The Portable Power Station You Want for Your Off-Grid Adventures

That’s more than enough to drive an amplifier and a small PA system for the couple of hours that I needed, and with way less hassle. Not having to groggily fight to start up a gas motor and then compete with its relentless drone and inhale its fumes while chipper, fit runners streamed past me would have been glorious.

Power Up, Power Down

The Power 2000 is made, in part, to keep your DJI drones in the air. With its two proprietary Smart DC (SDC) ports, it can quickly charge some, but not all, of DJI’s flying cameras. I didn’t have such a drone to test, but The Verge found last year that the Power 1000’s SDC port could get a DJI Air 3 battery up to full capacity in less than an hour. I’d assume slightly better performance here, as the Power 2000’s ports improve on those of its predecessor, offering the same voltage but output at 12 amps instead of 10. Per The Verge, you’ll need to buy an SDC cable that’s specific to the drone you’re charging.

Those ports aren’t just for powering drones. You can use them, either individually or in tandem, to charge the Power 2000 itself, although DJI doesn’t include any of the adapters necessary for that. If you want to charge it from your car’s 12-volt DC outlet (or its cigarette lighter, if you’re old like me), you’ll need a $49 cable. To power it via solar panels, you need a $59 DJI MPPT adapter module, which can accommodate up to three solar panels; that’s something you’ll want if you hope to recharge the battery at more than a snail’s pace.

See DJI Power 2000 at Amazon

Grid power is the fastest way to charge the Power 2000—DJI says that it can go from 0 to 80% in 55 minutes and to full in about 90 minutes. When the power station arrived with a 36% charge, it only took about 35 minutes to fill from the wall plug in my office. During that time, the battery’s internal fan kicked on, quiet enough that I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t home alone. After draining it completely, it took 90 minutes to get it to 82 percent, and another 30 or so to top off, so quite a bit longer than DJI’s estimate.

The slower-than-promised charging time could be explained by a snag I hit during that session: while checking the DJI Home app as it finished, there was an “AC input over frequency” error notification at the top of the page. Tapping the notification took me to DJI’s support site, where a message said that page didn’t exist. Some Googling took me to a DJI list of error codes and solutions, but its recommendation—to try another outlet—didn’t help. I asked the company about the error, and DJI senior product specialist Donovan Davis suggested in an email that I hold the AC button down for 10 seconds to change its frequency. In the U.S., 60Hz is the standard electrical frequency, but sure enough, I seemed to have accidentally put the Power 2000 in 50Hz mode, denoted by “AC50Hz” on its display. Holding the button down was an easy fix, but DJI’s support documentation sure didn’t help me get there. Fully recharging it after this change took about 90 minutes.

As for the DJI Home app, it’s a nice addition to the package. With it, you can connect to the Power 2000 over Bluetooth to view its current power input and output for each port, as well as an estimate of the time it has until it’s either charged or depleted, depending on where you’re looking. You can also peek at past notifications like error codes, update the battery’s firmware, and tweak a few general settings. The app supports multiple devices and, of course, has a link out to DJI’s store so you can buy more stuff.

So let’s talk about what I put the Power 2000 through. Its first test was inflating and deflating an air mattress with a built-in 60-watt blower. That didn’t even make a dent in the battery percentage, which remained at 100% afterwards. Next, I plugged in my Fender Blues DeVille amplifier, a large, four-speaker amp that drew between 90 and 140 watts over the 20 minutes I played at the loudest volume I was willing to endure. That dropped the battery to 95%—encouraging results if I want to play for 6 hours straight, but I wasn’t straining the battery, yet.

The real test involved running it as close as I could to 3,000 watts continuously, to see if DJI’s claim that it can do so holds up. I tried a hair dryer and two space heaters first, which proved to be too much, pushing it to 3,300 watts. It lasted just 20 seconds before shutting off, but it’s likely because I had exceeded the maximum 25-amp output of the device, as Davis confirmed to me in his email that the Power 2000 has the same peak 4,400-watt output as the Power 1000, despite that not being listed in DJI’s specs.

