I wish I had that this winter as my power went out like 4 times
Something Big is Coming 👀
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Who needs a $1200 battery??
Anyone?? 
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Now it’s announced…
I was aware of this 6 months ago before the specs became fixed. There was a survey showing a few options.
My take:
- There’s no evidence of user serviceable parts. e.g. if the DC-AC fails a swappable part. As it’s heavy it’s expensive to post back to process a warranty.
- how does warranty work? They will send a replacement and let you keep the dud? They pay for postage back?
- from what countries can you post back?
- why I’d not buy one is the SPOF (Single Point of Failure) of the design. If I were to spend $1200 and when I needed to rely on it , and it failed, a warranty won’t get you out of trouble. So I solve the power needs via having appliances which tolerate power outage and devices which can keep working on low Watts and I have multiple smaller powerbanks and multiple solar panels.
- it’s one thing to say they use reliable components, but they don’t say how many can fail. e.g. if one cell fails does the whole unit die? How many cells can die before unit fails? Normally you have a parallel set of series cells and when a cell in a series does the series fails, e.g. 10 parallel means one failed cell loses 10% capacity. I wasn’t consulted on the electronic design so I can’t advise how well it will last with components failure.
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I really think im missing something with these PowerHouse units 
I know a PowerHouse is silent and no doubt more environmentaly friendly (manufacturing carbon footprint figures?) but if you need long term power, a generator is still the most cost effective option that easy and cheap to run.
If short term power is the concern i would think better planning is key with a more realistic outlook on what is important to keep running during outages.
Hyundai, and many other brands, now produce some fantastic quiet running petrol generators at 45cm square and produce upwards of 3kw/14amp using under a litre of juice per hour for £400/$520.
These are suitable for home use, can run forever, waterpoof, pumps out stable regulated power and are camp site friendly.
They might arouse suspicion if a zombie apocalypse strikes, but you’ll see them coming with the amount of light you can produce, right?
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Environmental?
The unit has a carbon footprint of manufacture, shipping, use, disposal.
E.g. if you relied on it a few times, the pollution of its manufacturing and shipping exceeds if , say, you just ran your car as a power source instead, as the car was caused to exist primarily as transport but has a power generator secondary use.
You don’t need electrical capacity as much as you need cooking capacity. The latter can be done without fumes via an alcohol stove (UK “meths” USA “denurated alcohol”). Longer outages tend to need to boil water.
Then what is the nature of the outage? Is it something you have to WALK out of? So carrying this. If you’re driving out of it then your car is a charger with a generator and some shelter depending on the vehicle type.
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I’m getting an error message with the video. Not sure if anyone else is
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Those generators are normally simply constructed machines, easy to service.
This is very important.
The more technique, the more failure. 
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Exactly my point @professor it would be good to know.
I would guess less than a fuel powered generator over time, depending on how much use you have for such a device.
The greater the need the less a battery becomes the solution.
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Non-serviceability makes it a horrendous environmental cost. One SPOF fails the entire unit is bricked.
The serviceability needs communicating for intelligent people to see before deciding if they are buying a $1200 brickable device.
Your laptop battery fails, it’s a slide-out replacement or a screwdriver job following a video guide. Your laptop screen cracked its a screwdriver job. It’s only if say the main PCB fails is it a probable brick but even then possibly an engineer calibre person can fix it.
This Powerhouse will comprise a case, are the screws easily undone? No glue? Earlier Powerhouse teardowns shown it broke the case.
Are there swappable components within? Can you get a diag code to know the part and get that part?
Warranty is good but who pays postage? Which countries? I assume this is USA only?
These are all the obvious questions, would have been good of Anker to get ahead of these obvious questions have answers already.
This matters most for this item as it’s something people are expecting, relying on, to work. Warranty is useful but not the entirety for items like this.
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If the frame is broken ist a glueing job. 
If all is dead, its a screwdriver job.
And at last its job to find a skilled tinkerer who can use the rest.
No memory, no SSD. in my dead T410s, but it has a pretty good battery
Nobody wants for free
We, those who like to repair things are a die out race.
Its incredible how the humans are degenerating.
PCB is the mainboard?
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I like the mention of being able to swap parts as that could help with some failure if it did happen and maybe not needing to return the whole item.
I see a circle button around the ac/dc port and the plug ins. I am wondering if that is just a light to show in use or if that is like a reset button for if there was an issue such as a power surge back to the device.
Overall, I do like the device. It is a sweet device to use for camping and RV and probably around the house for most instances.
Where I am located, it may take a few days to get my power back on. So a generator is needed for most weather conditions as my biggest concern is the refrigerator and food. So if it is able to keep the frig running for a few days great.
