VANLIFE POWER: Generator vs Ecoflow- which is better?

Which is better, a generator or an EcoFlow? I spent ages having this discussion with a friend of mine the other day, and you'd think it would be fairly straightforward, but actually we have very, very differing opinions. Let me tell you why. If you've ever run low on power in your motorhome or your campervan, you'll know how frustrating it is. You'll know how much it can impact your lifestyle. And if you can't recharge your phone or you can't work like I am as a digital nomad, I can't recharge my laptop or whatever other appliance you want to run, like a hairdryer, it can have a impact on your lifestyle in the van, both in summer and in winter. Many people think that a generator is the best and even the only solution. I know that we did when we first got our van several years ago, and we knew that we wanted to go off and have epic adventures and go off wild camping or staying off-grid. We bought a generator. We thought that the only solution to getting power when you weren't plugged into a campsite or the mains was to get a generator. That's just what we thought we had to do. But technology has now moved on massively in the last couple of years. Power stations like the EcoFlow are much more readily available, they're much cheaper, and they are much more powerful than they used to be. Now, obviously, the 2 units are not the same. I'm not for one second trying to suggest that a generator and an EcoFlow do the same thing. They don't. One obviously creates power and one stores it and is basically a battery. But for van life, Which is better? If you are just like me, a normal motorhome, which one is better value for your money? That's what I'm going to share with you in this video. And stick around to the end because I'm going to share 3 top tips to make sure that your batteries stay healthy during this winter. Firstly, let's get some admin and disclaimers out of the way. Yes, EcoFlow provided me with my River Max 2, which I'm very grateful for because I love it. However, they've not told me what to say in this video. In fact, they've not actually approved this video, but never mind. Let's— hopefully they do by the time you see it. And all opinions are my own. The only thing that they have asked me to point out to you is that they are having a sale on the EcoFlow website where you can save up to £450 on an EcoFlow, which comes with all of this if you buy before the end of December 2022 using the link in the description below. So have a watch of this video, decide which type of system— a generator or an EcoFlow— is better for you, and if you want to treat yourself, then before the end of December is the best time to do it so you can save some money. Right, let's dive into the pros and cons. So, as I've already said, an EcoFlow and a generator, they are not the same thing. A generator creates power, creates electricity, and the other one, the EcoFlow, is a battery basically. It allows you to use the electricity and to power up various different appliances. You can absolutely have both of them on your van if you really wanted to, but The question here is, do you need to? Here are the 10 biggest things to consider when you're choosing which solution is best for you. Now, the first one, noise. Obviously, that is the biggest consideration. The problem with a generator is an engine, and most people, certainly most campsites, ban them, dislike them. You're not allowed to use them pretty much everywhere we've ever been. I don't think they've allowed you to use a generator. They are annoying to have in the van next to you running their generator all night. The EcoFlow, conversely, is a quiet— there's a Baby mouse at nap time. I often sit outside on a campsite and use it while I'm working, and occasionally you get a small kind of buzzy, whirry sound, but nothing that your next-door neighbor would hear. So that makes it a lot easier to use throughout the evening, as I will talk about shortly, and also in various different scenarios. The other thing was, in 4 years of having a generator, I used it 3 or 4 times because I couldn't start the freaking thing. It had one of those pull starts that was really awkward. Not only that, it was a pain to get it out from its store because it was bigger and it was And we put it outside. It was a faff, especially when all I wanted to do was charge my laptop. It was an absolute pain in the arse. Talking of storage, the generator, because obviously it was heavy, we had to balance and payload and everything else, I had to put it under a seat in the van, and getting it out, it was difficult to lift. Whereas this thing is 6 kilos, I can lift it with one hand with a dog on my lap. So yeah, the generator was much more bulky for me to cart around, and using that pull start, it was just an absolute pain. Yeah, it was Pain. a pain in the arse. I love the fact that this thing is easily portable. I use it all over the place. I've used it outside, as I've already mentioned, but I've even taken it onto the beach. We've taken it on a walk. I can honestly say I've never, never taken my generator to the beach or for a walk. A big thing to consider, however, is power output. One thing a generator will do is it will give you much more power output to use, depending on the size of the generator that you buy, of course. You can easily power Things like an 1800-watt hair dryer, or you can run a pressure washer, which I know a lot of people, if you know, if you have a generator on board, a lot of people use that then to clean off their van. One thing that I love about the EcoFlow is it's got this button called X-Boost, which allows you to basically double the power output for a short period of time. So this is a 500-watt unit, and it will become a 1000-watt unit, which is actually enough to power my travel hair dryer for a short period. I've got an 800-watt hair dryer, and that works. Brilliantly, especially in the winter, because you don't want to be hanging around with wet hair in the winter. Talking of winter, this is where our biggest discussion point came. Now, my friend Hannah, huge fan of motorhome skiing, she actually runs the website, uh, Winterized and Snowmad Sites with her partner James, and they both say that a generator is absolutely essential in that scenario. And she's right. If you're planning on going up a mountain in the middle of winter covered in snow for weeks on end and you want to stay off-grid, not stay in a campsite, You're going to need a way to create your own power, i.e., take a generator with you, and they are much more widely accepted in winter because, of course, everyone uses them. However, one thing to bear in mind is that not all generators will work up at altitude. The cheaper ones certainly don't work up a mountain, so you do need to pay more money to get one that is going to work for you in low temperatures and also up a mountain. The EcoFlow, whilst it's of course not designed to create power, it will work wherever you take it. So if you did decide to go up Up a mountain and you wanted to have a way of charging up your laptop or your phone whilst you are up there, then it will work. Now, winter may well be a time, if you are planning on using it a lot