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TheLion Energy Summitis a 530W Bluetooth-ready generator that is built to handle any and all off-the-grid needs. With its tough armoring and exceptional array of connections, it’s one of my favorite backup power solutions, even though it is quite expensive.
Design: Rugged and Ready
The Lion Energy Summit is the perfectportable generatorfor camping, traveling, power outages, and pretty much any other situation you can think of where you need safe and reliable wattage in a pinch. Weighing 18 pounds, the Summit is not much bigger than a typical guitar amplifier, and it was no problem for me to hang onto the hardware with just one hand (thanks to the rugged carrying handle built into the top of the generator).
Dimensionally, the Summit measures 13.25 inches wide, 7.25 inches from top to bottom, and 8.5 inches from front to back. Built like a tank, each corner of the generator is wrapped in tough rubber padding, which is great for keeping both the hardware and whatever surfaces you place it on free from scratches, scuffs, and debris. Heavy-duty industrial plastic is used for the rest of the generator’s exterior.
The front of the Summit is where all the action happens. A large yellow power button is your main power on/off (hold for around three seconds to toggle), which is joined by two smaller, yellow buttons: one for AC power and the other for DC. When the AC power bank is turned on, you’ll be able to use one or both of the AC outlets at the bottom of the generator. Above the DC power button, you’ll find a 12V DC charging port, with two 5V USB-A inputs and two 60W USB-C outlets located beneath the DC button. The Summit also comes with a hefty AC power brick and charging cable that is meant for the generator’s sole 22V AC input, which can be used to recharge the Summit from a wall outlet or solar panels (sold separately).
I love that the Summit gives you all the most vital inputs and outlets one would need for many of today’s most commonly-used devices, and I was a really big fan of the generator’s LCD display. When the unit is powered, the display will tell you how much battery is left (based on a zero-to-100 scale), an estimation of how long it will take for the battery to be depleted (based on how many devices are connected at the time), wattage in/wattage out, and perhaps my favorite part: digital icons for each port-type that will appear/disappear based on what connections are being used. And when plugged in for a recharge, a green lightning bolt will appear on the LCD.
Wattage and Battery: Noise-Free Energy and Terrific Retention
When it comes to onboard power, the Summit is built around a 665wH lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery, a staple of portable generators. Renowned for its improvements over traditional lead-acid batteries, LFP cores will last longer than regular batteries and are much safer to use, too. And when it comes to wattage output to your devices, the Summit delivers up to 530W of pure sine wave energy. This is the kind of electricity that enters your home from the utility pole, which is best known for its relatively noise-free signal path, making it ideal for running sensitive equipment like CPAP machines.
530W won’t be enough to power your entire home in the event of an outage, but it will get you plenty of emergency energy for things like mobile devices, TVs, various small appliances, and certain medical equipment. And according to Lion Energy, the Summit should hang onto a full charge for a little more than one year. This is pretty reassuring for those of us investing in a portable generator for when the grid goes down because as long as you’ve charged the Summit to full capacity (which should only take a few hours if the generator is completely dead), you’ll always have backup power to turn to for the three or four times per year that blizzards, thunderstorms, and brownouts throw a monkey wrench into things.
You can also recharge the Summit using the included AC or DC adapters (or with one of Lion Energy’s solar panel kits), and you can continue to operate devices while the generator is charging.
An Apocalyptic Scenario: Lion Energy vs. the Zombies
With the undead onslaught on the horizon (jokes), it’s critical to keep all of one’s doomsday ducks in a row. That being said, I went ahead and imagined a world without electricity, where the only means of survival is through whatever wattage the Summit can muster until the breaking of the new dawn…or something like that.
With a surge protector connected to one of the AC outlets on the Summit, I had a Samsung 40-inch TV and Roku Streaming Stick+ (the internet still works in this apocalypse simulation) plugged into the said surge, along with a small lamp, a 60W MacBook Pro charger (pictured), and a 15W guitar amplifier (pictured) for combating the zombies through my bad attempts at Metallica riffs. For hot water purposes, I had an electric kettle connected to the Summit’s other AC outlet. I also had an iPhone 12 connected to one of the 60W USB-C ports and a pair of Sony Bluetooth headphones (pictured) plugged into one of the USB-A outputs. As you can see, I was fully prepared for the end of all things, and the Summit was fully charged to boot.
Here are a few things I learned about portable power amidst the throes of faux devastation: First off, props to Lion Energy for keeping my doomsday essentials operating. I plugged in all of the aforementioned hardware at around 10:00pm, with the Summit rocking a full charge. At around 1:00am, the battery had only depleted to 80%, which I thought was pretty impressive based on how many gadgets were connected. I also learned that the Summit has excellent failsafe features.
During my emergency test, I was granted actual electricity for about five minutes (I pretended I hadsolar panelsconnected), which I used to charge up the Summit with all of my devices still plugged in. With wattage flowing in and out at the same time, the generator’s internal fan kicked on, which helped to keep the Summit from overheating. And speaking of overheating, the Summit is smart enough to know when there’s too much juice being demanded. Remember my electric kettle? Well, my girlfriend and I are going to need to manually boil our apocalypse water via the rays of the wasteland sun because our kettle was consuming too much wattage, which resulted in the Summit kicking off.
While it stinks to know that some small appliances may be problematic for the generator (especially appliances that quickly ramp up power), I appreciated that the Summit protected itself from internal damage by shutting everything down; and if youreallyneed to use a certain device but there’s too much of a load on the system, you could disconnect a gizmo or two to see if you’re able to get your hot-plate or electric kettle powered up.
The Lion Energy App: The Basics Done Right
The Lion Energy app (available foriPhoneandAndroiddevices) isn’t the most robust companion app, but it’s a great way to keep tabs on your Summit’s energy usage. Free to use, the app pairs up with the generator using Bluetooth, so you’ll want to be as close to the Summit as possible when using your phone or tablet to check the vitals. And while it would have been nice for the app to work off Wi-Fi, in the event that your internet goes down, you’ll still have access to Bluetooth as long as your phone or tablet still has power.
When you launch the app, it will need to first sync up with your Summit, which takes no time at all. Once it detects the generator, tap the device name to head into the monitoring dashboard. Right at the top of the page is a wattage in and wattage out readout that will fluctuate in real time based on what gear you have connected to the Summit. At the center of the screen will be an indicator of how much battery is left, along with an estimation of how long it will take for the Summit to be fully depleted (based on the connected devices). At the bottom is a live breakdown of what ports are being used on the Summit and how much wattage each bank of outputs is consuming.
Tapping theThree vertical dotsicon in the top-right corner will let you give your Summit a new name (other than Lion Energy Summit), and that’s about it. As I said, the app is nothing fancy, but it works well and acts as a convenient duplication of the generator’s main LCD display.
Should You Buy the Lion Energy Summit?
TheLion Energy Summitis one of the best portable power products I’ve ever tested, bar-none. Sure, it may not be themostergonomic means of backup energy, but if you’re thinking about going camping for a long weekend, a full charge on the Summit should give you plenty of off-the-grid electricity for your excursion. It’s also a fantastic resource to have on hand when a storm strikes and your local utility provider is slow to restore service.
