Product: Wattbricks Portable 100W Power Station and Solar Panel Bundle
Model: H10025
Condition: New
Stay powered anywhere with the Wattbricks 100 Portable Power Station — featuring 120W peak power, 100W continuous output, and a 30W portable solar panel for easy charging on the go
Compact and lightweight, this portable power station fits comfortably in the palm of your hand and weighs under 2 lbs
Equipped with fast-recharge technology and multiple high-input charging ports for quick and convenient recharging
Airline-approved with a 99.2Wh capacity and compliant with UN38.3 shipping standards, meeting TSA carry-on regulations for batteries under 100Wh
I had issues with with the one I bought, and now I’ve got issues with the replacement one.
The biggest caveat of course if the battery is any good when you get them. Can it store anything close to the full advertised 99Wh? Is the solar panel working? Is the USB adapter working?
The good. Convenient handle, small size, potential to have multiple charging inputs with two USB-C ports, reliable lightweight solar panel, comes with female-USB to female-C adapter potentially turning the USB-A port into a 3rd USB-C.
The bad. Battery may not hold 99 Wh. Battery cannot quickly discharge 99 Wh; a majority of that energy will be lost as heat. Charging is modestly paced.
The ugly. You have to reseat the solar panel plug each morning to enable fast recharging. There’s only one USB-C port that supports fast (>5W) recharging. The solar panel is not compatible with many devices (you can’t plug the panel into other devices, just the brick battery). Use the USB-A port to power devices as that can be throttled down to 5W output; you can power devices from the USB-C at faster rates, but the battery will lose more power to heat (e.g. using the USB-A to charge my battery would take an hour before the Brick empties and I’d get my pocket battery to go from 0% to 50%; USB-C would take only ten minutes to empty the brick, but my pocket battery would only fill up 15%).
@pakopako@ShotgunX I measured mine overnight last night and it was 91.76Wh. This was tested using my usb tester and charging my laptop overnight while it was running a cpu stress test(20v charging).
Given the 100Wh battery claim, after ~10% power conversion loss, the battery capacity seems pretty accurate.
Currently charging it back up to full using the same tester, battery claims to be 70% charged and has pulled 70.71Wh from the wall so far.
@minuette how quickly did you discharge down to 70%?
Using the USB-C, the battery charged my phone up 10% (~400 mAh, or at 5V, ~2 Wh) in minutes… But the Wattbrick cratered to 0%.
Using the USB-A (or various resistor impedances on the USB-C, such as a multimeter monitor) and slowing the Wattbrick discharge to 2~3W (0.4~0.6A, 5V) the 100% Wattbrick will have a much smoother time going down (from my experience, all the way to 10~20% before the onboard manager decides to say “nope, this is now 0%”).
So this is an issue that applies to this model of paneling. Which is why I have to unplug and replug the panels every morning (at the least).
Once the sun goes down, the panels switch to “drain mode”… And won’t switch back until the battery is empty. Which might be fine if the next day is sunny or I need to empty a lead/nickel battery to remove sulfide buildup. Less good for LiON batteries (if it drains down to 0% after a day or two of clouds). So unplug, replug, repeat.
The key phrase is “well built”. Travel panels lack a few layers of protection to keep the weight light; I can see how it could also save by omitting a voltage regulation system (which means adding your own MC4’s).
For anyone interested, according to the Q&A on Tractor Supply Co., this is confirmed to have a LiFePO4 battery chemistry, which is a nice bonus at this price. Slightly less energy dense, but on the safer end of things and also can handle plenty of recharge cycles.
Price makes it tempting, even just as a slightly bigger, solar-chargeable bank for charging phones during an outage.
The iffy overall reviews/ratings and bad experiences commented here give me pause, though, so I’ll probably pass. Sounds like it has problems potentially delivering the rated capacity and also with recharging, and I don’t need something like this to fail me at a time when I most need it to work
I got this last time a few months ago. For a battery power box it is small and lightweight. It doesn’t have a lot of capabilities the bigger heavier ones have.
