The Bluetti EB3A is a compact portable power station with a 600W AC outlet, fast mains charging, 100W USB power delivery output and a 268Wh long lasting LiFePO4 or LFP battery. It has an app to control and monitor it via Bluetooth and it’s reasonably priced, especially if you pick it up when it’s discounted. At the time of writing it’s just £269 but check the links at the bottom of the article for current prices in your region.
These power stations are perfect for power cuts, camping, travel and festivals and around the house and out and about to charge all your tech. And the EB3A can charge at up to 200W off solar panels alone when mains isn’t available.
I’ll run through its capabilities and thoroughly test all its claims to help you decide if this is the right power station for you. So let’s take a closer look.
Overview
In the box you get the charging station itself, the mains charging cable, a solar charging cable and a user manual. It’s unusual to not have a car charging cable included.
This is one of the most compact and lightweight power stations I’ve tested. It weighs just 4.6kg (10.14 lbs) and measures 255 x 180 x 183 mm (10.04 x 7.09 x 7.20 in). Even more impressively it uses LFP or LiFePO4 (Lithium Iron Phosphate) battery technology – something I’ve only seen thus far in larger units. Bluetti estimates over 2500 charge / discharge cycles before the battery drops to 80% of its original capacity. That’s around five times the typical battery life of standard Li-ion batteries based on NMC or Nickel Manganese Cobalt chemistry. Bluetti offers a 2 year warranty, which is less than the Anker and EcoFlow units I’ve looked at recently.
It’s only a 268Wh battery but that’s enough for multiple charges of your phone and laptop and it could run a camping fridge, television and less demanding power tools for up to a few hours depending on their power requirements.
The outside shell is made almost entirely of plastic and it doesn’t feel quite as rugged as some of the power stations I’ve tested. It would benefit from some rubberised bumpers at least around the edges. There’s no weatherproof rating either, so you’ll need to be careful using this outside.
The front of the unit has a 12V 10A car outlet with two 12V 10A DC5521 ports, two standard USB-A 5V 3A ports and a very welcome USB-C 100W power delivery port. All these DC outputs are operated by the power button which glows green when they’re turned on.
Then there’s the display and beside it a LED spotlight with three modes operated with its power button: medium, high and flashing. I’d prefer a floodlight, but the unit is just about light enough to carry around as an emergency torch if need be.
Below the torch is the single 600W AC outlet which can surge to 1200W. The AC outlet has its own power button. This is the UK version with our oversized plug sockets – the US version manages to squeeze in two 600W AC outlets.
The charging inputs are also on the front of the unit. There’s the mains charging port, and the DC input for charging from your car or optional solar panels. There’s also a circuit breaker reset switch.
The top of the unit is flat with a carry handle that flips up. The handle on my unit is a little stiff, but no doubt that will ease over time. I’m very pleased to see a generously spec’d 15W wireless charging pad to charge any Qi compatible device. This needs to be turned on with the DC subsystem using the main power button.
Charging
You can charge the unit with the mains cable, from a car outlet with the optional car charging cable and via solar with optional solar panels. Unfortunately the 100W USB-C port can’t be used to charge the unit like on the EcoFlow River 2 Max I reviewed – it’s output only.
Using the supplied IEC mains charging cable, often called a kettle lead in the UK, the unit can charge at up to 268W by default. If you connect to the smartphone app via Bluetooth you can charge a little faster with Turbo mode, or quieter and slower with Silent mode. You’ll be prompted with a warning if you choose the Turbo mode. Bluetti suggests only using this mode if “urgent power is needed” to preserve the lifespan of the battery. This mode supposedly charges at up to 350W but I didn’t see over 322W in my testing. There is a way to charge even faster which I’ll come back to shortly.
Even at 322W I was able to charge the unit from completely flat to 80% charge in 43 minutes and a full charge took just over one hour. I didn’t find charge times significantly slower in the Standard charge mode. You can hear the fans when charging – I measured 46dB charging at full speed – around 10dB louder than background noise. At around 150W the noise levels dropped to 41dB.
The unit remained fairly cool – you can see the Flir thermal camera image above.
The two tone LCD display is bright and clear, and shows information on remaining charge time when it’s charging and remaining run time when it’s powering your devices. This estimate is adjusted in real time depending on input or output power. There’s also the battery capacity displayed graphically and as a percentage.
This information is also available in the app which can monitor and control the power station over Bluetooth. Unlike the EcoFlow units I’ve tested there’s no WiFi which means you can’t monitor the unit remotely over cellular with the power station connected over your WiFi network. You need to be close to the unit to maintain the Bluetooth connection.
As well as adjusting charging speeds as already discussed, the app also lets you toggle the Eco mode, control the LED lights, turn on Power Lifting, and update the firmware.