All the Ports You Could Want

Companies that make batteries like these love an absurd chart to brag about what you can get out of them. Here are some examples of the number of charges or hours of operation the Power 2000 is good for, from the press materials DJI shared with Gizmodo:

• Mobile phone: 114 charges
• Wi-Fi Router: 152 hours
• Laptop: 18 charges
• Car refrigerator: 38 hours
• Rice cooker: 2.4 hours
• Electric chainsaw: 56 minutes

Take those numbers as the vague estimates they are, but the point is you’ll get a lot more out of it than your average pocketable power bank. The Power 2000 manages that with four USB-C ports (two 140-watt and two 65-watt) and four 24-watt USB-A ports. Davis said those numbers are per-port, rather than being combined like you’d find in many USB wall chargers. You’ll also find four AC outputs, three of which are U.S.-standard three-prong grounded outlets and one four-prong one, like you’d plug an electric clothes dryer into (though it’s rated for 125 volts, not the 220 volts offered by such an outlet in your home). Between the USB-C and AC outputs, you’ll find a digital display that shows you the current battery percentage, output or input wattage, how long until it’s charged or discharged, and other helpful info.

That’s obviously all super useful if you’re on a camping trip and don’t want to keep track of various power banks or split time with others using the measly couple of outlets you might find at a campsite. The Power 2000 can also function as an uninterruptible power supply, or UPS—essentially a battery backup in the event of a power outage—if you plug it into your wall and then connect a computer or something into one of its AC ports. It goes into UPS mode automatically in that event, passing power through to your device until it detects a loss of power at the wall, at which time DJI says it will switch over to providing its own power within 0.01 seconds.

The DJI Power 2000 can function as a home battery backup. For that, you can string together as many as 10 of DJI’s $899 expansion packs, for a total of 22,528Wh of capacity, the company says.

So how portable is this thing? Well, the Power 2000 sure ain’t light at 49 pounds. Still, that’s less than half the 111 pounds of the first 3,000-watt gas generator I found on Home Depot’s website, and it’s in line with the weight of other, similar generators like the EcoFlow Delta 2 Max. Its sturdy handles make transportation easy if you can lift the weight, but going more than a few feet would be rough without mechanical assistance (i.e. a cheap folding luggage hand truck) or a second person. If you’re willing to pony up another $1,000, you could buy DJI’s Power 2000 combo pack that ships with a hand truck and expansion battery.

Rugged and Heavy, but Portable

The Power 2000 feels very well-constructed, but there are things to note about its durability in inclement weather: DJI lists its operating range as between 14 and 113 degrees Fahrenheit, while its recharging temperature range bottoms out at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. DJI makes no claims about its dust resistance, but given the large heat vent on the side, that’s no surprise.

Also, while DJI writes in its original press release announcing the Power 2000 that it is designed for “safer operation in rain, condensation, and salt spray conditions,” a footnote on its product page reads: “To ensure product performance, do not operate the power station [sic] a rainy environment for more than 3 minutes, in a condensation environment for more than 30 minutes, or in a salt fog environment for more than 8 hours. Avoid exposing it to condensation or salt fog for extended periods.”

On the plus side, the Power 2000’s LFP battery chemistry means it’s safer and longer-lasting than a lithium-ion battery would be—according to DJI’s product page, the device won’t explode if the batteries are punctured. DJI also says drops or impacts won’t result in open flames. Finally, the Power 2000 has built-in shutoff mechanisms that trigger if it gets too hot or is being driven beyond its capability, like when I plugged in one too many space heaters.

Great to Have, If You Can Stomach the Price

The only bummer about devices like these is they don’t come cheap. DJI’s suggested retail price for the Power 2000 is $1,899, although Davis assured me that $1,299 is a “long-term promotion” and that it’s the price “customers can expect to continue paying” on DJI’s website. Even at $1,299, DJI Power 2000 is spendy, but it’s priced closer to competing devices like the $1,099 Bluetti Elite 200 V2 or the $1,049 EcoFlow Delta 2 Max, and cheaper than the $2,199 Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus.

Still, that doesn’t make the portable power station an easier pill to swallow, especially since you can get a lot of the same benefit by picking up the cheaper Power 1000, priced at $699 as of this writing. The extra $600 for the Power 2000 gives you double the port count, twice the capacity, and a higher continuous output rating, which isn’t nothing. But a $15 power strip can easily make up for those missing ports. Ultimately, whether you should pick up the Power 2000 comes down to whether you feel you need its extra capacity and capability—and maybe whether you’re a big DJI drone enthusiast. If that’s you, the DJI Power 2000 won’t disappoint. This is as good as large power banks get, and it’s certainly nicer than huffing exhaust fumes.

See DJI Power 2000 at Amazon