!

 

[zipzag]

Bear Guard tonneau cover?

Perhaps Gary doing stuff on screen that freaks bears out?

 

[Autolycus]

Freeze ice packs during the day with a compressor based cooler in the Rivian. The you don't need power in the bear box.

My lawn mower battery with a 150w inverter will run by Engle cooler for about a day and a half.

And for anybody freezing ice packs for these sorts of uses: I highly recommend Techni-Ice "dry ice packs".

https://www.techniiceusa.com/ice-packs.html

Follow their instructions closely to make sure you prep them correctly. I also put mine in Zip-loc freezer bags because I had read reviews from people who had a slimy texture on theirs after some usage -- I think they had simply over-saturated the packs during the prep phase, but better safe than sorry, right?

I've used 3 full sheets in a Yeti M30 hopper before and literally froze sodas by accident. They keep COLD.

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