This brute of a power station will power almost anything — even A/C

This brute of a power station will power almost anything — even A/C

MSRP $3,699.00

“The EcoFlow Delta Pro 3 packs beefy power in a shockingly stylish package.”

Pros

• Massive capacity
• Slick exterior design
• Useful, well laid-out mobile app
• 240-volt output for demanding appliances

Cons

• Technically portable, but still hefty

Let me start off by saying the EcoFlow Delta Pro 3 is the biggest power station I’ve reviewed to date. At 115 pounds, it barely qualifies as portable. The 4-kilowatt-hour (kWh) capacity alone is enough to put it comfortably in the category of home backup, but a bunch of features make it flexible enough to leave the house once in a while, too.

EcoFlow Delta Pro 3 specifications

EcoFlow Delta Pro 3 setup

The EcoFlow mobile app is as robust as ever. Once paired up, you can remotely monitor the Delta Pro 3, even outside your home network. You can remotely flip it on and off, get data on usage, set up automations, or really get in the weeds by establishing charge and discharge limits, scheduling tasks, and tying in voice assistants like Alexa and Google Home. Of course, if you have other EcoFlow devices, you can also manage them here and have them work in concert with one another.

The front display of the Delta Pro 3 has most of the information you’ll need, though. It shows how much power is left, both as a matter of time based on current usage and an overall percentage. It also shows wattage in and wattage out so you can keep things more or less balanced. Individual buttons let you turn on certain sets of plugs, depending on what you need.

EcoFlow Delta Pro 3 build quality

The EcoFlow Delta Pro 3 is the first power station that’s made me go “wow” when taking it out of the box. Battery packs don’t tend to have the most exciting designs, but this one looks like a dang Cadillac. Superficial? Sure, but the Delta Pro 3 is big enough that you might not be able to just squirrel it away in a closet. If you’re going to have tech taking up space in the open, it might as well look good. Besides, I need all the help I can get convincing friends that batteries are cool. Seriously, I’m dyin’ out here.

The EcoFlow Delta Pro 3 has a extendable arm and rear wheel built-in. They’re not just nice touches — they are absolutely necessary to move this thing around. At one point, I somehow found myself lugging the Delta Pro 3 through a torrential downpour and up three flights of stairs to our testing area. That was certainly a two-man job, but also conveniently gave me a chance to confirm the Delta Pro 3’s IP65 waterproof rating. The two handles have faux-leather straps Velcroed around them, which I found more a hinderance than anything.

EcoFlow boasts that the internal construction of the Delta Pro 3 takes a page from EVs, with a unibody frame that integrates the cells into the structure. This makes it ideal for stacking multiple chained battery packs on top. It was certainly able to support my weight without any buckling.

The rear panel has an array of inputs available, including for EVs. The nice design touch here is that the plug covers can slide into the body of the battery once they’ve been flipped open. This way they aren’t flopping in the breeze, or worse, blocking any cables running around back there. Similarly, on the sides, near the front, two doors open to reveal additional outputs.

EcoFlow Delta Pro 3 performance

Like most of EcoFlow’s power stations, the Delta Pro 3 uses a lithium iron phosphate (LiFEPo₄) chemistry, which we like to see. Yeah, that likely added a bit of weight due to reduced energy density compared to nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) batteries, but that also means increased stability and less sketchy supply chains. Besides, we’ve pretty much given up on portability already.

In our tests, the EcoFlow Delta Pro 3 averaged 3.7 kWh of discharge capacity across multiple cycles. That’s a little shy of the listed 4 kWh capacity. These discrepancies aren’t entirely unheard of, though. Draining a battery completely is really bad for its overall lifespan. That said, I usually chalk up these gaps to the management system maintaining a buffer. Charging the station from 0% consumes closer to 5 kWh from the wall, which indicates a fair percentage is being lost. Charging speeds were about what you’d expect: three hours to go from zero to 100%.

The biggest feature that sets the Delta Pro 3 up for home backup is 240-volt output. While most things in your home operate at 120V, bigger appliances need more juice, which is out of reach of smaller power stations. These 240V appliances can include heat pumps, air conditioning units, water heaters, and other heavy-duty home necessities.

If for whatever reason you find yourself in a blackout and desperately need toast, tea, and a pizza pocket right away, you’ll be pleased to hear that the Delta Pro 3 is able to run a toaster, kettle, and microwave simultaneously without skipping a beat. These are high-demand appliances, so I was impressed to see them all running at once.

