Geneverse HomePower One Pro - Review 2023

HomePower One Pro Low Down

If you review the website and manual for the Geneverse HomePower One Pro, you’ll see in bold, beautiful text the claim that the HomePower series can provide up to seven days of power on a single charge.  This claim is absolutely true, assuming you also read the much smaller and less interesting text that qualifies the claim with usage and device type.

For example, the HomePower One Pro manual shows that when powering a TV, the station will last anywhere from 1 to 7 days based on usage from 1 to 6 hours of usage per day.  In other words, if you plan on using the TV for more than an hour a day with this station, it won’t make it all seven days.

The battery life gets even shorter with high-energy consuming devices.  The manual indicates that when powering a refrigerator or freezer with anywhere between 60 and 200W, the station will last only 5 to 17 hours.

Setup and Ease of Use

Our biggest challenge with the Geneverse HomePower One Pro was getting it in the door.  Some of us are not big individuals, and this power station weighs 38 pounds, just about a third of one of our tester’s body weight (you can do the math there). Fortunately, once it’s unboxed, the station itself has sturdy concave hand grips built into it, making lugging it around much easier.

The manual says it can reach full power from solar energy in 1.5-2 hours.  We quickly jumped to test this out (neglecting the adjacent parentheses showing the assumption you should have 800W of energy, likely a collective total coming from the illustrated four solar panels).  Naturally, when we tried using one solar panel to charge it under a temperate zone’s November afternoon sunshine in a tree-saturated neighborhood, we were only ranging between 20 and 50W of energy.

Fortunately, the HomePower One Pro stands out here.  Its display estimates how much time remains until the battery is fully charged based on your input power.  When we saw the hours until a full charge clock up to above 60, we abandoned the sun and went to plug the power station into a wall outlet.  There, the display showed a varying range of 500W to 800W, resulting in a much more satisfying estimate of just a few hours until a full charge.

When plugged in, the station initially made a quiet humming noise, but that noise quickly faded away to a silent speedy charge.  The charging cords also fit very nicely into a small carrying case.

Outputs

Anytime you plug something into the station, the display tells you how much power the device is consuming and, based on that amount, how much longer the station will be able to continue providing that rate of power.

As expected, charging a cell phone from nothing to 100% consumed very little power, keeping the power station’s display sitting proudly at 100%.

The emergency light also showed a similar pattern.  On its brighter setting, 7W instead of 3W, the power station estimated 99.9 hours of remaining time from a 98% starting point.  The actual amount is likely higher due to the fact that 5 hours later, the station still estimated 99.9 hours of remaining time. Most likely, the computer can’t display anything higher than 99.9 and just uses that total for any estimation exceeding 100 hours.

By contrast, the station lost a surprising amount of power when using more power-hungry devices.  The time-remaining estimate also proved to be just that in these cases – an estimate.

When we first hooked a 39” Samsung TV and a Nintendo Switch into the Geneverse HomePower One Pro, the display showed a 93% remaining capacity and a predicted 10 hours left of continued usage.  Mathematically, 90 minutes later, the display should have read 8.5 hours remaining.  Instead, the display showed 76% remaining battery and only 7.4 hours left, an hour less than what was earlier implied.

The Geneverse HomePower One Pro showed a similar trend with heat.  When powering just a simple, small space heater set at 750W, the HomePower One Pro registered 392W of outgoing power resulting in an estimated 2.5 hours remaining in battery life from a starting point of 95%.  Just 10 minutes later, the power station dropped to 88% with an estimated 2.3 hours left on the battery at the current usage.

When we kicked up the space heater to the 1500W setting, the estimated time remaining dropped from 2.3 hours to 1.1 hours.  Ten minutes later, the percentage remaining dropped from 88% to 75% and from 1.1 hours to 0.9 hours.

Construction and Design

The Geneverse HomePower One Pro presents itself as durable, user-friendly, and representative of a professional portable power station.  The materials and accessories are of a high and durable quality. The station sits on two long cushioned grips that reduce impact with the floor as well as the risk of sliding around on slightly uneven surfaces.

