﻿Hi I’m Gidon from thetechnologyman.com. The Bluetti AC180 has two 1800W AC outlets,
super fast 1440W mains charging and a 1152Wh long lasting LiFePO4 battery.
This is a mid-sized power station - probably the best size of unit for a lot of people if
you have the funds - it’s powerful enough to run almost anything and still fairly portable. I’ll
compare it to my current favourite option in this category - the EcoFlow Delta 2.
These power stations are perfect for power cuts, camping, travel and festivals and around the house
and out and about to charge all your tech. And the AC180 can charge at up to 500W off
solar panels alone when mains isn’t available. I’ll run through its capabilities and thoroughly
test all its claims to help you decide if this is the right power station for you. So let’s take a
closer look. Overview
Inside the box you get the power station itself, the mains charging cable, a car charging cable,
a solar charging cable and the user manual. The AC180 has an 1152Wh LFP battery that supports
over 3500 charge cycles and weighs just over 16kg (16.17kg). It can just about be carried with one
hand. You can see its dimensions on screen. In Bluetti’s line-up it sits in between the 9.6kg
716Wh EB70 I reviewed recently and the massive 37kg 2000Wh AC200P I looked at last year.
Considering it’s far smaller and lighter than the AC200P it still has a generous 1800W inverter - so
is far more capable than the smaller EB70. Its headline specs are very close to the
EcoFlow Delta 2 - one of my favourite portable power stations. The Delta 2
has the same 1800W inverter but is 4kg lighter, albeit with a slightly smaller 1024Wh battery.
The AC180 is mostly constructed from a hard plastic and feels well made and a little more
premium than the EB70 - more inline with the AC200P. But like every power station
I’ve tested it has no weatherproof rating - it doesn’t even have the rubber flaps
over the mains outlets like the AC200P - so you’ll need to be careful using it outside.
Interestingly Bluetti’s new AC60 does have an IP65 weatherproof rating.
The front of the unit has the DC input for solar and car charging, an 8cm LCD screen and two 1800W
AC outlets on this UK version - the US version has 4 AC outlets. Then there’s the 12V DC car outlet,
one 100W USB-C power delivery output and 4 standard 5V 3A USB-A outputs.
There are no DC5521 outputs common on these power stations. This won’t be a loss for most
people but I did occasionally find them useful. The top of the unit has a 15W wireless charging
pad and there are rubberised carry handles either side.
The left side of the unit has an intake cooling fan and the right side has an exhaust fan, the
mains charging input, a circuit protection button and a grounding port which I’ll discuss later.
There’s nothing around the back of the unit - a floodlight would have been nice.
The unit is operated with three buttons below the LCD screen or the smartphone app.
The power button turns the unit on and a long press turns it off. The power button also toggles
the display on and off. There are separate buttons to turn on the DC and AC subsystems, which only
operate with the power station turned on. Charging
You can charge the power station via mains with the supplied mains cable,
a car outlet with the supplied car to DC 7909 cable or via solar with optional solar panels
using the MC4 to DC 7909 cable also included. I’m not a huge fan of the round DC 7909 connector
that Bluetti uses. It only supports up to 10A and isn’t widely available.
I prefer the ubiquitous XT60, but at least Bluetti provides all the cables you need.
The 100W USB-C port is only for output - you can’t charge the unit with this port like on
the EcoFlow River 2 Max for example. I’m very pleased to see direct mains
charging on the AC180 - no proprietary AC adapter like on the EB70 and AC200P.
And this unit has the fastest mains charging I’ve seen - up to 1440W according to Bluetti
with just a standard and ubiquitous IEC mains cable - often called a kettle lead in the UK.
It’s reassuring to know that even if you forget to bring the supplied cable with you, you should
be able to find a spare cable in most households. Bluetti claims the unit can charge from completely
flat to 80% in 45 minutes. In my tests it’d charged to 55% in 30 minutes, 92% after 50 minutes
with a full charge taking almost exactly one hour which is very impressive. To get the maximum 1440W
charging speeds you need to enable Turbo mode in the accompanying smartphone app. Initially,
even after enabling turbo mode I didn’t see these speeds and the first full charge took around two
hours. The unit does need to be completely cool to achieve these higher charging speeds.
