GROWATT Infinity 1300 | 1800w LiFePO4 UPS Solar Generator Power Station Review

The Professor reviews the Growatt Infinity 1300 with 1800w inverter, 1382wh LFP battery, 800w MPPT solar, and remote APP support at a best bang for the buck intro price.

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Intro:

• The Growatt Infinity 1300 is an upgraded 3000 cycle LiFePO4 version of the Infinity 1500 released last year. It seems to now have the battery tech and features most desire, But is it any good? Let’s find out!

Quirks & Features:

• Battery Capacity/Tech/Cycles: 1382wh LiFePo4 rated over 3000 cycles to 80% capacity

• Size/Weight: Its approximately 17 x 9 x11 and weighs in at just over 42lbs

• Design/Display: Obviously designed around the Ecoflow Delta, the Growatt sports an attractive design with a built in smile, and a quality LCD display that shows input/output watts, time to charge/discharge, battery percent with icon, and a ton of built in indicators for various warnings

• Inverter Size/Type (constant/peak) and #outlets: This Growatt has an 1800w pure sine inverter with 3600w surge from 4x 20A outlets on the side.

• Ways To Charge (and times for each): It does offer the standard 3 ways to charge…

  • First by grid (or AC wall) power at a maximum of 1200w, also configurable within the app, and at that rate the Growatt can charge to 80% in just over an hour or under 2 hours to full.

  • Second by 12/24v vehicle which takes about 14 hours.

  • Finally, it supports up to 800w of solar through it’s MPPT controller with a surprisingly wide voltage range of 12v-100v at a maximum of 12A. At 800w you can top up the Growatt in about 2.5 hours.

• 12v Output Types: The Infinity offers a single 12v cigarette lighter socket rated at 10A, and a pair of 5521 barrel plug outputs and all are regulated at 13.2v

• USB Output Types: As for USB outputs there are 6 total. You get a pair of standard USB outputs good for charging your dinosaurs, a pair of 18 QC ports, and a pair of 100w PD outputs. Note the power delivery ports are output only and can not be used to charge the Growatt.

• Other Outputs: There is also a 15w wireless quick charging pad up top if your phone supports wireless charging

• Other Features:

  • The Growatt does offer a basic 20ms UPS (or uninterruptable power supply) feature and we’ll demo that here in a bit.

  • Now because it does offer a UPS feature, it means up to 3 units can be chained together from the output of one to the input of another to essentially expand battery capacity. This does mean having the inverter running on each unit so it’s not really the most power efficient.

  • And while there is no built in flashlight good for flagging down UFO’s, Growatt does have their own app called “MyGro” that lets you remotely control the unit.

• Warranty: Growatt has really upped their game on the warranty front and now offers a full 5 year manufacturer’s warranty on this product just like the other major players in this game.

Testing

• DC Battery Capacity Test (time lapse): As for the DC capacity the results were 1139wh/1382 for a solid 82%.

• AC Battery Capacity Test (time lapse): As for the AC capacity results it scored an amazing 1240wh/1382 or 90%. These numbers are a vast improvement over what the original Infinity 1500 scored and that AC result is in fact above industry average and beats out most other major players.

• Sine wave check under load: 120/60

• Inverter capacity test (max): 2500W <5s

• Cooling ability test (rated @ 5mins): pass 1740w

• Inverter fan noise db: 50

• Max Charge Rate @ watts/volts: AC 800w (rated 1200w), DC 12v 100w, 18v 160w, 100v 730w (rated 800w)

• Charging fan noise db: 48

• Simultaneous charging ability: yes favors solar but doesn’t increase speed

• Pass thru / UPS: UPS passed laptop test

• DC Output(s) Max Rate: 10A

• 12v output(s) regulated: 13.2

• USB output rate check: 100w x2 pass

• Wireless/other output: pass quick charge

• Amp interference test: pass

• APP/solar test: demo

What do I think about it? :

• What do I think about the Infinity 1300? I was very pleasantly surprised with the feature updates, testing results, and extended warranty compared to last year’s 1500 model. You now get a pair of 100w PD outputs instead of basic 60 watters, you get virtually 10-15% more usable power per kwh out of the much longer life LFP battery, its literally 10db quieter running off the inverter, and the bump from 2 years to 5 years for the warranty… wow. They certainly have come a long way in a half year of development.

• I think this Growatt fits a perfect size niche for a lot of users as well. While its no lightweight Jackery, 42lbs is a tossable weight for most adults and you have to remember this has an inverter than can run just about any 120v household appliance off the grid. It also has a true 20ms UPS feature and a clean output inverter making this one of the most well rounded midsize power stations out there.

• That being said, I’m trying pretty hard here to come up with some negatives for the 1300 but can’t really think of any. Probably my only gripe is that charging speeds are too sensitive to battery temperature. If you discharge the unit at all and then try to charge it you’ll get 800w at best instead of the advertised 1200w. Of course it is missing a couple of “nice have” features such as bi-directional USB charging, an expandable battery option, and a built in lantern. But these would all up the price past the $999 sweet spot so it was actually smart for Growatt not to include them.

Pricing and competition

• Product Price with current discounts:

  • Launch price for the Growatt 1300 is $999 which works out to only 55 cents per watt or 72 cents per watt hour. This certainly puts it into the lower priced spectrum for all the features you’re getting. Of course there is an exclusive discount code for viewers of HOBOTECH that will knock a few more bucks off that already low price.

• Main Competitor:

  • The nearest modern competition is probably the Ecoflow Delta 2. Both products do have a lot in common including the $999 list price. However, the Delta 2 has more than 25% less battery capacity and only accepts 500w of solar up to 60v vs the Growatt’s 800w of solar up to 100v. With everything else being pretty much the same, the clear winner by a long shot is the Growatt.

• Recommended Solar Panel Type/Size:

  • Since the Growatt supports up to 800w of solar within a wide voltage range up to 100v and 12A. This lets you use just about any panels you want. If you need portable panels I’d go with the 200w Growatt panels. You can run 4 of those in series to max out this unit. If you want a more permanent solution, I’d recommend the BougeRV or Renogy panels which can be found on hobotech.tv/amazon under “solar kits”.

• If you’re interested, use this link and code HOBOFANS at checkout for the best price online!