DJI Power 1000 review: with great power comes many dongles

DJI isn’t the archetypal sanction you deliberation of erstwhile it comes to big-ass batteries — rather the other since the batteries that acceptable wrong the company’s drones person to beryllium arsenic tiny and airy arsenic possible. But each that clip spent uncovering the close equilibrium betwixt weight, size, formation time, and charging speeds has prepared the institution to participate the powerfulness presumption marketplace with the $599 Power 1000 and smaller $379 Power 500. 

DJI’s attack to portable powerfulness stations is unique, I’ve learned portion investigating its flagship Power 1000. It features a almighty 2200W AC inverter that’s unheard of successful specified a tiny bundle that besides hosts a humble 1024Wh artillery made from harmless and long-lasting LFP cells. It’s besides 1 of the archetypal powerfulness stations to vessel with a brace of USB-C PD 3.1 outputs susceptible of 140W.

And to support things arsenic tiny and portable arsenic possible, it eschews different inputs and outputs you’ll find modular connected astir powerfulness stations. Instead, DJI developed a versatile “Smart DC,” oregon SDC, larboard that allows you to adhd much I/O via proprietary adapters. But those SDC ports tin besides complaint a enactment of DJI’s ain drones faster than thing other presently connected the market.

The large question I have, then, is who is this for? Just owners of compatible DJI drones oregon anyone looking to bargain a general-purpose powerfulness station?

If you privation to crook the Power 1000 into a full-featured star generator, past you’ll request to bargain tons of proprietary DJI cables. You’ll request a $59 cablegram attached to a chunky MPPT star controller if you privation to complaint the Power 1000 from the prima oregon a $49 cablegram to complaint it from your car’s 12V cigaret output erstwhile driving. You’ll besides request to bargain $22 cables if you privation to adhd 12V DC outputs to the powerfulness station. These see a car charger larboard to powerfulness things similar a portable fridge, an XT60 connector to powerfulness an RV’s lights, oregon a charger for RC aircraft. 

You’ll past request to bargain a $19 cablegram to fast-charge the Intelligent Flight Batteries from DJI’s compatible Matrice 30 series, Air 3, Mavic 3 series, oregon Inspire 3 drones. I tested my Power 1000 reappraisal portion with a DJI Air 3 due to the fact that the batteries utilized connected the different drone DJI sent maine to trial — a Mini 3 Pro — aren’t compatible with DJI’s SDC ports.

Charging the Air 3’s artillery with the Power 1000 has 1 main vantage implicit different DJI charging solutions: speed. Unfortunately, charging with the SDC cablegram is constricted to conscionable 1 artillery astatine a clip since DJI doesn’t yet connection a multi-battery charging hub compatible with DJI’s ain SDC port. You can, of course, bargain a 2nd $19 SDC cable.

In my testing, some SDC ports complaint the Air 3’s artillery astatine up to 124W, according to the show connected the Power 1000, conscionable shy of the 125W DJI quotes. However, it lone hits this max complaint charge briefly, which is to beryllium expected. Charging from 0 to 90 percent took 34 minutes, but the adjacent 10 percent took different 19 minutes, oregon 53 minutes to complaint from 0 to afloat — 9 minutes longer than the 44 minutes DJI promotes. That’s inactive amended than the 70 minutes it’ll instrumentality utilizing DJI’s 100W USB-C charger. 

I bash similar that the Power 1000 shows the real-time charging percent of the drone artillery with a precision of 2 decimal points!

DJI says its different compatible drones tin instrumentality amended vantage of Power 1000’s SDC ports. The Mavic 3 tin propulsion up to 150W, for example, portion the Inspire 3 tin gully up to 200W and the Matrice 30 bid up to 230W to easy trounce the DJI’s ain USB-C accelerated chargers. The SDC ports tin grip up to 400W of input and 240W of output.

Speaking of USB-C, DJI’s Power 1000 is 1 of the archetypal powerfulness stations to vessel with dual USB-C PD 3.1 ports supporting a max output of 140W per larboard erstwhile utilizing compatible PD 3.1 devices and cables that conscionable the Extended Power Range (EPR) specification. I was capable to corroborate with a random white-label powerfulness bank purchased from Amazon, arsenic you tin spot successful the representation above. Unfortunately, those USB-C ports are outputs only, truthful they can’t beryllium utilized to complaint the powerfulness station.

The AC inverter is awesome and specced to powerfulness astir household appliances, including microwaves, abstraction heaters, and model aerial conditioners — albeit briefly. It’s rated astatine 2200W of “stable output” oregon 2,600W for “thirty seconds.” In my testing, I managed to propulsion a dependable 2400W (using 2 hairsbreadth dryers) for astir 1 to 2 minutes earlier the portion unopen disconnected gracefully with a informing connection connected the display. I was capable to past powerfulness the hairsbreadth dryers astatine 2000W uninterrupted for a afloat 5 minutes earlier I switched them off.

Charging the Power 1000 from an AC partition jack has its ain quirks. A power connected the beforehand lets you acceptable the charging velocity astatine either 1200W oregon 600W. The instrumentality is susurration quiescent adjacent astatine that max complaint charge — I was measuring conscionable 26dB from a metre away, somewhat much than the 23dB quoted connected selling materials. DJI says it’ll complaint to 80 percent successful astir 50 minutes, oregon 70 minutes to scope 100 percent — and that’s astir precisely what I saw, positive oregon minus 2 minutes.

I should note, however, that the Power 1000 seems to person a constrictive somesthesia set for that 1200W max complaint rate. I saw it regularly throttle charging to 900W aft a dense trial session, which makes sense, but besides aft it had been conscionable sitting idle for respective hours successful a country measuring conscionable 63 degrees Fahrenheit (17 degrees Celsius).

Other observations:

If you’re a nonrecreational contented creator who already owns 1 of the DJI drones that tin instrumentality vantage of the Power 1000’s (or Power 500) accelerated charging, past there’s small crushed to look elsewhere for a caller powerfulness station, particularly if you’re lone looking to support a elemental mobile workplace charged.

But if you’re looking for an all-purpose powerfulness presumption with gobs of star input that’s acceptable for anything, past you should astir apt look elsewhere. While the Power 1000 tin surely grow its enactment of inputs and outputs acknowledgment to those versatile SDC ports, cipher wants to negociate each those dongles and hazard getting caught retired successful the outback aft losing a cablegram that’s lone sold by a azygous company. 

The Power 1000 costs $599 earlier adding immoderate SDC adapters. That’s much costly than the $499 EcoFlow Delta 2 and a small cheaper than the $650 Bluetti AC180, some of which see each the inputs and outputs you’ll request from likewise sized batteries but autumn abbreviated of DJI’s freakish quality to supply 2200W of sustained AC output.

All photography by Thomas Ricker / The Verge