The bonus is the folding solar panel. I did try it out and it worked well. Obviously it’s small. It has only USB out, not 12V as larger panels do. But I can see it being a useful emergency charge panel. I have some 100W and a 200W from other deals but those are much larger and heavy.
Anyone know the weight and size of the solar panel? The voltage? I get that it only plugs into the power brick but I wonder about the possibility of hacking into the cable to add alternate connectors.
Unfortunately the company, even in the product manual (available on the wattbricks site - it’s the H100B model - https://www.wattbricksenergy.com/product-manuals), doesn’t publish hardly any information or images of the solar panel or its connectors. After looking at various retailers that sell this model I was able to gather a bit more details, but not anything super specific.
I can kind of infer from what they do provide (and some Q&As), that they do provide some kind of USB-C adapter- from what I can gather, the connector from the solar panel might be something like MC4 from panel to MC4 -> DC7909 cable connected into a DC7909 -> USB-C adapter, as that’s how they describe hooking up solar charging in general. However, they only give the charging range acceptable (DC12-26V) and don’t say what their 30W panel actually provides exactly.
From shipping/weight information, and them describing the battery pack as 2lbs and the shipping weight as 10lbs, I suppose it can be potentially assumed that the solar panel might be 6-8lbs? I can’t seem to find any dimension information about the panel itself, since the only place this panel exists is in this bundle, so there’s next to no info about it online
The use case for this is basically running a USB-C laptop and also charging the phone. There are certainly other things that run off of USB-C these days, but overall it feels pretty limited for its size.
The impracticality of this is only matched by it’s pointlessness.
Yeah, I get it, it can charge a phone and run a laptop. But any situation I’m in where I actually need this (ex: hurricane has wiped out power for a week) nothing else is going to be working anyway (internet, cellular). I can only play so much Candy Crush or Mahjong.
@Pufferfishy 100W is enough to power a Starlink for a decent amount of time, either to summon help or just keep up with relevant news. It can also help with providing basic needs like lighting or radio communications. Not saying this is the best choice amongst the numerous competitors, but it’s not terrible at this price with a solar panel included. Just don’t be too surprised if the battery fails within a year.
@Kidsandliz@Pufferfishy Ideally you would charge these via normal methods before the hurricane arrival and recharge via solar after if necessary. Not a meteorologist, but skies typically clear up rather quickly after strong storms or hurricanes in my experience.
@Kidsandliz Yeah - usually it goes from “Dark and Stormy and all your stuff getting wrecked” to “Bright and Sunny and all your stuff is wrecked” surprisingly quickly.
Last 2 have arrived at night - can’t tell you what a joy it is to sit in the dark and wait for it to be over / wait to see how bad it gets before disapating.
@medz@Pufferfishy The Starlink mini has an integrated wifi router. It just needs power and a clear patch of sky. I bought an extra long cable like this one to keep the power bank, which is not weatherproof, out of the elements as much as possible. Also got a cheap tripod and car suction cup mount in case I need to be mobile.
@cfg83@katbyter@user20368848
They might sell their stock … Unless they have a refund policy, then they might have to directly deal with customers who got lemons.
@Corinalynn86 yeah, unless you have a CPAP that runs on USB C, this won’t help. Gonna need a bank with an AC outlet, or 12V output and connect an inverter. You’ll probably also want more like 200Wh for a full night of CPAP use
I don’t have much knowledge regarding solar, but if for nothing else, for only $35.00, wouldn’t this be a good deal for use as a solar phone/laptop charger?
@lomerson2@woodyzim The specs say it has a capacity of 99Wh and the solar panel is 30W. Assuming no efficiency loss and under ideal conditions, it could theoretically recharge in a little over 3 hours. That likely equates to at least 4-6 hours in real life conditions.
@kuoh@lomerson2@woodyzim That means the panels catching sunlight at the correct angle and moving along with it as the sun moves across the sky … so I’d put it closer to a full day.