The Eco mode by default shuts off the power station after 4 hours when AC is less than 10W and DC is less than 1W. You can adjust this from 1 hour to 4 hours in the app. It’s a slightly hidden feature, but you can enable this on the unit itself. Enter Setting mode by holding the main power button and AC power button simultaneously for 2 seconds with the AC off and the LCD screen on. Then press the DC button to toggle Eco mode which is confirmed with an Eco icon. The AC button will switch between 50Hz and 60Hz. I’ll cover the Power Lifting mode shortly.
I used a car charging cable I had to hand with an adapter to charge the power station at around 100W. It’s frustrating Bluetti uses the rather non-standard 8mm connector (that Jackery also uses) rather than the common XT60 connector for the DC input and even more frustrating that no cable is included. I did find the Bluetti EB70 I’ll be reviewing on my YouTube channel shortly did come with a car charging cable, which I used after this initial test.
You should be able to charge off a 24V car outlet, but I couldn’t get the full 8.5A using a bench power supply. The power station charged fine at around 6A but when I increased the current towards its 8.5A input limit, it briefly jumped up to around 166W before dropping off to 0W. There’s no warning on the EB3A, but it looks like some sort of over-current protection is kicking in.
Like all the power stations I’ve tested, the Bluetti EB3A has a built-in MPPT controller for more efficient solar charging. I tested solar charging with Bluetti’s folding PV68 panel. It’s compact, lightweight at 3.4kg, and it’s very easy to set up. But it is only 68W and still quite pricey at around £200. It is cheaper if you purchase it bundled with the power station.
After almost a month of rain I finally had a dry day to test it but there still wasn’t an awful lot of sun and I only managed to get around 15W out of the PV68 panel. The DC input supports up to 8.5A between 12V and 28V, so I tried connecting three 120W SP120 Bluetti panels in parallel for faster charging speeds. Connecting panels in parallel you add the current of each panel, the voltage remains constant and under the 28V limit of the EB3A.
You’ll need some of the adapters you can see in the photo above if you want to try a similar setup. In the same conditions I got just over 110W with this setup, which would charge the unit in under three hours. In brighter conditions even two of these panels in parallel should be enough to achieve the 200W maximum of the DC input.
The EB3A lets you use both the DC and AC inputs simultaneously, so you can charge via a car outlet or solar and AC at the same time for up to 430W dual charging, which is unbelievably fast for a battery this size. This is a great feature that you don’t see very often. It’s not mentioned in the manual, but you need to have the Charging Mode in the app set to Turbo. I got a very rapid 424W charging with this setting enabled – 330W off AC and 94W from the DC input from a 12V car outlet. I would heed the advice from Bluetti though, and only charge at this speed if you’re in a rush.
Performance
This UK version of the Bluetti EB3A has a single 600W AC outlet. As I mentioned earlier, the US version has 2 AC outlets.
I confirmed the AC output’s pure sine wave output, which is important for sensitive electronics, with a graphical multimeter.
This outlet can briefly surge to 1200W according to Bluetti. You can enable the Power Lifting mode in the app to run more demanding devices for longer. Like EcoFlow’s X-Boost, this is possible by lowering the output voltage, so is only recommended for devices with heating elements. Bluetti specifically mentions that this mode shouldn’t be used to run certain devices like air conditioners and washing machines.
I used the EcoFlow Delta 2 to test the maximum output the EB3A could maintain since you can set a charging power limit. The Bluetti could happily output just over 600W, but the unit shut off with an Overload error when it got over around 650W. Even at higher outputs it remained pretty quiet although this will depend on ambient temperatures.
I tested the power station with some quite demanding power tools and it performed very well – better than many other similar power stations I’ve looked at. These tools often draw significantly more than their rated outputs at startup, but the Bluetti had no trouble running a 310W Festool ETS sander, a 400W Festool Rotex sander and a 750W Ryobi drill that often causes problems with these smaller power stations.
Impressively it even ran my Bosch 720W angle grinder with no soft start, although on one occasion I did get a Short error displayed with the unit shutting off. I did see the error several times in my testing.
With Power Lifting on I could run a 1kW heater, but the output voltage dropped from 230V to 142V and the output was only 362W.
Usually these voltage reducing modes still manage to deliver the full output of the inverter. It couldn’t run a heat gun in its low setting either. Overall I didn’t find this Power Lifting mode particularly useful, but I guess it may get you out of trouble in an emergency and I’m pleased it’s off by default.
Like most power stations I’d recommend turning off the AC system or at least having Eco mode enabled. The parasitic draw with the AC left on was particularly high with this unit. I measured a drop in remaining battery capacity of over 5% per hour.
I tested the DC outputs starting with the 10A 12V car outlet. I set the load tester to 10A and got around 126W from the power station. Ramping this up by even 0.2A triggered the overcurrent protection and tripped the unit.
The two DC5521 outputs can also deliver up to a generous 10A at 12V which I also confirmed with the load tester.
