Product Review – Bluetti EB3A Portable Lithium Power Station

The Bluetti EB3A is the entry-level model of Bluetti’s lithium portable power station range. It packs a lot of power output options but does it have the capacity to be useful? We put it to the ultimate test. Powering a caravan.

I’ve made so secret of the fact that I am a big fan of Bluetti’s range of portable lithium power stations. We’ve owned an EB55 for a year and I use it almost every day to power all sorts of devices including a car fridge, recharge cameras and drones, camp lighting and to power my laptop in remote locations. There seems to be no end to its practicality.

Recently Bluetti asked us if we would like to review their entry-level power station, the EB3A. I was curious about the capabilities of this unit given it has half the battery capacity of the EB55, a slightly lower 240v output wattage and the car charger cable is an optional extra.

On the plus side, it has an inbuilt 240-volt charger, it’s slightly smaller and lighter and, the big bonus, it supports Bluetti’s Smart Control and Monitor smart-device app. All things considered, the Bluetti EB3A looked promising.

Initial impressions:

Like all the other Bluetti products we’ve tried out, the EB3A comes well-packaged to ensure it arrives in one piece. No issues there. It also looks immediately familiar having a very similar layout to the EB55. There are a few differences including a more informative display and just a single 240-volt output plug.

I was a bit surprised by the size of the Bluetti EB3A. It was a bit bigger than I anticipated but, given the 240-volt charger is integrated into the unit, its size seems appropriate. When you put the EB3A and the EB55 together, you can see there is a difference.

Bluetooth Connectivity:

One of the features I was very keen to test out was the Bluetooth connectivity and the Bluetti app. The app is easy to find as there is just one Bluetti app on the iOS app store. Once downloaded, it is extremely easy to connect to the Bluetti EB3A. It’s much easier to connect and set up than many other devices I’ve tried in the past. Top marks there.

The app is incredibly simple yet it provides a wealth of information about battery status as well as power input and output. There are also some setup options available through the app. In short….I love it.

In use:

The Bluetti EB3A came with the internal battery charged to approximately 96% so for the purposes of the test, the first thing I did was to plug it into a household 240-volt outlet to charge it up. This is so much easier than the EB55 given the Bluetti EB3A has an internal 240-volt charger. Just connect the power cable to the socket on the front panel and away you go.

Once charged, I connected a variety of devices to the EB3A and they all worked as expected including running and charging my Apple Macbook Pro from the USB-C outlet, all along monitoring the EB3A through the app. That will never get old…!

One thing I did appreciate was the main display on the Bluetti EB3A now includes an estimated time to discharge at the current load. That is quite brilliant and, as I was to find out later, it is almost dead accurate. Given the comparatively small 268-watt-hour capacity of the EB3A‘s internal battery, this information is quite critical to ensure you don’t run out of power when you need it.

Powering a caravan:

One of the uses that I believe these portable power stations are ideal for is to power a caravan off-grid if the caravan is an older model without any internal battery system. Given the popularity of second-hand caravans these days, there would be a lot of owners of older vans out there wishing they could have the convenience of mains power when free camping overnight or for a few days. If you don’t want to go through the hassle of retrofitting a battery system, the Bluetti’s are a great option.

To test this, I got a hold of a mate’s older Roadstar and plugged it in. It’s important to note that the Bluetti EB3A‘s 240-volt socket is rated to 10 amps so to connect it to the caravan’s 15-amp socket, I had to use an Ampfibian.

Now, remember, the Bluetti EB3A has a limited capacity so you have to do a little homework to see what you can run and what you can’t. For instance, the 3-way fridge in the van draws 115 watts running on 240 volts. That will flatten the EB3A‘s battery in a couple of hours. Better to run the fridge on gas.

Also, there was no chance of running the microwave oven from the 600-watt inverter but it also had a considerable power draw on standby. It may not have made much difference for a few hours but I wanted to simulate a typical overnight power requirement so I opted to turn off the microwave at the power point.

This left just the internal 240-volt lighting. Turning on all the ceiling lights showed a power output of 36 watts. The Bluetti EB3A‘s main screen indicated a runtime of 6.6 hours. That is a couple of hours less than the theoretical runtime of that load on a 268ah battery but you have to remember, running the inverter is not perfectly efficient and the internal battery management system will cut the power before the battery gets too deeply discharged. In my opinion, this seemed a reasonable runtime.

I then left this running until just before the battery protection kicked in. I started the test at 12.07 pm and I stopped it when the main screen indicated there was 1% left in the battery at 6.30 pm; exactly as indicated at the beginning of the test. In my opinion that is an excellent performance. As long as you are aware of the limitations of the Bluetti EB3A, you could easily run the internal lights of an older caravan for a few hours and recharge a phone or two quite comfortably.

Obviously, if you wanted to run higher output appliances for longer, you would need to get a higher capacity power station but it demonstrates the point, even the entry-level Bluetti can be quite useful.

Recharging:

The next morning, I wanted to test the recharge times of the Bluetti EB3A using the Bluetti PV200 200-watt portable solar panel. This is the maximum size panel you can connect to the EB3A but you really don’t need anything bigger. The 268ah battery charged up in approximately three hours in reasonable sunlight with some clouds.

If you need faster recharging, you can combine the 240-volt charger with the solar panel for a maximum of 430 watts total charging input. That will get your battery to 80% charge in 30 minutes and fully charged in about an hour and a half. That’s amazing…!

Conclusion:

I absolutely love the Bluetti EB3A. It’s a product that is accessible to just about anyone on a budget who needs portable power but doesn’t need to run high-wattage appliances. It’s an honest product that punches above its weight division. It brings a lot of new features the EB55 doesn’t have and the support for the Bluetti App is just the icing on the cake. Most importantly, it delivers on its promise.

At the regular list price of $629.00 it’s good value for money. At the current Black Friday special of $499.00, the Bluetti EB3A is an absolute bargain. Remember, the Bluetti EB3A uses genuine LiFePO batteries which are safer and have more recharge cycles than other brand power stations that use Lithium Ion batteries.

On that fact alone the Bluetti EB3A is worthy of serious consideration.

Safe travels.

Specifications:

Product Review – Bluetti PV200 200-watt Portable Folding Solar Panel