Price: $209.00
(as of Jul 08, 2024 11:42:00 UTC – Details)
From the brand …
Customers say
Customers like the battery, versatility, portability, quality, and power of the electricity generator. For example, they mention it gets 3 nights of power while camping without a recharge, it’s handy for helping out fellow campers, and it’ll provide power for your electronic devices.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Auntimom –
Powerful, portable and easy to use for everyday use in my vehicle and car camping.
I’ve been a car camper most of my life. And, those adventures have usually taken me and friends off road so there’s no convenient electricity to power all our devices. My first solution was to install a Marine Battery in the diamond plate tool box mounted on a cargo carrier inserted in the trailer hitch. This battery was recharged through wiring to the alternator. Worked beautifully, supplied all the power I needed, but I couldn’t take it with me on the trail.Needing to upgrade my vehicle recently, I decided to see what was available for ‘portable’ power, for those trips away from my vehicle rather than install the Marine Battery again. It didn’t take me long to discover the plethora of choices available in portable batteries made for all of us who enjoy the outdoors or need extra power on the patio while we’re BBQing.I studied for some time as there were many features of these new battery packs that one must consider for their particular needs. I wanted a unit with the greatest capacity I could find that also could be recharged through some kind of solar system, as our group is usually 2-6 people, all with iPhones, iPads and cameras. The other purpose I had for the battery was to power a small 12V fan inside my vehicle to keep my doggies cool during the warmer weather. (Yes, the windows are also open).After reading lots of reviews, I chose the Jackery Explorer 500 and will be adding the companion Portable Solar System for next summer’s hikes. So far the Explorer 500 has more than surpassed our hopes of a well performing and adequate power source. I’ve been using it with the grand kids devices on short trips and for the doggie fan and it has been excellent. We’ve taken it to our primitive cabin, which has no electricity yet, but has our solar panels installed, and the Explorer 500 took care of our device needs all weekend.We are extremely delighted with Jackery’s Explorer 500 and feel we have yet to know it’s true capacity! If you need a lot of power then the Jackery Explorer 500 is the Model to choose. If not, Jackery has two smaller capacity units that are sure to please. I understand that an Explorer 300 is coming out in March as well!Rugged, durable, great capacity and performance, reasonably priced, super customer service! What more could you ask for??? Enjoy Jackery!JANUARY 2020 UPDATE: After purchasing this terrific Power Station from Jackery, I received a very personalized email from them asking how I was enjoying the unit and was there any questions they could answer. As you can see from my initial review, I’ve been extremely happy, even impressed with the easy of use and functionality of this unit. Knowing that I was a very satisfied customer, they asked if I’d be kind enough to write a detailed review.Within hours after my submission, I received a surprise email from the Jackery Team, thanking me for my honest review and was rewarded (which I had no idea was coming my way), with two unbelievable gifts: A Jackery Bar 6000mAh portable charger and A Jackery Giant+ 12000mAh portable charger!!! Pics are coming.Folks, Most sellers send us prewritten but sincere ‘thank yous’ for our purchases, nicely printed discount cards for our next purchase or, if we’re lucky, perhaps a small physical token of appreciation. As a previous business owner myself, I can see that the Jackery Team have done their customer relations and marketing homework very well. To receive such high quality gifts as a bonus to my purchase is unprecedented! I honestly don’t see how you can go wrong with Jackery’s outstanding products and top notch customer service. Do yourself a BIG Favor and give them serious consideration if your in the market for these kinds of products!
Bob –
Great Unit With Solid Technical Support
After seeing videos of the build quality and repairability of the Jackery power stations, plus the reported great technical support, I decided to give the Explorer 500 a try. I got mine for $425 shipped on sale, so really $400 before tax if you consider the weight of the package and what it costs to ship. That works out to about 80 cents a watt which is about as cheap as you can get.I charged it for a while using the wall charger and in my car as well while driving around. It charges fine on the car’s unregulated 12v power. I tested the inverter overload protection on a small fridge and that worked as expected. No need to perform a reset of the unit following the overload protection trip. The inverter uses between 5 and 6 watts when operating, which is normal. This revised version only turns on the inverter cooling fan when needed based on the wattage you’re drawing. That’s nice and saves a little power as well.Charging phones and other devices via USB works as expected. I’m not able to test the 12vDC barrel plug output but I’m confident that is working fine as well.Where I started having issues was using a 60w Top Solar Jackery clone solar panel. 60w panels do not provide enough wattage for the charge controller to calibrate the source and start charging. I tried in full sun with an 18.5vDC input voltage directly from the panels and I also tried re-connecting the panels to the charge port and a Jackery reset. Nothing worked.That being said, the Top Solar 60w panel did in fact charge a Jackery Explorer 240 I tested with, and would draw as little as 7 watts when in indirect shade once it got started. So the minor caveat is the larger Jackery units require more power up front to start charging. Which is understandable as bigger battery packs require more amperage to keep the voltage up high enough to allow the cells themselves to begin charging. I also tested charging from a bench power supply at 18.5vDC and got the Explorer 500 to charge at 2A before the voltage started dipping down to 13vDC once I upped the current limit to beyond 2A due to the cables I was using.So then I tried the Top Solar 100w panel and had no problems at all. The Explorer 500 was able to charge from that and pull 40w in the low evening sun. I also reached out to Jackery support on the details of charging the Explorer 500 on a 60w panel and they gave me some amperage numbers and were pretty helpful. The only thing I would advise is get a 100w panel to charge the Explorer 500, smaller ones will not work. Not a fault of the solar panel or the Jackery. Just the nature of the batteries and the minimum charge current they need per cell, as the bigger units simply have more lithium cells.Otherwise a fantastic, solid product with great, responsive technical support at a good value.
