Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus + Manual Transfer Switch, LiFePO4 Battery Home Backup System, up to 12kWh Portable Power Station with Add-on Battery Packs, Expandable for Home Backup

This review is for the 2000 Plus with single expansion battery, or a system with roughly 4k kilowatt hours capacity.Let's get the bad news out of the way right up front: This thing is big, heavy, expensive and it will NOT fully replace your gas generator if you are out of power for a week. Nor can it run even a small window A/C for any meaningful length of time.What it will do, with one expansion battery, is run your fridge, internet, coffee pot, microwave and a few lights SILENTLY for about a day or so. No need to pull out the generator, gas it up, and endure that miserable lawn mower droning all day and night just to keep your food from spoiling. No worrying about aggravating the neighbors with the noise. In fact, no need for the gas generator at all unless you are having a multi-day outage. And it provides nice clean power with no risk to your electronics.Now suppose you are on day two without power and this thing is just about flat. Well, just pull out your generator in the middle of the day, run it a few hours and you will have this thing fully charged and ready to go for another full day. Yes, you still need that loud generator. But not endlessly, and not all night when you are trying to sleep. And your limited supply of gas for the generator is now being used much more efficiently, kind of like a hybrid car, so you will be able to store a bit less gas or bump along like this a lot longer than if you were trying to run the generator almost constantly.Now, in theory, you could recharge this thing with solar panels and never need a gas generator at all. But do the math and you will find that you probably aren't doing that. The battery is just too big. You are not going to be keeping this thing charged with a couple of small portable solar panels in your backyard, and the marketing that suggests you are is a bit deceptive. Back of the envelope, just the main unit would need 400 watts worth of panels in ideal conditions. Add on one expansion battery and now you are at 800 watts minimum in ideal conditions. And what about when it is cloudy? Even more panels will be needed then. You are looking at something more like a small rooftop solar system to keep this thing reliably topped off in the real world, assuming you are using it for home backup power.Now if you are going to try and pull some solar power into it, there is a very nice feature of this system, that is not getting much attention in the on-line reviews I've seen. You can unplug the expansion battery, which is much smaller and easier to carry, and carry it out into the yard and connect it up to your portable solar panels directly, leaving the larger system back in the house to keep the loads running while it recharges separately.Unfortunately, there is currently no way to tell the system - please use up the portable expansion battery first. Instead, the system initially drains the main battery and only when it is down to about 15% capacity starts to draw significantly from the second battery. Maybe that will get fixed with an app update. It seems odd that they went to all of the trouble and cost of putting a second charge controller in the expansion battery and then didn't fully enable the user control necessary to use it in the most logical way.Speaking of the app, that is definitely not a gimmick, it is incredibly useful to be able to pick up the phone and see how much power you have left at a glance. Even better is the fact that you don't even need to be at home to check what is going on with it, assuming your internet is still working. I like that it also has redundant bluetooth connection to the app so that even if there is no internet you can still connect your phone to it.When used for what it is really intended for, home power backup, the main luxury this provides is QUIET. I also like that it uses the safer, more durable, iron phosphate batteries that are likely to last for years. It is kind of an intermediate step between just having a gas generator and the much more expensive backup solutions like a whole house generator, rooftop solar system, etc. and it goes with you when you move.Yes, it is expensive. But once you throw away all the food in your chest freezer once, you start looking at the cost of home backup power a little differently. If you understand the limitations of this product, that it isn't some panacea that will free you from the grid indefinitely, it can make power outages a lot less disruptive and unpleasant. It is likely overkill for a small off-grid cabin, and only a lunatic would take it camping. But so far I generally like it. We'll see how it holds up over time.

I purchased the Explorer 2000 Plus with 2 - 2000 Plus expansion batteries, 2 - 200 watt solar panels and a manual transfer switch. Although it was purchased through Amazon the shipping came directly from Jackery via FedEx. Amazon’s tracking of the delivery was way off (odd in my experience) but FedEx was spot on and it came a week + earlier than anticipated. Instructions were good but not great but the connections and such were straight forward and easy. The cables are the real deal! I felt like I was working with gear designed by NASA! Great choice for my needs and I will be adding expansion batteries later when I can save for them. They are expensive!

Panels easily mounted on the metal roof. Charged the unit with my house electric before moving to the barn. Panels keep up fine with maintaining. Runs lights, small tv, power tool battery charge, radio and misc power tools when needed. Absolutely love it. Only thing it could have used was longer tether cords to panels. Had to buy 30’ wire separately.

Easy to use! My husband and I highly recommend the Explorer 2000 Plus and then based on your needs, you can connect additional units to it for more power. The Jackery website has a helpful calculator to determine how many units you need.

I bought this due to frequent power outages. We recently needed.to use it, and wow!It powered my well pump, my freezer and my living space for 2 days!Once power came back on, it charged back up in less than 3 hours for everything. Have not used the solar yet, but it's ready as well.

I'm on oxygen at night and wanted a backup if the power failed, so I bought these.They are big and take up a lot of storage room, but that would be worth it if they would run longer. I plugged in a small (14"x12") blowing heater to see how much I would get out of one battery. ONLY 2 HOURS! It was fully charged. $4000.00 later.... I'm disappointed, to say the least.

You are on the right track!This is one of the best decisions I have made!It powers my entire home.

The Jackery 2000 is pivotal to our overland trips. This power bank keeps our food in our cooler perfect for days off grid. This also helps us keep all of our devices charged up and ready to use. We are even able to use a blow dryer off grid. Jackery is awesome!