@kuoh@lomerson2@woodyzim I had a really sunny clear day and it was about 4 hours; but subsequent tests it was indeed like 5-7. Some days it would get to like 90% from empty. At this point I just charge it up at work and steal their power >:3
@kuoh@kyoshii@lomerson2@woodyzim
I’m not sure how you guys can get the right angles for a large chunk of the day. I do it the lazy way: lying the panels over a Southside windowsill flower pot. It can go from 1~12W throughout the day and takes about 4 consecutive sunny days to top off that way.
Specs
Product: Wattbricks Portable 100W Power Station and Solar Panel Bundle
Model: H10025
Condition: New
What’s Included?
Price Comparison
$69.99 at Tractor Supply
$80 at Sams Club
Warranty
90 days
Estimated Delivery
Monday, Sep 14 - Wednesday, Sep 16
Since when is 2 pounds pocket-sized?
Is that a power station in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
@heartny Always happy to see you!
(And, my eyes are up here.)
@heartny
@heartny
And soon, you’ll need to get up an hour earlier to charge it.
Or, you can just plug it in, whenever.
If I didn’t already have way too many power banks, I’d buy one, because this looks like a decent deal.
@werehatrack it’s kind of a nice deal for the solar panel moreso than the battery
@werehatrack I know how you feel …
/showme Anthropomorphized goat with dismayed expression and t-shirt that says cfg83 is in a room full of power bricks.
@cfg83 Here’s the image you requested for “Anthropomorphized goat with dismayed expression and t-shirt that says cfg83 is in a room full of …”
Pretty good deal, actually. Got one for a gift.
Any way you could expedite the shipping on these? Or just, like, on my specific order?
This looks cool and I’m really tempted but I have no idea what I’d use it for.
How many do you have? Like third time in 3 months.
I had issues with with the one I bought, and now I’ve got issues with the replacement one.
The biggest caveat of course if the battery is any good when you get them. Can it store anything close to the full advertised 99Wh? Is the solar panel working? Is the USB adapter working?
The good. Convenient handle, small size, potential to have multiple charging inputs with two USB-C ports, reliable lightweight solar panel, comes with female-USB to female-C adapter potentially turning the USB-A port into a 3rd USB-C.
The bad. Battery may not hold 99 Wh. Battery cannot quickly discharge 99 Wh; a majority of that energy will be lost as heat. Charging is modestly paced.
The ugly. You have to reseat the solar panel plug each morning to enable fast recharging. There’s only one USB-C port that supports fast (>5W) recharging. The solar panel is not compatible with many devices (you can’t plug the panel into other devices, just the brick battery). Use the USB-A port to power devices as that can be throttled down to 5W output; you can power devices from the USB-C at faster rates, but the battery will lose more power to heat (e.g. using the USB-A to charge my battery would take an hour before the Brick empties and I’d get my pocket battery to go from 0% to 50%; USB-C would take only ten minutes to empty the brick, but my pocket battery would only fill up 15%).
@pakopako Did you measure how many W/H you did get?
I’m gonna cancel until I get a better outlook for this item.
@pakopako @ShotgunX I measured mine overnight last night and it was 91.76Wh. This was tested using my usb tester and charging my laptop overnight while it was running a cpu stress test(20v charging).
Given the 100Wh battery claim, after ~10% power conversion loss, the battery capacity seems pretty accurate.
Currently charging it back up to full using the same tester, battery claims to be 70% charged and has pulled 70.71Wh from the wall so far.
@pakopako @ShotgunX Finished charging from the wall, 108.5Wh. So, I believe the 100Wh capacity claim for my unit at least.
@minuette Thanks. That sound more reassuring.
@minuette how quickly did you discharge down to 70%?
Using the USB-C, the battery charged my phone up 10% (~400 mAh, or at 5V, ~2 Wh) in minutes… But the Wattbrick cratered to 0%.
Using the USB-A (or various resistor impedances on the USB-C, such as a multimeter monitor) and slowing the Wattbrick discharge to 2~3W (0.4~0.6A, 5V) the 100% Wattbrick will have a much smoother time going down (from my experience, all the way to 10~20% before the onboard manager decides to say “nope, this is now 0%”).
