I was looking around on Amazon at solar generators and saw a EBL Acc2400 solar power station for $500. It has 1840 Wh of storage, which is a little less than the Aferiy, but it allows up to 800 watts of solar charging (vs. 500). It’s not like I need another one, but it seemed like a good alternative. It looks lower quality than the Aferiy, bigger and heavier with a more basic screen and no control via an app, but it has the same battery type (LiFePO4), lots of ports, and adds wireless charging. Based on a couple of reviews it also has the same 20-30 watt or so idle drain, which means you waste a lot of power if you want to power something all day. Having two generators would let me connect one panel to each and get the full wattage from each of the 425 watt panels instead of capping it at 500, which is what happens now.
As I searched for reviews of it I also got shopping results that said I could get one for $210 at AliExpress. That’s a third of what I paid for the Aferiy, so I went ahead and bought one figuring that at that price I couldn’t go wrong. Having ordered flashlights direct from China for years I knew you had to be really careful ordering from places like AliExpress. I had actually bought a flashlight at AliExpress a few years ago so I already had an account. I also found a deal at Temu, which is similar, but when I went to that page, it was actually a page for several different generators and the one that was cheap was actually a much lower capacity generator even though the whole page was all about the more expensive one.
Another issue is tariffs. It seems like from what I am reading that AliExpress doesn’t always charge you up front or even tell you whether or how much a tariff will be and it can add 40% to the price after you have paid and the product ships. Usually if it is ordered from their US warehouse there wouldn’t be a tariff, but this one was coming from China for delivery in October.
Looking at the listing again and getting more worried about this too good to be true purchase, I saw that they also had a tiny thumbnail that was clicked and if you clicked the thumbnail of the Acc2400, which, again, the entire page showed pictures and descriptions of, the price changed to $500. I thought maybe I could wait and hope for the best, but AliExpress seems to feel like if they send you something that works, even if it isn’t what you ordered, that you should only get a partial refund or you can pay to send it back to them for a full refund (a 60 pound package sent back to China?). I looked up the specs on the lower priced generators and they aren’t something I would ever want, not even capable of dealing with the wattage that one of my solar panels produces.
I started an online chat with the seller (not actually AliExpress, since they seem to ba all about third party sellers) and asked to confirm which model was in my order. The next morning they confirmed it was the lowest model. Bait and switch all the way, but I think Amazon does something similar that you have to be really careful of where they sell multiple versions of a product on the same page and you have to look closely to make sure you are clicked on the product you want. At Amazon even if you change the size or color of a shirt, the price can change.
Anyway, lesson learned. Never order anything from AliExpress.