BLUETTI FridgePower Review: Tested on a Family Fridge
Bluetti sent us a pre-release FridgePower to test. We paid nothing for it, and Bluetti had no editorial control over what follows. It has been on top of the downstairs fridge for a while now, and one night it nearly cost me a fridge full of food.
Short version: if you want a proper battery backup for a fridge, and you want your food to survive a blackout without dragging a generator out of the shed, the BLUETTI FridgePower does the job better than anything I have used. On my fridge it ran for about 27 hours. If you have a bar fridge, do not buy it, and I will explain why below.
Here it is on video if you would rather watch than read. The written version below has the full sums and the spec table.
BLUETTI FridgePower specs
| Capacity | 2,016Wh (19.2V, 105Ah), expandable to 8,064Wh |
| AC output | 1,800W continuous, 230V 50Hz, 3,600W surge |
| Power lifting | Up to 3,000W, pure resistive loads only |
| AC outlets | 2 x 230V Australian sockets |
| UPS switchover | Under 10ms |
| AC charging | 1,800W Turbo, 1,000W Standard, 600W Silent |
| Solar input | XT60, 1,000W max, 12V to 60V |
| Battery | LiFePO4, 4,000 cycles to 80% |
| Noise | 50dB max, around 30dB on Silent charging |
| Protection rating | IP20, indoor use only |
| Dimensions | 580 x 350 x 78mm |
| Weight | 19.7kg |
| Warranty | 5 years |
One note before you get the tape measure out. Bluetti's marketing says 75mm slim. The spec sheet says 78mm. Measure on 78, and leave a bit of air for the vents.
If you want the full technical detail, the FridgePower user manual is a free download.
What the FridgePower is, and how it differs from a portable power station
It is a UPS for your fridge, not a power station you drag out when things go wrong.
It lives permanently between your wall socket and your fridge. Plug the FridgePower into the wall, plug your fridge into the FridgePower, press the button. No electrician, no rewiring.
When the grid drops it takes over in under 10 milliseconds. I tested that the obvious way, by yanking the plug out of the wall. The grid reading falls to zero and the fridge does not notice. No click, no restart, the compressor just keeps going.
That permanence is the real difference. Plenty of portable power stations have a UPS mode and will do the same trick. What they will not do is stay behind the fridge. They go camping, they charge the tools, they end up in the shed on a Sunday afternoon, and the one weekend the power goes out is the weekend it was not plugged in. This one does a single job and never moves, which is how most backup plans quietly fail.
How long will a Bluetti power a fridge?
On my fridge, a single FridgePower ran for about 27 hours. The sum that got me there works on any fridge, so here it is.
How many kWh does a fridge use?
Most answers to this are useless because they quote the compressor's running watts, and your compressor is not running most of the time. There is a better number and it is already stuck to your fridge.
Every fridge sold in Australia carries an Energy Rating Label, and the figure in the energy consumption box is, in the government's own words, an estimate of how much electricity a model uses annually, in kilowatt hours. That is the average across a whole year with the compressor cycling, which is exactly what you want.
Using mine:
- Sticker says 373 kWh per year
- Times 1,000 for watt hours: 373,000Wh
- Divide by 8,760 hours in a year: 42.6 watts average
Then the battery. 2,016Wh, of which you will realistically use about 95 per cent, so 1,915Wh. Add roughly 15W of inverter overhead to your fridge's draw. For me that is 57W total, and 1,915 divided by 57 is 33 hours.
Do it on yours: annual kWh x 1,000, divide by 8,760, add 15, divide into 1,900.
What actually happened when I measured it overnight
In the app under energy statistics you can watch the fridge cycling, roughly 15 to 20 minutes on and 15 minutes off. As the night cooled the off periods stretched and the on periods shrank.
But the average came in at 55 watts, not the 42.6 the sticker predicted. That is about 1.3kWh a day, and roughly 29 per cent above the label figure.
I am not going to pretend that gap is not there. The label is a standardised test in a controlled room. Your kitchen is warmer, your door gets opened, and your fridge might be fifteen years old. So do the sum, then knock some off. Thirty-three hours on paper became about twenty-seven in my kitchen. Still more than a day.