in winter, where you want both, because you don't want to be firing up a generator in the middle of the night just to charge your laptop. And you can get— I can get about 3 to 4 charges on my laptop, which is a MacBook Air, before I need to recharge the unit. I can also recharge overnight if I want to, which— Another thing I love About my EcoFlow is that it will power my electric blanket all night, even when I'm off-grid. If you followed me for a long time, you might remember that I took a small camper van around Norfolk in March, and it snowed, and it was like -2. There was no heating in the van. It was so cold, and I wasn't entirely sure what to do. But then the EcoFlow powered my electric blanket all night. I mean, the rest of the van was freezing, but that blanket— oh my goodness, it was magical. I certainly could not have run a generator all night to charge that up. Now, one of the other biggest considerations is fuel. One thing that you need to do if you have a generator on board is obviously carry fuel for it to top it up and make sure that it can continue to work. Of course, you don't need to do that with something like an EcoFlow. Don't forget that some countries in Europe make it illegal to carry petrol cans in vehicles. Portugal, I know, is one of them, which can make it really difficult to have a generator on board. Having said that, a generator doesn't need recharging. It is— as long as you do the maintenance, of course— It's always ready to go, whereas an EcoFlow does need recharging. This one you can recharge from solar panels, you can actually use it for the 12-volt charger in your van, and you can also charge it from a USB-C socket. Some wall sockets now got these USB-C sockets. If you do charge it via the wall, via the normal plug, it can actually recharge in as little as an hour, which is way quicker than previous models, which I love about this thing. So quick. Another thing is reliability. Now obviously this is basically a lithium-ion battery, and they are designed to be used and discharged every day for almost 10 years, I guess 9.6 6 years, about 3,000 cycles. It's also got a 5-year warranty on it, and it's got this brilliant smart battery protection system which helps extend the life of the unit. This monitors overloading, it monitors if it gets too hot, short-circuiting, low temperatures— like now it's -2°C— low voltage, and also overcurrent. Conversely, a generator requires much more maintenance. It is an engine after all. There are various things that you've got to do with it, although the more expensive models do come with their own warranty. Of course they do. But you do have to do the maintenance to make sure that that warranty is valid. Another consideration is price, of course. Hannah said that because she was using one to go in the winter and go up mountains, she would look to pay around £2,000 for a decent generator. The EcoFlow is much, much cheaper than that. You can of course get cheaper generators than that as well, but they won't always do necessarily what you want them to do, so make sure you do check them out properly to make sure that you're getting what you want from that. But the difference in price there is massive, especially if, let's face it, if you're like me and the main reason you want that bonus power is if staying up— we used ours at the top of Cime in Italy, and we were staying at the top of a mountain in the summer, and all I wanted to do was charge my laptop. That was it. Everything else was running great on the van, but my freaking laptop, so power hungry. All I wanted to do was just charge it, which is why this thing is so brilliant. And of course, it's like a quarter of the price of what a decent generator would cost, so it's a big difference when you are kitting out your own van as well, to consider. The last thing I love about the EcoFlow is it's got the app. I don't know how many generators come with an app. I'm sure perhaps some do, but The EcoFlow app is fantastic. You can see the power, you can see how much it's charging, you can see what it's drawing, and you can also use the app to get the X-Boost, that boost button to get more power out of it for a short period of time. And it's just a really, really useful way of monitoring the unit and making sure that it's all running smoothly. So as you can see, there are definitely pros and cons to both, and not everybody will need the same thing. I'm well aware there are totally different types of van life. The biggest thing to remember is that a generator will charge your van batteries, while the EcoFlow doesn't touch your van batteries at all. It's basically like having an extra battery on board, and that in itself will need recharging when it runs low, although it can be discharged up to 0% and recharged without any damage, unlike normal lead-acid batteries. Talking of batteries, here are 3 tips to keep your van batteries healthy during winter. Number 1, if you're not using your motorhome or your campervan for a while, you might want to think about taking out the battery, removing the battery from the van and taking it home with you. Of course, if you're not living in your van, this helps keep the battery warm, which they like, and allows you to trickle charge it to keep it topped up and keep it healthy. If we're If removing the battery isn't an option, you can get solar panel fitted, which you can put on like your windscreen, and that can connect directly to the battery, and you can use that to trickle charge. Make sure that nothing is connected to the battery which might continue to drain it down over winter or when you're not using it, like a clock or a tracking system. They can often flatten a battery that you don't realise. And don't rely on solar panel to top up the battery if you've used the van during winter. and the battery's gone low, you're going to get so much less solar power than you do in summer. At the moment I'm getting like 0.3 amps, which is ridiculous. So you're going to want to take your van for a long drive, at least 40 minutes, to give it a bit of a top-up. Now, if your battery is really, really low, it could take up to 10 hours to recharge it, so that's a very long drive. But if you haven't let it go that low, then just, you know, 40 minutes an hour driving around, which isn't particularly eco-friendly, but ideally if you can find a better solution, that will be better for the planet. Think of your battery like a dog. They like to be warm and they like to be fed regularly. So yeah, they don't like getting too cold and they discharge much quicker when they're cold, and they also don't like not getting any food, any energy put into them. So yeah, if you keep them topped up and keep them nice and warm, then they should survive the winter just fine. So I hope you found that video useful. If you'd like to see more motorhoming and van life tips, then hit subscribe. And if you are interested in staying off-grid in your van, learning more about wild camping, this is a great video for you to watch next. Thank you to EcoFlow for sponsoring this video, and if you would like to get one and save yourself some money, then head to the link in the description. Thank you for your time, and I'll see you on the next one. Bye!