As I discussed in early December, my first purchase attempt of a lithium battery-based portable power generator, Energizer’s PowerSource Pro, didn’t pan out. But I didn’t give up. In fact, as I’d alluded to in a writeup published two weeks earlier, I bought two successors, both from the same company, EchoFlow. The smaller RIVER 2 (and no, I don’t know why its marketing-anointed name is all-caps):
is what I’ll be discussing here, with coverage of its more sizeable, flexible DELTA 2 sibling saved for another day (that said, currently scheduled to arrive in your web browser shortly):
With the stock photo out of the way, here’s a shot of my particular unit fresh out of the box and on the workbench, first in overview with its SLA battery-based Phase2 Energy PowerSource 660Wh 1800-Watt Power Station precursor in the background:
And then in closeup, specifically of its front panel display during initial AC-fed charging:
I picked up the RIVER 2 from EcoFlow’s eBay store, supposedly refurbished, for $109.68 after a 20%-off promo coupon, inclusive of sales tax and with free shipping, at the beginning of September. I say “supposedly refurbished” because, in stark contrast to the Energizer PowerSource Pro Battery Generator I’d bought earlier, which was supposedly brand new but arrived in clearly pre-used condition, this one seemingly came fresh and pristine straight from the factory manufacturing line. Why? I suspect it had something to do with the fact that shortly after I bought mine, EcoFlow introduced its gen-3 devices. The RIVER 3’s incremental benefits were modest, as it turned out and at least in my typical use case, such as:
- GaN-based circuitry, resulting in even smaller dimensions than before, along with higher-efficiency (therefore cooler and quieter) operation
- Higher USB-C PD peak output power (100 W vs 60 W), and
- Faster output switching speed from direct to inverter-generated AC, thereby enabling the RIVER 3 to more robustly act as an UPS (<20 ms vs 30 ms)
Although curiously, the RIVER 3’s peak stored charge capacity decreased to 245 Wh versus the RIVER 2’s 256 Wh. My guess is that my good fiscal fortunes were due to a preparatory stealth warehouse-purging move on EcoFlow’s part.
What was my rationale for getting the RIVER 2 in addition to the more sizeable Energizer PowerSource Pro-like DELTA 2? The price tag was certainly an effective temptation. More generally, here’s what I wrote back in December:
[It] is passable for overnight camping trips in the van, for example. Or a day’s worth of drone flying. Or for powering my CPAP machine and oxygen concentrator overnight. And I can use the aforementioned 100-W portable solar panel to also recharge it during the day (albeit not at the same time as the Phase2), in conjunction with an Anderson-to-XT60i connector adapter cable.
That “aforementioned 100-W portable solar panel” is this:
which I’d covered back in September. And in the spirit of “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” (which for today I’m rephrasing as “the proof of the concept is in the pictures”), here are some shots of it hooked up to on my back deck. First, the solar panel itself:
An illuminated light means “working”:
As does this output-voltage reading:
This particular solar panel was originally intended for use with (and still works fine with) the Phase2 Energy PowerSource, whose backside includes an Anderson Powerpole PP15-45 solar charging connector:
To adapt the panel to that generator, as mentioned in more recent coverage, “required both the female-to-female DC5521 that came with the Foursun F-SP100 solar panel and a separate male DC5521-to-Anderson adapter that I bought off Amazon:”
And what about the RIVER 2? Its solar (as well as car, via an included “cigarette lighter”-source adapter cable) charging connector of choice, as mentioned in that same more recent coverage, is an orange-color XT60i:
the higher current-capable, backwards-compatible successor to the original yellow-tint XT60 used in prior-generation EcoFlow models:
So, what did I do to bridge the connection-discrepancy gap? I added yet another cable to the chain, of course:
a third-party Anderson to XT60i adapter I’d found on Amazon:
The resultant setup does indeed passably bump up the RIVER 2 battery charge, assuming there’s adequate available sunshine, although fastest charging results are unsurprisingly achieved with the RIVER 2 tethered to AC as shown earlier. To wit, by the way, my stopwatch happily confirms EcoFlow’s website claim that you can “charge 0-100% in only 60 mins”.
To the “svelte” adjective in this writeup’s title, I’ll offer the following representative specs:
- Dimensions: 9.6 x 8.5 x 5.7 inches
- Weight: approximately 7.7 lbs.
The RIVER 2 standard maximum AC-inverter power output (pure sine wave, not simulated) is 300W, and it also offers a feature branded as X-Boost Mode, which doubles the output AC power (at a reduced voltage tradeoff that not all powered devices are guaranteed to accept, albeit obviously counterbalanced by higher current) to 600W. And speaking of powered devices, what are its AC and DC power output options? I thought you’d never ask:
- Two AC (one two-prong, one three-prong with ground): 120V, 50Hz/60Hz, 300W (along with surge 600W at sub-120V, as just described), pure sine wave, not simulated
- Two USB-A DC: 5V, 2.4A, 12W max
- “Cigarette lighter” car DC: 12.6V, 8A, 100W max
- And USB-C (which does double-duty as both an output and another battery-charge input option, along with aforementioned AC and XT60i) DC: 5/9/12/15/20V 3A, 60W max
One other generational comment (adding on to my earlier gen-2 vs -3 comparisons), specifically related to the “lithium iron phosphate fuel” bit in this post’s title. First-generation EcoFlow devices were based on NMC (lithium nickel manganese cobalt) battery technology, which as I mentioned back in late November and again a few weeks later is only capable of a few hundred recharge cycles before its maximum storage capacity degrades to unusable levels in realistic usage scenarios. For gen-2 and beyond, EcoFlow switched to LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate), also known as LFP (lithium ferrophosphate), battery formulations. The comparative specs bear out the technology-transition improvements; the first-generation RIVER was guaranteed for only 500 recharge cycles, whereas with the RIVER 2 it’s 3,000. The RIVER 2 product page further elaborates and elucidates on the claimed benefits, which also include a 5 year warranty:
Safe, for up to 10 years of use.
LiFePO4 Battery Chemistry
With upgraded long-lasting LFP battery chemistry at its core, charge and empty RIVER 2 Series over 3000 times. That’s pretty much 10 years of everyday use and 6x longer than the industry average. With LFP cells, RIVER 2 Series is safe, durable, and highly efficient, even in warm temperatures.
One final note: the RIVER 2 integrates both Bluetooth and (believe it or not) Wi-Fi connectivity:
You can, for example, both monitor the status of the RIVER 2:
and over-the-air update its embedded firmware:
via a mobile-device intermediary using the company’s Android and iOS app versions.
And with that, I’ll wrap up for today. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
—Brian Dipert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Vision Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the company’s online newsletter.
Related Content
- Energizer’s PowerSource Pro Battery Generator: Not bad, but you can do better
- Experimenting with a modern solar cell
- The Energizer 200W portable solar panel: A solid offering, save for a connector too fragile
- Multi-solar panel interconnections: Mind the electrons’ directions
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