The setting that nearly cost me a fridge full of food
Read this one twice.
I left it running overnight to measure a full 24 hours. I came down in the morning to a "no signal" message on the Display 1 magnetic screen and the downstairs fridge sitting there dead.
The culprit was eco mode, and on my unit it was switched on out of the box.
Eco mode shuts the unit down after a stretch with no meaningful load. Sensible on a camping power station, exactly wrong on a fridge. Fridges cycle off all night as the temperature settles. Mine cycled off, eco mode saw nothing drawing power, and shut the whole thing down. There is no alarm and no fault light when it happens, which is the part that gets you.
I got lucky, it shut off in the early morning and the fridge was still at temperature when I caught it. In a real blackout I would have been binning a fridge full of food while sitting on a fully charged battery that had politely turned itself off.
Update: Bluetti says this was limited to early units
I put it to Bluetti after it happened. They told me a small number of units from the first production batch left the factory with eco mode already enabled, that they are contacting those owners by email and through the app, and that later batches ship with it off, so you would have to turn it on yourself.
That is consistent with mine being a pre-release unit. I have not had a retail unit in front of me to check it, so I am passing on what they told me rather than confirming it myself.
The advice does not change either way. Open the app and check eco mode is off before you rely on it for anything. It takes ten seconds, and it is the difference between a backup that works and one that quietly does not.
Setting it up, and what to check first
In the box: a two and a half metre AC charging cable, four adjustable levelling feet, a handle strap, wall mounting brackets, the screws and anchors for both, and the manual.
The strap is two screws out, strap on, screws back in. The feet screw on underneath and double as levellers, which matters more than you would think.
Before you commit to the top of the fridge, go and look at the top of your fridge. Another reviewer found a 10 millimetre lip in one corner and ended up cutting melamine to pack it out. Mine was not quite level either. The feet handled it, but if your fridge top is a mess use the wall bracket and save the fiddling.
What is not in the box: the expansion battery, the Display 1 screen, and the MC4 to XT60 solar cable. Budget for those separately if you want them.
Can a BLUETTI AC70 power a refrigerator instead?
Yes, and it is a fair question if you already own one or you want to spend less.
Running the same sum across three units, on a fridge drawing 55W measured:
| Unit | Usable | Runtime on my fridge | Switchover | Stays behind the fridge? |
| Bluetti AC70P | 821Wh | About 12 hours | Yes, 20ms | Only if you leave it there |
| Bluetti AC180T | 1,362Wh | About 19 hours | Pass-through, switchover not published | Only if you leave it there |
| FridgePower | 1,915Wh | About 27 hours | Yes, under 10ms | Yes, it never moves |
So yes, an AC70P will run a domestic fridge for about half a day, and it will take over on its own when the grid drops. Bluetti publish 20 milliseconds for it, which is quick enough that a compressor does not notice. Anyone telling you a portable power station cannot do automatic backup has not read the spec sheet.
The differences that actually matter are the other two columns. The FridgePower holds more than twice the energy, and it expands to four and a half days if you add batteries, which no AC70P will do. And it is built to sit behind the fridge and do nothing else, where a portable is a shared tool that gets borrowed for camping and the ute and the tools in the shed. The blackout does not check whether you remembered to plug it back in.
If you already own an AC70P and you are willing to leave it set up as a UPS, use it. That is a genuinely good answer and it costs you nothing. If it is going to wander, buy the one that cannot.
How much does the FridgePower weigh, and will it fit?
19.7kg, and 580 x 350 x 78mm.
Nineteen kilos is a two-handed lift, but it is a one-time job because it does not move again once it is placed. The footprint is roughly an A2 sheet, so it takes up most of a standard fridge top and will overhang a narrow one. Measure the depth of your fridge before you order, and check the clearance to any overhead cupboard, because you need room to get your hands in and air around the vents.
It also mounts flat on a wall or stands on its edge in a cabinet, which is worth knowing if your fridge top is a write-off.
