Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus Portable Power Station with Extra Battery, 4085Wh LiFePO4, 10-Year Lifespan, 3000W Output, Expandable to 24kWh, UPS Home Backup for Camping, Emergency(Solar Panel Optional)

This review is for the 2000 Plus with single expansion battery, or a system with roughly 4k kilowatt hours capacity. Let's get the bad news out of the way right up front: This thing is big, heavy, expensive and it will NOT fully replace your gas generator if you are out of power for a week. Nor can it run even a small window A/C for any meaningful length of time. What it will do, with one expansion battery, is run your fridge, internet, coffee pot, microwave and a few lights SILENTLY for about a day or so. No need to pull out the generator, gas it up, and endure that miserable lawn mower droning all day and night just to keep your food from spoiling. No worrying about aggravating the neighbors with the noise. In fact, no need for the gas generator at all unless you are having a multi-day outage. And it provides nice clean power with no risk to your electronics. Now suppose you are on day two without power and this thing is just about flat. Well, just pull out your generator in the middle of the day, run it a few hours and you will have this thing fully charged and ready to go for another full day. Yes, you still need that loud generator. But not endlessly, and not all night when you are trying to sleep. And your limited supply of gas for the generator is now being used much more efficiently, kind of like a hybrid car, so you will be able to store a bit less gas or bump along like this a lot longer than if you were trying to run the generator almost constantly. Now, in theory, you could recharge this thing with solar panels and never need a gas generator at all. But do the math and you will find that you probably aren't doing that. The battery is just too big. You are not going to be keeping this thing charged with a couple of small portable solar panels in your backyard, and the marketing that suggests you are is a bit deceptive. Back of the envelope, just the main unit would need 400 watts worth of panels in ideal conditions. Add on one expansion battery and now you are at 800 watts minimum in ideal conditions. And what about when it is cloudy? Even more panels will be needed then. You are looking at something more like a small rooftop solar system to keep this thing reliably topped off in the real world, assuming you are using it for home backup power. Now if you are going to try and pull some solar power into it, there is a very nice feature of this system, that is not getting much attention in the on-line reviews I've seen. You can unplug the expansion battery, which is much smaller and easier to carry, and carry it out into the yard and connect it up to your portable solar panels directly, leaving the larger system back in the house to keep the loads running while it recharges separately. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to tell the system - please use up the portable expansion battery first. Instead, the system initially drains the main battery and only when it is down to about 15% capacity starts to draw significantly from the second battery. Maybe that will get fixed with an app update. It seems odd that they went to all of the trouble and cost of putting a second charge controller in the expansion battery and then didn't fully enable the user control necessary to use it in the most logical way. Speaking of the app, that is definitely not a gimmick, it is incredibly useful to be able to pick up the phone and see how much power you have left at a glance. Even better is the fact that you don't even need to be at home to check what is going on with it, assuming your internet is still working. I like that it also has redundant bluetooth connection to the app so that even if there is no internet you can still connect your phone to it. When used for what it is really intended for, home power backup, the main luxury this provides is QUIET. I also like that it uses the safer, more durable, iron phosphate batteries that are likely to last for years. It is kind of an intermediate step between just having a gas generator and the much more expensive backup solutions like a whole house generator, rooftop solar system, etc. and it goes with you when you move. Yes, it is expensive. But once you throw away all the food in your chest freezer once, you start looking at the cost of home backup power a little differently. If you understand the limitations of this product, that it isn't some panacea that will free you from the grid indefinitely, it can make power outages a lot less disruptive and unpleasant. It is likely overkill for a small off-grid cabin, and only a lunatic would take it camping. But so far I generally like it. We'll see how it holds up over time.

The only way I can give my opinion is to just base it on my preferred method of using a jackery product. The application for the 2000plus is in an RV to act as a bridge between other power sources. Most RVs are equipped with some kind of inverter to provide 120v ac current. The RV motor batteries are DC and inverted over to 120v typically using 1500 watt - 2000 watt type inverter. While I am driving down the road I use the inverter 120v power to charge the jackery battery. Essentially free power provided by my RV’s engine as it is rolling down the road. A jackery is not generator by the way, it’s a battery pack. It doesn’t generate anything. You have to fill it with power from any of 3 different methods. I don’t have 3 days of straight sunlight to fill it using solar panels. 12v straight DC outlet will take at least 24 hours to top it off. I choose to use 120v ac from the inverter for charging it. When I am parked for the night or for several hours I will flip my power needs over to the jackery so as to not drain the RV batteries or fire up the diesel generator. This makes the jackery battery an ideal bridge of power for around 24 hours. Sounds good so far except for one very important detail. You can’t charge these newer larger lifePO4 units off your little 1500 - 2000 watt inverter. What you say? My 1500 watt inverter 120v won’t charge a 2000plus? Nope, it won’t. That unit needs full household current and voltage. A terrible design flaw by the engineering team. A product designed and marketed to be portable can’t be rapidly charged unless you plug into a real outlet at home. There are no automotive 12v systems out there to slap the biggest baddest inverter onto that will charge this thing. 12v can only invert to so much ac120v power and it’s not enough for the 2000plus to even recognize it as an input. I have no interest in laying out a solar farm that has a bigger footprint than my RV either. So the way the math works out at best, you drain your jackery battery in a day or so, then you can’t use it until you slow charge it back up again with the 12v cigarette lighter for at least a day. The older units had the power brick and barrel plugs that teamed up nicely with inverter 120v. They could top off the battery while you were driving and when you shut down you had 100% to use throughout the night. My 6000 watt diesel generator on the RV uses a 3cyl kabota tractor engine to supply the RV with 20amp pass through shore power during extended boondocks. The 2000plus still won’t even recognize the ac120v input direct from the generator. So in conclusion it was RMA’d. I won’t buy another Jackery until they either go back to the power brick and barrel plug option for charging or provide a more realistic ac charging firmware update. I don’t need clean solar energy jammed down my throat either nor do I care to have to use some buggy app to enable certain features to use it.

I did my homework for about two months and shipped for many battery units such as this . The Jackery is and has been rated as possibly the best units on the market . This Jackery 2000 plus is a very wonderful unit , well constructed , very easy to set up and easy to operate . I got the extra 2000 battery unit and it sets on top like shown in photos . I did not get the solar panels ,instead I got a small gas or propane generator to charge the battery plus . I set the gas generator on the porch and fully charge the Jackery in about 2 hours . Then I shut down the generator and bring the gas generator in the garage . This is a no brainer and I don't have to worry in case someone got tempted to steal solar panels . I am very very satisfied with this setup .

Used for the first time today during 5.5 hour power outage. Was so excited to have been “prepared.” It didn’t and doesn’t work!