I remembered to search why these (and other travel panels I have) draw power instead of give:
https://solarpowerprincep.com/solar-panel-draining-battery/
So this is an issue that applies to this model of paneling. Which is why I have to unplug and replug the panels every morning (at the least).
Once the sun goes down, the panels switch to “drain mode”… And won’t switch back until the battery is empty. Which might be fine if the next day is sunny or I need to empty a lead/nickel battery to remove sulfide buildup. Less good for LiON batteries (if it drains down to 0% after a day or two of clouds). So unplug, replug, repeat.
https://shopsolarkits.com/blogs/learning-center/do-solar-panels-drain-batteries-at-night
https://www.spaceflightpower.com/is-solar-panel-draining-battery-at-night/
https://shopsolarkits.com/blogs/learning-center/do-solar-panels-drain-batteries-at-night
The key phrase is “well built”. Travel panels lack a few layers of protection to keep the weight light; I can see how it could also save by omitting a voltage regulation system (which means adding your own MC4’s).
For anyone interested, according to the Q&A on Tractor Supply Co., this is confirmed to have a LiFePO4 battery chemistry, which is a nice bonus at this price. Slightly less energy dense, but on the safer end of things and also can handle plenty of recharge cycles.
Price makes it tempting, even just as a slightly bigger, solar-chargeable bank for charging phones during an outage.
The iffy overall reviews/ratings and bad experiences commented here give me pause, though, so I’ll probably pass. Sounds like it has problems potentially delivering the rated capacity and also with recharging, and I don’t need something like this to fail me at a time when I most need it to work
@w0rmwood I can almost guarantee that this isn’t LiFePO4.
@ShotgunX @w0rmwood I have one and it says Li-ion
@kyoshii @ShotgunX @w0rmwood
The ones Wattbricks are selling now might be LiFePO4, but these are likely the initial batch of Li-iON.
Scouring their site, they have only one model they advertise as LiFePO4
https://www.wattbricksenergy.com/products/wattbricks-h2500bk
@ShotgunX @w0rmwood page 9 of the H100 manual in https://www.wattbricksenergy.com/product-manuals and in the manual in the unit I received says “Lithium Iron Phosphate”
@ShotgunX @user43507259 @w0rmwood Odd that every battery PDF (except the Wattbricks MP2000 which uses regular LiON) says they use LiFePO.
I got this last time a few months ago. For a battery power box it is small and lightweight. It doesn’t have a lot of capabilities the bigger heavier ones have.
The bonus is the folding solar panel. I did try it out and it worked well. Obviously it’s small. It has only USB out, not 12V as larger panels do. But I can see it being a useful emergency charge panel. I have some 100W and a 200W from other deals but those are much larger and heavy.
Anyone know the weight and size of the solar panel? The voltage? I get that it only plugs into the power brick but I wonder about the possibility of hacking into the cable to add alternate connectors.
@phr
Unfortunately the company, even in the product manual (available on the wattbricks site - it’s the H100B model - https://www.wattbricksenergy.com/product-manuals), doesn’t publish hardly any information or images of the solar panel or its connectors. After looking at various retailers that sell this model I was able to gather a bit more details, but not anything super specific.
I can kind of infer from what they do provide (and some Q&As), that they do provide some kind of USB-C adapter- from what I can gather, the connector from the solar panel might be something like MC4 from panel to MC4 -> DC7909 cable connected into a DC7909 -> USB-C adapter, as that’s how they describe hooking up solar charging in general. However, they only give the charging range acceptable (DC12-26V) and don’t say what their 30W panel actually provides exactly.
From shipping/weight information, and them describing the battery pack as 2lbs and the shipping weight as 10lbs, I suppose it can be potentially assumed that the solar panel might be 6-8lbs? I can’t seem to find any dimension information about the panel itself, since the only place this panel exists is in this bundle, so there’s next to no info about it online
The use case for this is basically running a USB-C laptop and also charging the phone. There are certainly other things that run off of USB-C these days, but overall it feels pretty limited for its size.
The impracticality of this is only matched by it’s pointlessness.