I’d recently discharged the unit and only left it around an hour or so. I had to let it cool
down for a good few hours after discharging it for the fastest charging speeds. But it
does remain impressively cool whilst even Turbo charging. Checking with a thermal imaging camera,
even the warmest expelled air was under 40°C. And although you can certainly hear the fans
when charging at full speed, the noise is not excessive - I measured around 47dB one metre away.
That’s about 10dB quieter than the EcoFlow Delta 2 charging at full speed.
Even better if you enable Silent charging mode, whilst not actually silent, fan noise
is barely noticeable one metre away - I measured around 37dB - just 1dB above background noise.
If you’re not in a rush you’re better off charging at slower speeds - either Silent
or Standard, to preserve the battery life. The 2 colour 8cm LCD display on the AC180
is bright and clear, indoors at least, and shows total charging and output power in Watts and the
remaining battery capacity graphically and as a percentage. You get an estimate of remaining
charge time when it’s charging and run time when it’s powering your devices, adjusted in real time.
Strangely the smartphone app doesn’t provide these estimates but does show technical information if
you tap on the mains or DC icons - the latter is particularly useful when solar charging.
The app home screen also lets you remotely toggle the DC and AC outputs.
In settings, as well as adjusting charging speeds, you can toggle Power Lifting mode which I’ll cover
shortly and you can configure Eco settings to customise timeouts for the AC and DC subsystems,
configure the screen timeout under Auto Sleep and upgrade the firmware. Upgrading the firmware is
more complicated than it needs to be with Bluetti separating the updates into three
components that won’t mean much to most people. In Advanced Settings you can toggle the AC
frequency and turn on Grid Self-adaption which used to be called Grid Enhancement mode. Bluetti
should explain in the app what this actually does. In the user manual they suggest enabling this mode
if you’re charging the AC180 via an unstable AC source like a generator. The only downside
as I understand it, is there might be a slight additional delay in UPS mode which you don’t want.
I’ll explain and test the UPS mode shortly. I tried charging the power station from my
car’s 12V output with the supplied cable. With the engine running I got just over 100W which
would take around 12 hours to completely charge the AC180. If your vehicle has a 24V output you
can charge at twice this speed - around 200W. I confirmed this with a bench power supply.
The DC input supports an input from 12V all the way up to 60V which is great for solar charging.
Bluetti also specifies a maximum current of 10A but testing with my bench power supply
you’re limited to 8A at 32V and lower. I ramped the bench power supply all the way up to 60V;
and set the current limit to 10A. At 50V, 10A you reach the 500W maximum DC input.
As you increase the voltage further, the current dips holding this 500W limit.
The AC180 has a built-in MPPT controller for more efficient solar charging and with its
wide input voltage range, you can use pretty much any solar panel to charge the unit. I
tested it with the 350W Bluetti PV350 which is a great match with an open circuit voltage of
46.5V and just under 38V at full output. It’s one of the heaviest solar panels
I’ve tested weighing just under 14kg, you can see its dimensions on screen.
But it’s very quick and easy to unfold and setup. It has integrated elasticated hinged
legs that let you easily set the tilt angle depending on the sun’s position in the sky.
I’m also pleased to see it has an IP65 splash-proof rating, so should handle a
short shower. In a zippered pouch the panel has a nice thick 12 gauge integrated cable with MC4
connectors that connects to the supplied MC4 to DC 7909 adapter that plugs into the AC180.
On a sunny day at 2pm in August in the UK I was able to charge the power station at almost 300W
which is very impressive. Conditions were good but not ideal - so I think you could get even more
from this panel. At 300W you could completely charge the AC180 from flat in under 4 hours.
It’s not easy reading the display outside, but you should have the power station in
the shade - not direct sunlight. And you can always use the app to monitor charging - and
you get the additional info on voltage and current not displayed on the unit itself.
The PV350 is the best solar panel I’ve tested so far - both in output and ease of use. But
it comes at a price - you can check the current price in the link down below but at the time of
this review it’s around £650 or $650. As a cheaper alternative I also tried
charging the AC180 with the 200W Bluetti PV200 that I tested with the EB70.