The layout and buttons are easy to identify, understand, and use.  When powered on, the display lights up, making it easier to use in the dark.  The back of the power station has inputs for its different charging options, which are protected by a removable flexible cover.

At 38 pounds, the station is too heavy for users needing frequent mobility, but the sturdy handles built into the sides make it easier to carry short distances. In short, it looks and feels like a power station designed to back up a home.

When charging through an outlet, the portable power station can make a very quiet humming sound that is barely noticeable.

A unique feature of the Geneverse HomePower Pro One is the accompanying app that allows users to interact with the power station remotely, performing actions such as setting up a schedule for the output power to switch on or off, checking the current battery life, and select a life-extending usage mode for the battery.

Price/Quality Ratio

The HomePower One Pro is the least expensive in the Geneverse HomePower Pro series, but not necessarily the best value. For instance, the HomePower Two Pro offers 2419Wh in battery capacity for a price tag of $2499.  The HomePower One Pro offers half of that battery capacity (1210Wh) but not for half the price; its price comes in at $1499.

Compared to other brands, the HomePower One Pro’s price-to-quality ratio shows a unique story, doing poorly against stations with more or less battery capacity but holding its weight against brands featuring portable power stations with similar battery sizes.

For example, the HomePower One Pro offers 20% more battery capacity than the EBL Voyager 1000, but for a 50% higher price tag.  On the other hand, the AC200P from BLUETTI boasts a capacity with 800Wh more than the HomePower One Pro but for just $100 more.  Of course, the AC200P also adds an extra 22 pounds to its station, making the HomePower One Pro’s 38 pound package sound comparatively reasonable.

Compared to power stations with similar battery sizes, the HomePower One Pro fairs well.  The 1229Wh Anker 757 PowerHouse runs about the same full price ($1399) as the HomePower One Pro ($1499).

As always, check for sales on Amazon and other sites.  Oftentimes, those deals change the story around a price/quality ratio conversation, making any given portable power station an excellent buy when it would otherwise be a poor comparative purchase.

Fortunately, many, though not necessarily all, of the HomePower One Pro’s features compensate for its price.

The construction feels very durable. The cords all fit nicely into their carrying case.  The display includes helpful time estimates, both for how much time is remaining until a full charge and how much time remains until the station is out of power when charging devices.  The power station can also charge very quickly on an outlet, and with four USB outputs and three AC outputs, the station can charge multiple devices simultaneously.

The app is a nice touch, but not necessarily all that meaningful.  Unless the power outage is expected and devices are plugged into the power station ahead of time, turning on the power station remotely is useless. If the power station is needed, most users are presumably in the station’s proximity to benefit from its electricity.

We could see the app being most helpful for a user wanting to set up a schedule to keep a major appliance like a refrigerator running during an unexpected power outage.  After plugging the fridge into the power station, the user could then use the app to program the station to provide the fridge an hour of power every two or three hours so as not to drain the battery too quickly and keep the food inside cold for longer.

Do we Recommend it?

We recommend the Geneverse HomePower One Pro for users who need to keep office devices working for extended periods off-the-grid and/or after the power goes out.   

People who work remotely, for example, depend on laptops, desktops, phones, printers, and wifi routers running. The Geneverse HomePower One Pro can keep these devices powered for an extended period of time off-the-grid.

Although the station has the output power to keep a refrigerator or space heater running, the HomePower One Pro won’t keep one running for even a full day, so if you’re looking for something to keep major appliances running continuously for a longer period of time, you’ll need to look elsewhere for more power. .

That said, if you’re just looking for some temporary backup power for your fridge in those cases of short planned outages as companies work on power lines, this station can buy you that time. Through some budgeted and sporadic usage, one could feasibly extend the station’s life when used with heating and cooling devices.

At 38 pounds, we wouldn’t recommend the HomePower One Pro for camping, hiking, or any excursion requiring lots of walking, but we could definitely see it working for people who work while traveling in RVs, campers, or vans. The station has plenty of power for laptops, cellphones, and internet devices, and its compatibility with solar charging as well as car charging can extend its off-the-grid battery life.