DJI Power 1000 review: With a lot of power comes a lot of dongles

DJI isn’t the first name that comes to mind when you think of big batteries — far from it, the batteries that go inside the company’s drones have to be as small and light as possible. But all that time spent striking the right balance between weight, size, flight time, and recharge speed has prepared the company to enter the power station market with the $599 Power 1000 and the smaller $379 Power 500.

DJI’s approach to portable power stations is unique, as I learned while testing its flagship Power 1000. It features a powerful 2200W AC inverter that’s unheard of in such a small package, and it also houses a modest 1024Wh battery made from safe, long-lasting LFP cells. It’s also one of the first power stations to come with a pair of USB-C PD 3.1 outputs capable of handling 140W.

And to keep it as small and portable as possible, it eschews the other inputs and outputs you’ll find on most standard power stations. Instead, DJI has developed a versatile “Smart DC” or SDC port that lets you add more I/O via proprietary adapters. But those SDC ports can also charge a selection of DJI’s own drones faster than anything currently on the market.

So the big question I have is: who is this for? Do you only own compatible DJI drones or are you looking for a universal power station?

If you want to convert the Power 1000 into a full-featured solar generator, you’ll need to buy a lot of DJI’s own cables. You’ll need a $59 cable that attaches to a chunky MPPT solar controller if you want to charge the Power 1000 from the sun, or a $49 cable to charge it from your car’s 12V cigarette lighter socket while you’re driving. You’ll also need to buy $22 cables if you want to add 12V DC outputs to the power station. These include a car charger port to power things like a portable refrigerator, an XT60 connector to power RV lights, or a charger for RC planes.

You’ll then need to purchase a $19 cable to fast-charge the Intelligent Flight Batteries in DJI’s compatible Matrice 30 series, Air 3, Mavic 3 series, or Inspire 3 drones. I tested my Power 1000 review unit with a DJI Air 3, since the batteries I used in the other drone DJI sent me to test — a Mini 3 Pro — aren’t compatible with DJI’s SDC ports.

Charging the Air 3’s battery with the Power 1000 has one major advantage over other DJI charging solutions: speed. Unfortunately, charging with the SDC cable is limited to only one battery at a time, as DJI does not yet offer a multi-battery charging hub that is compatible with DJI’s own SDC port. You can of course purchase a second SDC cable for $19.

In my testing, both SDC ports charged the Air 3’s battery at up to 124W, according to the Power 1000’s display, just shy of the 125W quoted by DJI. It only reached this maximum charge speed for a short time, however, which is to be expected. Charging from 0 to 90 percent took 34 minutes, but the next 10 percent took another 19 minutes, or 53 minutes to charge from 0 to full — nine minutes longer than the 44 minutes DJI advertises. That’s still better than the 70 minutes it takes with DJI’s 100W USB-C charger.

What I really like is that the Power 1000 displays the drone battery charge percentage in real time, with an accuracy of two decimal places!

DJI says its other compatible drones will make better use of the Power 1000’s SDC ports. The Mavic 3, for example, can pull up to 150W, while the Inspire 3 can pull up to 200W and the Matrice 30 series can pull up to 230W, easily beating out DJI’s own USB-C fast chargers. The SDC ports can handle up to 400W input and 240W output.

Speaking of USB-C, DJI’s Power 1000 is one of the first power stations to come with dual USB-C PD 3.1 ports, which support a maximum output of 140W per port when used with compatible PD 3.1 devices and cables that meet the Extended Power Range (EPR) specification. I was able to confirm this using a random white-label power bank I purchased from Amazon, as you can see in the image above. Unfortunately, those USB-C ports are outputs only, so they can’t be used to charge the power station.

The AC inverter is impressive, and is designed to power most household appliances including microwaves, space heaters, and window air conditioners — albeit briefly. It’s rated at 2200W of “sustained output” or 2600W for “thirty seconds.” In my testing, I was able to pull a steady 2400W (using two hair dryers) for about one to two minutes before the unit gracefully shut off with a warning message on the display. I was then able to run the hair dryers continuously at 2000W for five minutes before shutting them off.

Charging the Power 1000 from a wall outlet has its own quirks. A switch on the front lets you set the charging speed to either 1,200W or 600W. The fan is whisper-quiet even at that maximum charging speed—I measured just 26dB from a meter away, slightly higher than the 23dB quoted in marketing materials. DJI says it charges to 80 percent in about 50 minutes, or 70 minutes to 100 percent—and that’s almost exactly what I saw, give or take two minutes.

I should note, however, that the Power 1000 appears to have a narrow temperature band for that 1,200W max charging speed. I saw it regularly throttle back to 900W after a heavy testing session, which makes sense, but also after sitting idle for a few hours in a room that was just 63 degrees Fahrenheit (17 degrees Celsius).

• DJI’s SDC to MPPT solar adapter has a theoretical input of 400W. However, the controller’s input range is only 12-30V, too low to connect a single portable 400W panel that typically produces at least 40V and could damage the power station. Connecting two 200W panels should be fine. DJI’s own Power 1000 solar arrays come with between one and six 100W panels to reduce the risk of “overvoltage.”
• If you leave the AC inverter on, the fully charged battery will drain in about two days, based on my tests. By default, it will turn off after 30 minutes if no load is detected.
• You can combine SDC charging inputs for faster charging. For example, it can be charged simultaneously from solar power and your car’s cigarette lighter.
• However, you cannot charge from both AC inputs and SDC inputs at the same time.
• The Power 1000 can act as a UPS in places where power outages occur.
• There’s no iOS or Android app for remotely controlling or monitoring the ports on the Power 1000, but there is a Mac or Windows app for managing firmware updates. I found it a cumbersome procedure when I first tried it on my MacBook.
• Although the fans are generally very quiet, they produce a loud noise of 46 dB under heavy load. However, as soon as the load is removed, they quickly slow down.
• The display is informative and generally easy to read both indoors and outdoors.

If you’re a professional content creator and already own a DJI drone that takes advantage of the Power 1000’s (or Power 500’s) fast-charging feature, there’s little reason to look elsewhere for a new power station, especially if you just want to charge a basic mobile studio.

But if you’re looking for an all-around solar-powered power station that’s ready for anything, you should probably look elsewhere. While the Power 1000 can certainly expand its selection of inputs and outputs thanks to those versatile SDC ports, no one wants to manage all those dongles and risk getting caught out in the outback after losing a cable that’s only sold by one company.

The Power 1000 costs $599 before adding SDC adapters. That’s more expensive than the $499 EcoFlow Delta 2 and slightly cheaper than the $650 Bluetti AC180, both of which include all the inputs and outputs you’d need from similarly sized batteries but can’t come close to matching DJI’s outlandish 2,200W of sustained AC output.

All photos by Thomas Ricker / The Verge