In similar conditions I got around 165W. I did consider joining these two units in series
to max out the solar charging capabilities of the AC180 but the 26.1V open circuit voltage of the
PV200 combined with the PV350’s 46.5V OCV would exceed the maximum 60V of the AC180 - which could
damage the unit. Bluetti specifically states that this wouldn’t be covered under their warranty.
You could connect the PV200 safely in parallel for extra current but the 10A limit would kick
in pretty quickly so it wouldn’t be worthwhile. If you’re after a budget option and don’t need
the portability of these panels, there are panels on Amazon and elsewhere that might be
a good fit. I’ll provide a link down below - ideally you want between 40 and 50V at 10A.
The AC180 also supports dual charging - so you can charge off solar and the mains input
at the same time. The unit will prioritise the solar input. I could charge in turbo mode at
over 1400W and then add the EB70’s T200S 200W AC adapter to the DC input to get over 1500W!
I’ll show a scenario where you may want to use an AC adapter into the DC input shortly.
Finally you can charge the AC180 off the B230, B300 and new B80 expansion batteries. I don’t
have any to test, but they all support the AC180 in Power Bank Mode for more efficient charging. If
I get hold of one I’ll provide further details. Performance
The AC180 has a substantial 1800W inverter that can briefly surge to 2700W. That should be able
to run most household devices with its two AC outlets. Considering this unit is larger than
the very comparable EcoFlow Delta 2, it’s disappointing there are only two outlets
compared to the Delta 2’s 4 - in the UK at least. But they both have a pure sine wave
output important for sensitive electronics, that I confirmed with a graphical multimeter.
In the smartphone app you can enable Power Lifting mode which lets you power purely
resistive loads like heaters and hair dryers at up to 2700W. It does this by lowering
the voltage, so use this mode with care. I can run this 2kW heater at full output for
over two minutes at 230V and just under 2000W before the AC switches off with an overload
error. That’s pretty good in itself since the inverter is only rated at 1800W. You can reset
the inverter with a long press of the AC button. After enabling Power Lifting mode, the heater
can now run indefinitely - at a slightly lower output of around 1750W, but notice the voltage
has dropped to 215V. A little icon appears on the LCD display when Power Lifting is on.
At full output the fans kick in at full speed and are a little louder than when charging in
Turbo mode. I measured around 50dB one metre away. But again the unit stays very cool as
you can see from the thermal imaging camera. At lower outputs - typically under 100W, the
fan doesn’t come on at all. Then the fan speed and accompanying noise gradually increase with output.
It’s still pretty quiet - around 44dB even at 1000W. This will
vary depending on ambient temperatures. Around the house as well as the fan heater,
I could run most items I tried including a Nespresso coffee machine and a 1550W hair dryer.
In fact the only thing I really couldn’t run, without Power Lifting mode on was a kettle.
Out in the workshop it could power pretty much any handheld power tool so I tried it with more
demanding stationary machinery. It easily ran my Bosch 1800W sliding mitre saw with a universal
motor but also managed to power my Record BS350 14” bandsaw with an induction motor. Induction
motors have a big start up draw so are are always more of a challenge. It also ran a small 1.1kw
compressor but my larger worksop compressor triggered the unit’s overload protection.
It’s important to turn off the AC subsystem when it’s not needed. It’s hard to measure precisely,
but I found the unit dropped around 5% every four hours if it was left on with nothing plugged in.
Fortunately you can configure Eco mode in the app so that the AC subsystem shuts off automatically
after between one and four hours when the output power is less than between 15 and 30W.
It’s a shame you can’t set this minimum a little lower - some mains chargers for
certain devices use a lot less than this so you’ll end up having to leave Eco mode off.
In that case you may be better off using the DC outputs to power them if possible.
I left the DC subsystem on for 12 hours and although I’m sure there
is some parasitic drain the battery level percentage remained unchanged.
The DC Eco mode lets you configure the cut off power levels between 5 and 10W.
I tested the DC outputs starting with the 12V car outlet which has up to 10A regulated output, which
I confirmed with a load tester. The voltage and power dropped if I increased the current further.
