For outdoor families a portable power station is such a handy thing to own but can be a costly mistake if you buy the wrong one for your needs. So, we thought we would share what we thought of the super portable river mini power station from EcoFlow

For families that are outdoor lovers looking to add a bit of luxury to their weekend family days out, or anyone looking to add some ease and convenience to road trips and holiday travel, a little power station is the prefect thing to invest in.

Recently we have been sent a EcoFlow RIVER mini Portable Power Station to put to the test on our family days out, in return for us sharing our honest thoughts with our readers and if we think they are worth adding to your family’s travel essentials.

Family Adventure Essential

As parents we all know when it comes to packing to head out on a fun adventure with the family it can be a task to manage and take everything you really would like with you, mainly down to the practicalities or heading out to a remote beach or endless forest.

Thing is when you know your out for the whole day with the kids you do want to pack not only the essentials but the luxury items that will make the day just more enjoyable and we would say that this mini power station definitely helped us with this.

We found this EcoFlow RIVER mini so easy to carry around, its not too heavy, has an easy to hold handle and we were impressed with how much power it stored for the size of it.

It has the capacity to store 210Wh which is sometimes a bit hard to understand what that actually means, so to help get your head around its capabilities think on its as being able to charge your mobile phone 12 times, or your laptop around 3 times or able to power your garden protector for 2.4 hours.

It also has lots of different ports for you to connect all your items up to. It has a traditional wall socket where you can plug in a radio, kettle, smoothie blender or even a little sandwich maker. It has three USB- A ports as well as a 12V Socket. If you get the wireless model, then you also get a USB – C fast charge port and a wireless charging pad on the top of the unit.

Its worth noting that you can use all these ports at the same times so you can power numerous items simultaneously.

Its Fast to recharge the River mini as within just an hour it has already charged 80% of its battery and to charge to full battery levels your only looking at around and an hour and a half, which we found a god send on the days we had forgot to charge it the night before.

There are three ways you can charge your Ecoflow River Mini, one is plugging it into your normal socket in the house which as mentioned will take around an hour and half to fully charge. Other way is to plug it into your car charging port which will take around three and half hours to fully charge, so no hassle if you have a bit to drive to get where you’re going. Then lastly you can solar charge it which can take anything from two and a bit hours to five hours.

The screen on the front of the unit we thought was fab, as it clearly shows what percentage of the battery you have left. To the right it shows the current usage so this changes based on what items you have on charge and then on the far left it shows you in hours how long you have left charge wise if you keep all those item on charge so you can clearly see when you’re going to run out of power.

Make it a Solar Power Station

EcoFlow RIVER mini Portable Power Station can also be powered by solar power, meaning not only does it add convenience to how you can charge your unit, for example whey your off grid camping, but too it also gives you a cost saving way to power your items.

You can get a EcoFlow 110W Solar Panel to power your River mini. Easy to connect to your power station, this solar panel is also really portable as it folds up into a neat little bag to carry and is fully waterproof and durable built to withstand the elements.

This solar panel is compact but still powerful. Obviously relying on the weather, it will take longer to charge your power station with solar panels compared to when you plug it into a wall socket, anything from two and a bit hours to five hours, but it will be free energy which nowadays we all could do with a bit of!

In fact, having the ability to charge it using solar panels, in our eyes makes the EcoFlow RIVER mini a bit of a wise investment for even just around the home as you can use it to charge the likes of your kids mobiles, or gaming devices all for free.

Thinking about it with the life cycle of this power station still giving 80%+ capacity after 500 cycles, it looks like you can easily make your money back on what you initially pay for it by saving on your energy usage in your home when you charge it using a solar panel.

Where to Buy EcoFlow RIVER mini Portable Power Station

You can buy EcoFlow RIVER mini Portable Power Station (RRP £299) or Wireless version (RRP £329) direct from Ecoflow Website or they also often run special offers from time to time on Amazon so that’s always worth checking out too.

Would we Recommend EcoFlow RIVER mini Portable Power Station to Families?

As our mobile devices increase in number in our household, we have found ourselves investing more and more in little power banks for the kids, but have to say this little portable power station from EcoFlow is a gamechanger. It has so much more power and outlet choice, it’s so easy to carry and take on your travels and we do just love the added luxury of taking the radio and a proper kettle to the beach or country park with us on our family days out.

When we look around there wasn’t many this size and capacity that came with a traditional plug socket so that’s for us was a bonus. It has a 300W output (600W surge) which means it can pretty much power any device we wanted to take with us, easily powering phones, tablets, laptops, lights, and fans. Making working away from home a dream, camping trips less hassle and road trips less stressful, as now no kindle will every run out of juice again when we are away from home.

Another thing we have found this mini power station is perfect for is as the weather gets better and we are spending more time in the back garden, it powers the garden projector long enough for the kids to watch a movie. Which means we no longer have to go through the pain of running numerous extensions leads into the garden, we now simply carry this out and plug in.

Due to all the different types of outlets ports we just love the versatility of this power station and with the growing worry of energy prices the fact we can harness some free energy just for the little things around the house by using a solar power to charge it makes it a bit of a no brainer to get one. If your family is on the look out for a mini power charger, lightthen we would highly recommend checking out this one and others in the EcoFlow range as they do have portable ones that have even more power storage abilities.

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