Yeah, I get it, it can charge a phone and run a laptop. But any situation I’m in where I actually need this (ex: hurricane has wiped out power for a week) nothing else is going to be working anyway (internet, cellular). I can only play so much Candy Crush or Mahjong.
@Pufferfishy 100W is enough to power a Starlink for a decent amount of time, either to summon help or just keep up with relevant news. It can also help with providing basic needs like lighting or radio communications. Not saying this is the best choice amongst the numerous competitors, but it’s not terrible at this price with a solar panel included. Just don’t be too surprised if the battery fails within a year.
KuoH
@Pufferfishy not to mention in a hurricane are you even going to have enough sun to charge it very quickly?
@Kidsandliz @Pufferfishy Ideally you would charge these via normal methods before the hurricane arrival and recharge via solar after if necessary. Not a meteorologist, but skies typically clear up rather quickly after strong storms or hurricanes in my experience.
KuoH
@Kidsandliz Yeah - usually it goes from “Dark and Stormy and all your stuff getting wrecked” to “Bright and Sunny and all your stuff is wrecked” surprisingly quickly.
Last 2 have arrived at night - can’t tell you what a joy it is to sit in the dark and wait for it to be over / wait to see how bad it gets before disapating.
@kuoh @Pufferfishy how do you plug a starlink modem/router into usb-c?
@medz @Pufferfishy The Starlink mini has an integrated wifi router. It just needs power and a clear patch of sky. I bought an extra long cable like this one to keep the power bank, which is not weatherproof, out of the elements as much as possible. Also got a cheap tripod and car suction cup mount in case I need to be mobile.
kuoH
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DFW1D648
@kuoh @medz @Pufferfishy there are adapters. But they aren’t super common or very standardized.
What mad person buys 6?
@user20368848 resellers I’d imagine
/giphy make a profit
@katbyter @user20368848 I’ve got a bad feeling about thi$. I think they will $ell very few.
@cfg83 @katbyter @user20368848
They might sell their stock … Unless they have a refund policy, then they might have to directly deal with customers who got lemons.
We need something that will run my husband’s CPAP machine when we go camping… I don’t think this is it…
@Corinalynn86 Me too, this might be a possibility but it’s missing an AC outlet.
@Corinalynn86 yeah, unless you have a CPAP that runs on USB C, this won’t help. Gonna need a bank with an AC outlet, or 12V output and connect an inverter. You’ll probably also want more like 200Wh for a full night of CPAP use
@Corinalynn86 @kyoshii usb-c 12v adapters are a thing {you can get 5-20v from USB-C pd anyway). But I agree not to use them with medical equipment.
To listen to whole contemplating this deal’s cultural refetence:
/youtube she’s a brick house
I don’t have much knowledge regarding solar, but if for nothing else, for only $35.00, wouldn’t this be a good deal for use as a solar phone/laptop charger?
@woodyzim Seems like it to me. I wish someone would give an idea of how long this solar panel would take to recharge it.
@lomerson2 @woodyzim The specs say it has a capacity of 99Wh and the solar panel is 30W. Assuming no efficiency loss and under ideal conditions, it could theoretically recharge in a little over 3 hours. That likely equates to at least 4-6 hours in real life conditions.
KuoH
@kuoh @lomerson2 @woodyzim That means the panels catching sunlight at the correct angle and moving along with it as the sun moves across the sky … so I’d put it closer to a full day.
@kuoh @lomerson2 @woodyzim I had a really sunny clear day and it was about 4 hours; but subsequent tests it was indeed like 5-7. Some days it would get to like 90% from empty. At this point I just charge it up at work and steal their power >:3
@kuoh @kyoshii @lomerson2 @woodyzim
I’m not sure how you guys can get the right angles for a large chunk of the day. I do it the lazy way: lying the panels over a Southside windowsill flower pot. It can go from 1~12W throughout the day and takes about 4 consecutive sunny days to top off that way.
Who warranties this crap anyhow??
@Schmive The 90 day warranty is from right here at meh.
https://meh.com/warranty