There’s only one 100W USB type-C power delivery port which I tested charging the EcoFlow River
2 Max at its rated 100W maximum output. I’d have liked at least one additional 100W port
USB-C port. They are useful for charging pretty much any modern gadget including a
lot of the latest laptops like this MacBook. Instead Bluetti have opted for 4 bog standard
USB-A ports, which unfortunately don’t even support any fast charging standards.
They do at least support a full 3A at 5V which I confirmed with a load
tester. Their voltage and power dropped if I ramped this up more than one tenth of a volt.
The final DC output is the 15W Qi wireless charging pad on top of the unit which charged my
iPhone 13 Pro at around 8W. You’d need a supported Android phone for faster charging speeds.
You can use all AC and DC ports simultaneously and the unit supports passthrough charging so they can
be used whilst the power station is charging. I measured the usable capacity of the 1152Wh LFP
built-in battery. I ran a heater via an energy monitoring plug at around 1000W until the power
station turned off. The heater ran for 58 minutes and 23 seconds and consumed 983Wh.
Power stations like this will always have some conversion losses and anything over 80%
is pretty good. The Bluetti works out at 983Wh / 1152Wh which is around 85%. I did a similar test
using the DC output with an 8A electronic load attached. I measured 997Wh, or 87% efficiency.
The AC180 also supports a UPS mode with a transfer time of less than 20ms according to Bluetti.
Here I have my desktop plugged into the power station and the power station charging off mains.
In this setup the desktop computer is effectively running directly off mains via the power station.
If there’s a power cut - in this case I’m just disconnecting the mains plug,
the AC180 switches across to its internal battery and the
switchover is fast enough that the desktop computer doesn’t notice.
In most cases this is the best way to use the AC180 as a UPS since it preserves battery life.
This mode is sometimes called offline UPS mode. But if you’re running very sensitive devices
that can’t lose power even for an instant, for example a medical device or a server,
you can charge the device via the DC input. Here I’m using the Bluetti T200S 200W mains AC adapter
that came with the EB70, but you can buy it separately. In this case if you lose power,
there’s no transfer time since the device is already running off the battery. This
is sometimes called online UPS mode. I wouldn’t suggest using this mode of operation long term
since you’re constantly recycling the battery. And make sure the device you’re running draws
less power than the mains AC charger you’re using otherwise the battery will eventually run flat.
I briefly mentioned the grounding port on the side of the unit. The manual has a strongly
worded caution that the unit shouldn’t be used without it being grounded. But it doesn't come
with any hardware to ground it. So you’d need a M5 bolt, a length of 14 gauge wire and if you
were in a field, a metal spike to connect it to. Whether you need to ground the unit will depend
on local regulations so please check, but the likelihood is you’d only need to ground the
AC180 for a more permanent installation. If you have the unit plugged into mains,
it will be grounded - although this is unlikely to be practical. I’ll provide a link down below
with further information. Conclusions
The Bluetti AC180 is one of the best power stations I’ve tested so far in its class.
It’s very very comparable to the EcoFlow Delta 2 and at a similar price. It has a slightly more
capacity than the Delta 2, is a little quieter both charging and discharging and is even faster
charging, has a wireless charging pad and I prefer having the AC ports around the front.
But it is noticeably heavier than the Delta 2, has fewer AC outlets and only the one 100W
USB-C output compared to two on the EcoFlow. Both come with a 5 year warranty, and both
have similar solar charging capabilities. And both have battery expansion options,
although the EcoFlow has a dedicated expansion port built in. Also check out my review of the
Anker 757 which is another option in this category - but I’d only choose it over these
two if it was cheaper. I’ll have links on screen and down below to all my power station reviews.
Overall I’ve been very impressed with the AC180 - it’s pretty difficult to fault. A weatherproof
rating, some extra AC outlets and another 100W USB-C port would be nice. And I’m hoping Bluetti
moves to more standardised XT60 or XT90 charging ports, but these are all fairly minor points. I
also really liked their PV350 solar panel I tested with the AC180, but these portable solar panels,
especially at these higher outputs, are expensive. I have links to all the
products I’ve discussed in this review with current prices and any offers down in the
video description so please check those out. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Is the AC180
on your shortlist? If you have the AC180 what do you think of it? Or if there’s another power
station you want me to test let me know! And as always, if you have any questions,
please ask - I read every comment and will do my best to respond.
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