The EF ECOFLOW RIVER 3 could be your go-to portable power station for home and outdoor adventures on a budget, with reliable power in a small package. Weighing under 8 pounds and about the size of a small toaster, the RIVER 3 is a breeze to carry, whether you’re packing for a weekend hike or storing for emergencies.
Its 245Wh lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery powers phones, laptops or even a mini fridge. With a 300W standard output and 600W surge capacity via ECOFLOW’s X-Boost technology, it can handle 90% of household devices. In tests, it ran a 25W fan for almost 10 hours and charged a smartphone over 20 times with ease.
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EF ECOFLOW Portable Power Station RIVER 3, 245Wh LiFePO4 Battery Power Station, 300W Up to 600W AC...
- [Industry-leading GaN Technology] With groundbreaking X-GaNPower, RIVER 3 revolutionizes energy efficiency, delivering double runtime for appliances...
- [1 Hour Fast Charging] Fast AC charging from 0-100% in 1 hour with X-Stream technology. No adapter required, only one cable is needed for charging. Or...
- [Power up to 600W Appliances] Equipped with 6 outlets, charge 6 devices at once with an AC output of 300W. Power up to 600W heating devices using...
The RIVER 3’s design is tough and practical, with a solid handle that feels like a lunchbox for rough conditions. Its IP54 rating means it’s splash and dust resistant and the fire-retardant shell withstood a 3.3-foot drop test without a hitch. Built to last, it has 3,000 charge cycles – about 10 years of daily use before it drops to 80% capacity. A 5-year warranty gives you confidence for long term use.
Charging speed is what sets the RIVER 3 apart. It goes from 0 to 100% in about an hour from a wall outlet, faster than most. For off-grid use, it can take up to 110W of solar input and fully charge in about 2.5 hours in ideal sunlight. A car charger cable included takes about 3 hours to fully charge. In a camping test, a 45W solar panel kept it powered, running a phone and Bluetooth speaker for two days of partly cloudy weather. With AC, solar, car or gas generator charging options, it’s ready for any situation, from home to the wilderness.
The ECOFLOW app makes it easy to control with an intuitive interface. Connect via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and you can monitor battery levels, adjust charging speeds and set custom power limits. In a home UPS test, the app enabled “always-on” mode for the AC outlet, so a tankless water heater ran during a mock outage. Real-time data like charge status and runtime estimates makes power planning a breeze, especially off-grid.
As a home backup, the RIVER 3 is an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) with a 20ms switchover, fast enough to keep routers, modems or desktops running during outages. In testing it powered a Wi-Fi router and security camera for over 30 hours. It’s whisper quiet – under 30dB – so it won’t disturb homes or campsites, unlike noisy gas generators. For sensitive equipment like high-end servers the RIVER 3 Plus with a 10ms switchover might be a better fit.
Gallium nitride (GaN) technology means low wattage devices, like a 3W LED light or Wi-Fi router can run twice as long than on older stations. That said, RIVER 3 has 5 outlets: 1 three prong AC, 1 two prong AC, 2 USB-A, 1 USB-C, 1 DC car charger output. It covers most of your device needs. The front facing ports are user friendly and the clear LCD display shows battery percentage, input/output watts and runtime at a glance.
At $239, the RIVER 3 is cheaper than the Jackery Explorer 240 v2 ($249) as well as the Anker SOLIX C300 ($289) and has faster charging and better app. Its LiFePO4 battery’s durability and ECOFLOW’s quality reputation add value. One caveat: it’s not for powering entire RVs or high wattage appliances for hours but more so small electronics, outdoor adventures or as a short term home backup.
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1 Comment
I have the River 2 which I use as a UPS for my CPAP while doing over-the-road truck driving (not my preferred line of work, but anyway…). It works pretty well, although its capacity (which is about 10Wh higher than the R3) is just barely enough to get through the night with the roughly 40W average draw of the CPAP. To alleviate this issue, I have been using it in pass-through mode so it charges at the same time as it’s supplying power.
I’ve only had two real problems with it. The first was the included 12V charge cord melting down at the cigarette jack because it apparently wasn’t up to handling the 8-10A the River 2 tries to pull by default. The draw can be controlled via the app (down to 4A), but I wasn’t aware it was an issue until too late. I’d already had the River 2 for some years at the point I started doing this, so I didn’t even bother trying to get the cord replaced under warranty.
The second issue was discovered as a result of trying to deal with the first. The tractor I drive has a 1,500W inverter which drives a microwave just fine, but the R2 will not charge from it – you can hear relay clicking over and over again. I don’t have the time nor knowledge necessary to truly confirm this, but I strongly suspect the R2 wants a “pure sine wave” AC input to charge from, but the truck’s inverter just doesn’t quite make it smooth enough to please the R2 so it refuses to charge from it. It charges just fine from wall AC at home.
Fortunately, I CAN charge the R2 from USB-C PD. I have chargers for both 12V and 110V AC that work fine in the tractor, and will make the R2 happy enough to charge from (fairly rapidly from the AC charger, should I need it). If the R2’s USB-C port goes, I’m screwed (until I can get a replacement 12V cord, I guess).
I hadn’t used/installed the app due to resenting the obvious data collection (but I am a bit defeatist about it at this point), and the fact my usage was so basic not really needing it until the 12V cord melted. It CAN use Bluetooth as well, but I almost always had problems getting that to work consistently. I will admit the app provides some nice features, and they regularly update it – including adding features occasionally. I had to use my phone’s hotspot while on the road to get it to work.
You can also set charge limits in the app so it automatically cuts off power if it gets down to a certain percentage, and also doesn’t charge above a certain level as well. This is good for lithium batteries’ longevity, as they get damaged by being at the lower and upper ends of charge – keeping the charge around the middle third (about 33-66%) is the ideal. I do this manually for my five year-old One Plus 7 Pro phone which is still on its original battery and AccuBattery reports it still has over 80% of it’s original capacity even though I’m often failing to keep it in the safe range of charge – I manage to keep charges in or near the ideal range much of the time, but far from always (fall asleep while it’s charging, for example). Since the batteries in the River 2 (and now 3) are LiFePO4, I’m not sure how much this helps vs the phone’s Li-ion batteries, but since the “Li” in both means “lithium,” I’m assuming they provided that feature for a reason and so it does help. Hopefully I can help prevent the R2 from becoming needlessly premature e-waste using it.
All in all, while not perfect, I’m generally happy with the device as it does what it needs to do to ensure I get the absolutely essential sleep I need for my job. I recommend using the app to lower the default charge rates to the lowest you can put up with for safety’s sake – particularly for the 12V cord, but otherwise it’s a good device that I’d buy again.