SWINCAN –
 A group of us guys wanted to get the perfect gift for our camping and outdoor enthusiast friend and we landed on this for a multitude of reasons. First off, the build and quality feels very commercial grade and able to withstand some good usage. The design is rugged yet aesthetically looks modern and contemporary but clearly it means business given how many multiple output and charging options it has. The backlit screen is clear and shows all essential information such as charge and discharge rates, battery state of charge and etc. Check out the video for the unit walk around and how it looks up close. Given what it can handle, it’s still incredibly portable (very solid weight to power ratio) and easy to move around with no nonsense exterior bits to break off or anything protruding.One of the main reasons we sprung for this is its ability to be paired with a solar panel to charge it in that way – this is an option that is only available on higher end units. For those who are true camping off the grid for an extended period of time this is essential and lets you not have to draw from your vehicles power. The solar charging, as expected, is the longest method in charging which brings me to the next point – it’s ability for pass through charging which renders that not as significant. I didn’t find that stated as much until I found out, but it’s a feature that not every unit has but one that’s very important. You needn’t have it at full charge or off charge to be able to use it because you can power devices while that’s happening. Basically you can be charging the power station with a solar panel and at the same be charging all your other goods – it’s a bigger deal than one would think. Pro tip: you’ll get fantastic performance through the 12v port so if you have the option to, get items that use that as its source. The reason for this is that the 12v port has a boost regulator, which means that no matter what state the batter is in (even if it’s low) it’ll still output the same power no matter what which is something many solar generators does not do.The usefulness of something of this grade is pretty endless. My partner got it confused with looked to be a similar product at costco but if you know your stuff, the specs are exponentially different – the 500 watts is continuous power (with a 1000 peak) so it can pretty much power any steady device. Aside from the most obvious of devices you’d want to power (laptop, phones, tablets, etc), the list just goes on – electric blankets, specific fridges, tool batteries, fans, grills, tvs, video consoles, small blenders, pumps, small heaters an even a cpap machine and a e scooter! In operation it’s quiet with barely a hum and using the volt adapter will turn on the cooling fan. Even more hard to please electronics we’ve randomly plugged in have been fine, and we’ll test in the future with an oscillator and update.Aside from camping use, he’ll be bringing this to the burning man festival to use full time in his adventure roadtrip van so that’s quite a bonus. He can now ditch having to lug around liters of gas or a big watt inverter generator making the entire experience that much more eco conscious not to mention lightening the load. Additionally, while it’s great for the big events, this is going to get a lot of use for a wide range of regular every day events such as tailgate partys, roadtrip and just general outdoor excursions. It’s even great to have around for emergency purposes. We have a very satisfied recipient and we’re glad such a product exists – highly recommend!
W Robert Franklin –
At the right price its a good bit of kit. Has not lost any charge in a month.
Number06 –
Have been using the 250w for 5 months and 500w for 2 months. They have been for the most part workhorses but I sense the 250w is beginning to dwindle in power (overall)..There are two flaws I have encountered thus far.1. When running my cooler at times the unit(s) will shut off…typically at night when i am not watching. The cooler needs a constant draw of power so I not only am confused by this but it ain’t good for my food.2. Sometimes I have plugged in the 500w to my solar charger and it won’t acknowledge being plugged in. I have to re-plug it in, sometimes more than once. Note this isn’t an issue with the 250w so to my mind it isn’t the solar panel. A glitch in the 500w.Improvement: I would like two plug-ins. Found myself wanting on that.
Denis Drainville –
Following a recent power failure (17 hours) I was able to power my fire place in the basement with no issues. Love the USB ports and the 120 plug in. The display is awesome and unit is very user friendly. I would definitely recommend
Joan S –
I use the exployer 500. It can run my TV and pvr for at least 10 plus hours. Depends on if you are taping a lot of shows. In 4 days I only used 1 and half gallons of gas in my regular generator for larger power items. I bought the 300 for my husband to use with his cpap. He can get 3 nights 9-10 hours a night not using the mist. 1 and half if uses mist. Plus charges our phones on it overnight. One summer and units paid for itself by us using 1/4 gas which of course helped the environment and our pocket book. We used a 40 watt solar panel which was ok but not large enough to recharge to 100 percent in a day so we just purchased a 100 watt panel and it works perfect. All set for another camping season. You cannot go wrong with this product my only concern is the pricing, if pricing was to come down I would love to experience the 1500 or 2000. Just not in my budget being seniors.