Where I am not sold
Idle draw. Bluetti says 4 watts sitting there doing nothing, and 4 watts is what I measured. But other testers have reported 12 to 17 watts idle on their units. That matters because a bar fridge only pulls around 12 watts. At 17 watts idle you would be spending 42 per cent more power keeping the backup awake than the fridge it is protecting actually draws. You would still get days of backup, but you would waste half of what you paid for, every day, forever. If you have a small fridge this is the wrong product. Buy a small standard power station.
IP20, indoor only. This does not go in the shed unless the shed is dry and sealed, and it does not go outside. If the freezer you are worried about lives somewhere damp, this is not your unit.
No USB on the main unit, which is odd, because the expansion battery has one.
The app's runtime estimate jumps all over the place. It is guessing from whatever the fridge is doing that second, and a cycling compressor makes that guess swing wildly. Use the sticker sum and treat the app number as entertainment.
You are paying for permanence, not for capability. A cheaper portable does most of what this does. What it does not do is stay put. If you are the sort of person who leaves gear exactly where it belongs, the value argument here gets a lot thinner.
And the solar cable is a separate purchase, not an included accessory.
What I liked
The form factor is the bit that genuinely surprised me. This is the first power station I have used that is not just a square box, and 78 millimetres opens up places a normal unit cannot go.
Charging is quick and, better, it is configurable. Turbo pulls 1,800W and gets you to 80 per cent in about an hour. Standard sits at 1,000W. Silent drops to 600W and around 30dB, which is the one you want if it lives near a bedroom.
The app shows live watts, battery percentage and alerts, and it pushes a notification to your phone when the power drops. So if you are away for the weekend, you know. It works with Alexa, Google Home and Home Assistant.
And there is the scenario that sells it. You go away for the long weekend, the RCD trips on the Friday, you get home Monday and the freezer is still frozen. That is on a single unit with no expansion battery.
Expanding past one day
Cables are included and already attached, and it connects over an Anderson port. You can link up to three BlueCell 200 expansion batteries for 8,064Wh.
On my fridge that works out to roughly 109 hours, or four and a half days. Each battery you add buys another day or so, and the cost per hour of cover gets better the more you add, which is not usually how these things go.
Where to buy the FridgePower in Australia
It is on Bluetti's Australian site, on its own or bundled with one or two BlueCell 200 expansion batteries and the Display 1 screen. Everything carries Bluetti's 5-year Australian warranty.
Bluetti have given us a code to pass on: TrueGear6 takes 6 per cent off at the checkout on their site.
If you are not sure which configuration you need, give us a bell on 03 7056 6732 or email gday@truegear.com.au. Do the sticker sum first and we can work it out in about two minutes, and we will tell you honestly if you do not need one.
Is the BLUETTI FridgePower right for you?
Buy it if you have a normal family fridge and you want blackouts to stop being a problem you have to be home for. Out of the way, silent, and it handles the outage whether you are there or not.
Buy it if the thing you worry about is a freezer you cannot watch, particularly if you travel. Just make sure it lives somewhere dry, because of that IP20 rating.
Do not buy it for a bar fridge or a drinks fridge. The idle draw does not justify itself at that size. Get a small power station instead and we will happily sell you one of those.
Do not buy it if you already own a decent portable power station and you are genuinely happy to leave it plugged in behind the fridge. Set that one up as a UPS and spend the money elsewhere.
Go and look at your fridge before you decide. Find the sticker, take the annual kilowatt hours, times 1,000, divide by 8,760. That tells you more than any review will, including this one.
Worth reading next: how Bluetti UPS mode works, what size power station you need to run a fridge, or the Power Station Finder if you would rather answer a few questions than do sums.
Bluetti supplied this unit free of charge for review. We were not paid for this article and Bluetti had no editorial control over it. They read it after it was written and we added their response on eco mode, which is marked as an update above. Nothing else was changed at their request. The TrueGear6 discount code was supplied by Bluetti and applies on their site. Specifications are from Bluetti's Australian documentation; switchover times are as published, and where a figure is not published we have said so rather than assumed. Checked 2 September 2026.
