(Last Updated On: July 22, 2023)

We live in good times when it comes to technological advancements. Sure, the world may not be in the best shape right now, but where innovation is being made, that is a bright side to look at, especially with portable products. I’ve seen it with portable power stations, with so many different types of power stations with all types of features.

In this review, I’m looking at this BODEGA 38 Quart cooler that acts as a refrigerator and freezer. I’ve been using this cooler for the past month, and I am impressed with its cooling and other features that you can use. Let’s take a closer look.

What’s the Box

What you get in the box is the cooler itself, a 12V cigarette lighter socket, an AC adapter, and the manual. The cigarette lighter adapter is meant to use with a cigarette lighter port in your car, while the AC adapter is meant to be used with a wall outlet in your home.

Design

This Bodega cooler has a length of 28 inches and a width and height of 14 inches. The cooler does weigh 30 pounds. So it’s not too large, and it’s a pretty good size that ensures that it has enough internal storage and that it’s also powerful enough for cooling efficiency. I will review how well it cools in the performance section of this review.

There is a set of wheels on one side of the cooler and not the other side where you’ll find the handle; using the handle makes it possible to move around the cooler like a suitcase, and I rarely ever found myself needing to pick up the cooler other than taking it down or up some stairs.

Also, on the side where the handle can be found is where the power input is, where you can plug in the included AC power adapter or the car socket adapter.

At the top of the cooler is the cooler door and the control panel off to the right. For my testing, I used the AC adapter to power the cooler. Once you have it plugged in, you still have to press the power button where the control panel is located to turn it on, which is a good design because you don’t have to worry about plugging or unplugging the adapter whenever you have to turn off the cooler.

Also, on the panel, you will find the settings button and the stats of the two sections of the cooler. The bottom portion of the panel will tell you stats about the right side of the cooler, the freezer side. The status shows the real-time temperature, and it also has a plus and minus button at the bottom that you can use to set the desired temperature of the freezer section. When setting the temperature, it changes to what temperature you want to be set and then changes back to the real-time temperature of the section.

The status screen at the top shows stats on the left side of the cooler, and this is the fridge section. This side shows everything the bottom status screen shows. Still, it also shows the voltage of the internal battery, whether the cooler is on Max or Eco, and whether you have battery protection mode on high, medium, or low.

Battery protection mode is meant for when you’re powering the cooler from your car, with high battery protection mode being the best option to ensure that the cooler does not take too much power from your car battery. The Max mode on this cooler uses 60W, while the Eco mode uses 45W; I recommend using the Max mode most of the time to get the best performance.

The cooler is opened from a latch at the front that you have to lift, and looking inside; there’s a pretty good amount of space. A label on the left says “fridge,” and a label on the right says freezer. Each of the sections is split into 19 Quart sizes. On the left side, there is a removable basket, and that is also where you can find the drain hole at the bottom that can be unplugged and drain out the water you may have in the cooler.

Also, there is a divider in the middle that can be removed, and when removed, you can use the full space of the cooler, and this causes the freezer section part of the screen to turn on as both of the zones become one; the top part of the screen stays on.

A small LED light on the inside of the cooler makes it easier to see inside if you’re in a dark environment.

The App

So I was going to go over a bunch of settings you can adjust directly on the cooler’s controller panel, but honestly, you should use the app. Trust me, the app is much easier to use than holding certain buttons on the control panel.

Via the app, I could see the real-time temperature of the two zones in the cooler and change the set temperature.

In the setting section of the app, I could change the temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius. The other settings include switching between Max and Eco modes, changing battery protection mode, and having the option to switch off the left side of the cooler and keep the right one on.

Performance

Regarding performance testing, I powered the cooler from a Bluetti AC180 power station to see how much power consumption there would be over a few hours and how long you could power this cooler from a 1,152Wh power station.

For testing, I placed five water bottles on the left side and one on the right side in the freezer section. For this test, I had the cooler set to Max power, and I started the test at about 4:30 pm; the fridge section was set to 35° F, and the freezer section was set to 0° F.

I returned at about 6:20 pm, and the fridge section was at 35° F. However, the freezer section was at 21° F. So the fridge section will cool much faster than the freezer section for this cooler.

For the final check of the test, I came back at about 10:30 pm, and the fridge section was still at 35° F, while the freezer section was at 10° F. Also, I looked inside the cooler, and the water bottles in the fridge section were cold, and the single water bottle in the freezer section was completely frozen.

So it’s recommended that you keep the cooler on for about 20 hours before placing food in the freezer section, but from my testing, it can be done in less than 20 hours. Overall, the performance of this cooler is fantastic, but it will need a couple of hours to cool before you place food inside.

For the power station power usage, at the end of my test, the Bluetti AC180 power station was at 50%, so this means that with about a 1000Wh capacity power station, this cooler could last 12 hours or more.