Leaving your headlights on used to mean a knock on a neighbor’s door—or a long and maybe costly wait for a tow truck. But battery technology changes everything, whether for cars or portable blenders or power packs. Portable jump starters now don’t cost much more than the price of a single tow and can jolt your car awake even with a bone-dead battery. Most can also charge your phone or laptop in a pinch.
My conversion moment happened in a remote stretch of northern Delaware, where I’d left my headlights on after a foggy morning drive. I chased phone signal for most of an hour, until a passing parks employee happened to have one of the new breed of lithium-ion jump starters tucked behind his seat. I drove straight to the auto parts store and procured a basic 1,000-amp NOCO jump starter ($100) that saved my hide multiple times thereafter.
NOCO is still a brand I recommend. The same goes for a reliable, low-cost Gooloo A3 jump starter ($70) that I bought after moving cross-country. But after testing eight of the most highly regarded lithium-ion jump starters on the market over dozens of starts, it’s the Wolfbox 4,000-amp jump starter ($170) that came out on top for its mix of reliability, price, capacity, and sheer cranking power. The Wolfbox charges fast, starts the engine smoothly, and stays above half capacity after 15 jump starts from dead on a six-cylinder engine.
A newer 1250A NOCO Boost X ($125) is the most compact option for six-cylinder engines or lower. A bulkier and more expensive 2,000-amp model from Battery Tender ($170) offers the most comprehensive solution for battery maintenance, as long as your battery’s not stone dead. For this round, I focused on lithium-ion power packs, which may not be suitable for the most extreme weather conditions (see below). In future updates, I’ll also look at the newest generation of battery-free supercapacitor jump starters.
For more power-related coverage, check out WIRED’s guide to the Best Power Banks, the Best MagSafe/Qi2 Power Banks for more magnetic wireless chargers, and Best Portable Power Stations. Also see WIRED’s guide to Essential Emergency Gear.
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Best Portable Jump Starter Overall: Wolfbox 4000A Jump Starter
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Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
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Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
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Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Wolfbox
4000A Jump Starter
WIRED
- More than 15 jump starts possible before needing recharge
- Charges from dead, with good safety protocols
- Digital display, LED lamp
TIRED
- Power port on side of device is awkward placement
This jump starter from Dallas-based Wolfbox does not have much in the way of bells or whistles. It’ll fast-charge a laptop or phone at 65 watts off a USB-C outlet if you need it to. It has an LED lamp, if it’s dark. But mainly it does two things: It maintains a charge, and it releases a charge. It does so safely, without risk of sparking or reversed polarity if you get your wires crossed. And if you press the Boost button, overriding the low-voltage safety cutoff, this Wolfbox can juice a starter battery that’s as near to dead as a healthy battery can get.
Tested on an old six-cylinder 1994 Land Cruiser with a (dead) six-month-old battery and on a ’97 Mitsubishi Montero, the Wolfbox managed to turn over my engine faster and better than it would normally start after sitting for a couple of days. The 89-watt-hour capacity is among the largest of jump starters I tested. On a single charge, I was able to jump-start the Land Cruiser 15 times before the battery got down to 50-percent capacity. (Beyond this, jump-starting is still quite possible, but the manufacturer notes it begins to lose efficacy.)
That’s a heck of a lot of runway on starts that also give reason for confidence. The LED lamp is placed appropriately, the clamps are larger and offer more spacing than most jump starters, and the device remains relatively compact. While it’s listed above $150, I usually see it much closer to $100, making for a welcome mix of economy and power.