There are a lot of fun ways you can scale up your power storage with the Delta Pro 3, and I’m going to blast through them before you have a chance to debate me on my definition of “fun”. One of the ways you can do this is by hooking it up with EcoFlow’s Smart Panel. It provides uninterrupted power to your home’s important systems like air conditioners and freezers when the power grid goes out. This setup can also quietly save you a few bucks by charging up the Delta Pro 3 overnight when rates are low, and discharging back into your home when rates are at their highest. If 4 kWh just isn’t enough to sate your home’s thirst for sweet, sweet electrons, you can always splurge on two expansion packs that bring the total system capacity to 12 kWh.

I was able to test out the Delta Pro 3 with EcoFlow’s portable 400-watt monocrystalline solar panels. It being obnoxiously hot on the East Coast (routinely over 90 degrees Fahrenheit) meant I could also put the operating temperature limits to the test too. The 400W panels were proportional to the Delta Pro 3, which is to say, massive. Even during overcast periods, the panels were producing enough power to offset the drain from a full range of charging personal devices. If you’re going through the trouble of hauling the Delta Pro 3 off-grid already, and you anticipate staying out there for awhile, a big solar panel is an easy addition to the setup.

EcoFlow makes a big to-do about the Delta Pro 3’s uninterruptible power supply feature. This means you can have your wall outlet pass power through the battery right to whatever device you need to run, and in under 10 milliseconds of the wall power being cut off, the Delta Pro 3 kicks in. I was able to see this in action through my desktop computer, which was able to keep running without a reboot when the wall power was cut. There aren’t too many instances where this kind of feature is super important to me, though. Maybe it would be useful if you were running a server that had to stay up no matter what, or didn’t want any gaps in security camera recording.

In the same vein, EcoFlow brags about the Delta Pro 3’s sub-40-decibel noise level. Again, this isn’t much of a concern for me personally, but if your basis of comparison is a gas generator, and you’re using the Delta Pro 3 where you’d like to relax, this may be a useful addition. Other power stations I’ve tried have their fans kick in when I’m charging them, but it’s never been so loud as to be disturbing.

Should you buy the EcoFlow Delta Pro 3?

At first, most folks will balk at the EcoFlow Delta Pro 3’s $3,699 suggested retail price. But for those that have shopped around for a whole-home energy backup and actually have a budget for it, that number is likely to land in an acceptable range. For example, the 4-kWh power station from Goal Zero is going for $3,399. Bluetti’s 5 kWh station is $3,499. Anker has a 3.8 kWh system for $3,999. Anyone super-serious about home energy backup is looking at even higher price tags that come along with power stations in the 10 kWh range.

You’re going to be paying a pretty penny for these kinds of systems no matter which way you cut it. On the upside, they’re rated to last a long time. The EcoFlow Delta Pro 3 comes with a five-year warranty and an estimated 4,000 cycles before it hits 80% of its original capacity. EcoFlow says that can take you over 10 years, depending on how hard you ride this thing.

While the Delta Pro 3 is pitched as portable, it’s a hard argument to make. If I was going to set up an RV for the whole summer, then sure, I could see myself hoofing the Delta Pro 3 in and out of the trunk for the trip to and fro, but not more often than that. Nine times out of 10, I’m leaving it at home. It’s just too much machine to bring out casually for a weekend getaway. There are much more portable options for that.

Provided you’re squarely in the market for a permanent or semipermanent power storage solution, it’s really hard to find something bad to say about the Delta Pro 3. At the worst, I’m missing wireless charging that some power stations put on top, but even then, a battery this big is likely to be sitting in the garage or somewhere else where phone charging wouldn’t be happening much.

The Delta Pro 3’s robust connectivity lets you keep tabs on your system whenever you need to through a nice mobile app interface. Expandable solutions let you tie it in as tightly to your home as you can afford to. Slick styling salves the pain of having to lug that much weight around. High output ensures you can keep even your biggest electrical demands met in case of an outage. Outside of an emergency, EcoFlow’s wider product range used in concert with the Delta Pro 3 can help you save on your electrical bills by charging up when rates are cheap. All of that said, those willing to invest in home electrification will get their money’s worth with the EcoFlow Delta Pro 3.

Editors’ Recommendations