The two standard USB outputs don’t support any fast charging standards like Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0, but are spec’d up to decent 3A at 5V which I confirmed with a USB load tester.
The USB-C port does support most fast charging standards and most usefully USB Power Delivery up to 100W, which I confirmed charging the EcoFlow River 2 Max at its full output.
It’s also useful for charging laptops like this MacBook Air and lots of other tech.
The Qi wireless charging pad on top of the unit also runs under the DC subsystem. It supports up to 15W charging with the latest Android phones like the Samsung S21 range. Apple iPhones need a Magsafe charger for speeds faster than 7.5W. Either way, wireless charging is a very useful feature that I’d like to also see on other portable power stations.
I also tested the parasitic draw of leaving the DC subsystem on. I left the unit for 12 hours with the Eco mode off and just the DC on. I was a little disappointed to see the remaining capacity went down by 16% – over 1% per hour and more than most other power stations I’ve tested so far. Since the USB ports also run off this subsystem, the EB3A is not going to be a great choice for trickle charging less demanding tech. If you turn on Eco mode the USB ports will shut off when their output is low, and if you leave it on you might lose more from just having the DC subsystem on than your devices are even consuming.
The EB3A also has a UPS or uninterruptible power supply function. When the power station is charging off mains, any mains devices you plug in will bypass the power station and run directly off mains until there’s a power cut, when they’ll switch across to the power station’s battery. Bluetti doesn’t quote any transfer time but it wasn’t fast enough to switch my gaming desktop PC running a gaming benchmark. The computer just shut off when I pulled the mains lead from the Bluetti, which is not ideal! I made sure Eco and Power Lifting mode were switched off. It managed to switch across with the PC just running idle with a web browser window open.
All ports support passthrough charging and can be used whilst the unit is charging. And all the ports can be used simultaneously.
Finally I measured the usable capacity of the 268Wh built-in battery. I ran a small heater at 360W until the power station turned off. The power station ran for 37 minutes and consumed 229Wh according to the energy monitoring plug. Power stations like this will always have conversion losses and anything over 80% is pretty good. The Bluetti works out at 229 Wh / 268Wh which is around 85% and a decent result. Bluetti quotes 90% efficiency but also mentions a Depth of Discharge (DoD) of 80-90% depending on ambient conditions and discharge rate. So the unit is therefore shutting off before it’s entirely empty to protect the battery and the 90% efficiency claim sounds reasonable.
I did a similar test using the DC output with an 8A electronic load attached. I measured 225Wh which is again a decent 84% efficiency. In most cases, the DC output will still be more efficient running something like a camping fridge which turns on and off regularly, even with the parasitic draw of the DC subsystem I discussed earlier.
Conclusions
The Bluetti E3BA is a great option if you want a compact unit with a long lasting LFP battery and a very useful 600W inverter. At its current sale price of £269 it’s pretty good value too. With its 268Wh battery you will need to top it up regularly, especially if you’re using more demanding devices. That’s pretty easy to do even on the move, via your car outlet or optional solar panels. And if you have even brief access to mains you can top it up very quickly. But I do think it’s an oversight not including a car charging cable with the power station.
You can get the power station bundled with Bluetti’s PV68 for easy charging off solar at up to 68W. Sizewise it’s a great match for the EB3A, and it’s quick to set up. But you can get more powerful solar panels for similar money if you shop around. They provide an adapter which will work with any panel with MC4 connectors – just check the open circuit voltage is between 12 and 28V.
The efficiency of the unit was about average in my testing, but the parasitic draw of the AC and DC was higher than I would have liked. You’ll need to make sure you turn off the unit, or at least turn on the Eco mode, if you don’t want to come back to an empty power station just when you need it.
The 2 year warranty is also a little less than Bluetti’s competitors who are offering 5 years on their LFP units.
But overall if you’re after a reasonably priced lightweight and compact portable power station, with the latest battery chemistry and a decent sized inverter, the EB3A is definitely one to consider.
There’s no accompanying YouTube video to this article, but don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel where I’m releasing videos every week on the latest technology and how to get the most out of it. If you tap the bell icon when you subscribe you’ll get a notification as soon as I release a video, and there’ll be a link to my site here for the written article. YouTube is also the best place to leave a comment. I read all of them and respond to as many as I can!
Bluetti EB3A: https://amzn.to/414olrV
Bluetti PV68: https://amzn.to/3Uy6oj5
Solar panel parallel connectors (3, 4, 5, 6 way): https://amzn.to/3o9kCL1
You can also check purchase directly from Bluetti – at the time of publishing you can get the EB3A for as little as $209 with the coupon EB3A30:
Bluetti UK: Bluetti EB3A Power Station (there are various solar panels including the PV68 you can bundle with this offer)
Bluetti US: Bluetti EB3A Power Station (there are various solar panels you can bundle with this offer)
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