It’s summer, and you know what that means—weather-related power outages are coming soon. I’m not too bothered by power outages anymore, though, thanks to my home backup battery. Prime Day is a great time to get a deal on one of our favorite power stations, the Jackery 2000 Plus. This power station will keep your fridge and other essential power needs going even when the electric company can’t.
Jackery
Explorer 2000 Plus
This was once the top pick in our guide to the best portable power stations. It’s since been dethroned by the Bluetti Elite 300, which packs more power into a smaller form factor, but the Bluetti is $200 more, even on sale, and it’s not expandable like the Jackery. The Jackery 2000 Plus remains an excellent system, and at this price it trumps everything else we’ve tested.
The biggest advantage the Jackery has over most competitors in this space is that you can double or triple the 2,042-watt-hour capacity by adding additional battery packs. In our testing, the actual capacity consistently matched up with Jackery’s claims, and it had no problem powering 3,000-watt devices (like an electric kettle). The 2000 Plus can be charged up quickly via a wall socket, but if you do lose power for an extended period of time (or if you want to take it camping) it also works as a solar generator. We were able to charge it about 70 percent in a single day with Jackery’s SolarSaga 200-watt solar panel.
As with any power station, the fan does run a good bit (we measured the sound at about 30 decibels), and it’s not light—it tops 62 pounds on the scale. The indented handles on either side help with carrying, but most of the time you’ll want to use the wheels.
We don’t have many complaints, though the covers on the carport, inputs, and expansion port on the back are annoyingly tight (like pry them open with a screwdriver tight), and the Wi-Fi connection is 2.4 GHz only. Quibbles aside, this is a great power station to serve as a home backup or off-grid generator. The warranty is three years, but you can extend it to five years by registering with Jackery.
We’ve spotted a few other Jackery deals worth considering, though please note we have not tested each of these products like the Explorer 2000 Plus—the brand’s reputation is solid, however, and we have never tested a Jackery product we had serious issues with.