AlphaESS BlackBee 1000 1036Wh Portable Power Station review: The big boy to power all your devices off-grid
We are honored to receive the article review of blackbee1000 from Micah Toll. In his review article he wrote: BlackBee 1000 like the big boy to power all your devices off-grid.
In the review article, Micah Toll wrote:
When it comes to storing electricity for off-grid uses, portable power stations are key. But for larger devices that require more power than a typical USB device, larger capacity batteries and more powerful inverters open the door to serious utility. And the AlphaESS Portable Power Station we tested has an extra serving of power and capacity for bigger tasks.
The AlphaESS Portable Power Station offers 1036Wh of capacity and pairs it with a 1000W Sine Wave inverter. That allows you to power up both your DC and your AC devices for extended periods of time.
Unboxing the unit reveals the usual suspects. You’ll find your wall charger on top, allowing you to recharge the unit from a standard 110V AC wall outlet.
There are also accessory cables like a USB-C to USB-C cable and a 12V accessory outlet plug that you can use to recharge the unit from your car’s 12V outlet.
When it comes to ports, you’ve got a pile of them to choose from.
Of course, you’re going to find your typical USB ports for DC devices. There are a pair of USB A ports and second pair of USB C ports, including a PD100W port to charge larger devices like powerful laptops as quickly as the PD standard will allow – an impressive 100W.
And you’ve also got a pair of 10W wireless charger pads on top of the device too, which are convenient for tossing a phone or tablet (or both) to get a quick wireless charge without taking up a precious USB port.
But the real star of the show are the 110V AC ports.
Those are powered by the 1,000W Sine Wave inverter, meaning you can pull some serious power out of them.
On longer trips, it’s nice to bring along a power station. I can often leave it in a vehicle or other temporary base, returning to charge up during lunch or while escaping the sun for a while.
I tested out the AlphaESS Portable Power Station on a few of my different rides. You might have seen my recent review of the fun little micro e-bike.
Its low-power charger barely moved the needle on the AlphaESS; it could have recharged that little e-bike several times over and barely needed to activate its internal cooling fan.
So to step things up a notch, I had to roll out my massive electric scooter that I’m currently reviewing. This behemoth of an electric scooter offers several thousand watts of power and a massive battery. It even has two charge ports to dump more energy into that massive battery quickly. That made it perfect for a stress test of the AlphaESS.
With both powerful chargers plugged into the power station and the smaller charger still chugging away, I maxed out the three AC outlets without any protest from the power station.
The AlphaESS definitely kicked on its cooling fans, but it didn’t struggle to continue charging the two scooters via three chargers until it finally ran out of juice itself.
There are even some other nice features, like the large LED light panel on back with multiple brightness settings.
It’s great as a work light or camp light if you’re caught out after dark. And with a battery this big, it would last several nights in a row.
All images by Micah Toll.