Where I think this would be a good companion for a generator if you know the power is going to be off for a few days is the winter. We do not run the generator when going to sleep as a precaution. So heat slowly kept dipping. So I could see running a generator in the day and then using the powerhouse to run the heaters at night and probably the frig at night then during the day use the solar panels to help gain power back.
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Is this suitable for an RV? Can it be combined in parallel?
How would this compare to having two LiFePO4 12V 100Ah batteries? It costs about the same or less than two of those.
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This unit is about portable power, if all you want to do is keep a static home powered in outages then a home system is probably a better investigation, that is mix of static solar, some batteries and a mix of grid power where when you have excess solar you get a small credit off the grid company. You’d normally size the solar to cope with average demand so over a year your bills are around zero, so in an outage you’d probably turn off less-essential items to ensure during sunshine the essential items ran and the batteries got max recharge. As such systems are not Anker I won’t link to guides and reviews.
All the RV van type experts I see have a power generator second tank in their RV / van and solar.
What this would be best for is if you wanted a truly portable power and you are moving it not far. So an apartment for example where the building doesn’t have generators.
I have two folding solar panels, 6 Powercore , a car, and I’d simply travel to away from the outage if it were longer than a couple of days. I have a fridge-freezer in the house which would warm fastest and a chest freezer in garage which would warm slower, and I just prioritise cooking that (with gas cooker and/or camping cooking) over the tinned / dried stuff I’d eat last.
One of the cheapest way to make your freezer warm slower is insulation, towels, etc just so slow the heat getting in. Very low tech. Free!
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100% @professor, on all points.
I guess this is a non servicable item. But only assuming from the claim the battery would last 8 years if cycled daily and the 5 years warranty.
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It may be true each cell will last 5 years but how many cells fail til the unit fails. It is not stated how much capacity loss until unit failure.
I’ve scrolled through the page, there’s only assertions no evidence or arguments, no way to verify their claims.
This is nearest image to a “teardown”.
Warranty doesn’t mean it won’t fail, just you’d not lose your money. I see 10x5x2 = 100 cells. So if say the chance of 1 cell failing is 1% the chance of any cell failing is 0.99% factorial 100 = 92%. If say its 20 parallel sets of 5 cells the chance of loss of capability is 0.99% factorial 5 = 15%
My advice to Anker is:
- explain how modular, which components can fail and impact on capacity til its non-functional
- show a dismantling and serviceability
- explain how warranty works. You get a next-day automatic replacement and you send dud back free of charge? Or…?
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That solar panel though…
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I would love to test this out while camping, since we do off-grid disbursed camping.
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saw this on my recommendation from google. You won’t run out of juice for awhile if you can invest in this
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Double check. The same model? You linked to a 256Wh while this thread is 1229Wh product (so about 4 times the capacity).
I wish I had bought the 26800 at £33 last deal. I feel something big is coming…
I’ll just point out that 26800 is 100Wh, and the linked product is 2.5x that capacity. So if 100Wh was £33 , 2.5x£33 is £80 so around 1/3rd £250.
Also stored energy is wasted if you move it twice. So if you drained a laptop then recharged it then drained it again to recharge, the energy is moved twice, losing typically 15%-30% in the process. But if you entered a power outage and immediately connected to a PowerHouse / PowerCore then the energy is moved once so any £££ investment works smarter for you.
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It’s a cool piece of tech but as the @professor and others have mentioned it has design flaw issues and isn’t all that environmentally friendly especially if it has a parts failure and it isn’t serviceable. Most will throw it out and not try to recycle it.
I’m looking forward to learning more about it and see if it will work for our needs.
My old gas generator that cost less than this unit and is easy to repair. My current generator is actually a throw away from my parents who left it sitting out for years and let it get nasty inside the motor. I spent less than $200 getting the engine tuned up, replaced failed parts, and was able to get it running again after a few hours. If I limit the load to just my cpap, the fridge (run it a few hours at time), and charging devices I can go 12+ hours on a single tank of gas. I currently have one generator setup in my barn that runs all my power tools and an air compressor (not all at the same time) but during a power outage it can be setup to run a few things in the house.
However, I am impressed with the power station and its potential. It can be useful in camping areas where they have no engine noise after a certain time or if you are overlanding and need generator that isn’t powered by gas. I like how fast it charges and the option to solar charge and car charge. Its going to be lighter than a standard generator and carrying just a set of solar panels and/or car charger this could be a good option for primitive camping while overlanding.
In my opinion its to expensive if the unit isn’t repairable or Anker doesn’t setup a better warranty that covers free shipping both ways if it falls while under warranty.
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