Euhomy - 21 QT Portable Car Refrigerator - Black

When the box first arrived I was tempted to plug it right in and get it cooling to see how it worked but I read in the manual that it needs to sit upright for 24 hours to allow any refrigerant oil to settle so as not to cause damage to the compressor. The unit was delivered to my work and was standing on its end when I saw it so I elected to follow the manual and wait. Oil won’t compress so since you don’t know how it was handled in transit it might be better to just wait even if yours arrived upright. Which gave me time to go pick up ice cream sandwiches for research purposes!! And download the Outdoor Joy app to my phone. After the wait, I plugged it in using the provided 120v AC cord. I connected through the app which was easy and allows you to control the unit from a distance. It showed it was set to 32 degrees and was currently at 75 degrees, room temperature at my house. To have a separate reading, I placed a thermocouple inside the unit, suspended in about the middle and not touching the sides. In 21 minutes the unit was showing it was at temp and the thermocouple was showing 33 degrees. I pulled several 17 oz water bottles from our kitchen fridge and placed them in the unit, a dozen fit with a little room to spare. I left the unit to run for four hours, checking in on the temp every once in a while. I did notice that when set to 32 degrees on the control panel, the thermocouple reading would swing from about 28 degrees to right about 39 degrees before it would cycle back on and cool down. I feel this is normal and it’s the same thing I see on the remote thermometers in our house fridges and freezers. What I did find odd was that the display on the unit or app showed the set temp the whole time once it reached temperature and not the actual temp. I tried placing the same amount of water bottles in it but with the bottles at room temperature and after an hour it was not really cooling the water yet. Based on that I would recommend that you refrigerate your food ahead of time and then place the food in the unit and I think it will work best that way. I wanted to try it with something frozen since it’s rated to get down to -4 degrees. I plugged it in and set the temp to -4. After about an hour and twenty minutes my thermocouple was showing 8 degrees. I placed the ice cream sandwiches in the unit and left it to run. After a couple hours it was getting up to about 85 degrees outside so I shut the unit off and swapped cords for the powerpoint plug. I placed the unit in the back seat of my truck, plugged it in and turned it back on. With the truck closed up and sitting in the sun it was probably about 90 degrees where the fridge was sitting but the temp stayed right about zero degrees. I saw it go as low as -1.3 and it stayed below 1 degree until the setting sun dropped low enough to shine through the truck window on the cooler itself. Then it went to 3 degrees. I had ran it for about seven hours at this point and I had finished cutting the grass by now so I thought we should test those ice cream sandwiches. I’m happy to report that they were just as firm as if they had been in the kitchen fridge freezer the whole time. It worked great even sitting in a hot truck! I like that it has sturdy, molded in handles to lift it and it should be noted that it doesn’t weigh as much as our cooler loaded with ice. It also doesn’t make everything soggy like a cooler with ice will. I can see this being our new roadtrip companion since it will hold enough drinks for three or four people for the day or two people with lunch and snacks for a day trip.

The Euhomy - 21 QT Portable Car Refrigerator from Best Buy is basically a refrigerated ice chest, as it resembles an ice chest more than a refrigerator. Semantics aside, it’s a very well built hard plastic cooler, and it doesn’t need ice because it cools itself. About a quarter of the length of the cooler is taken up by the cooling section. Its longest dimension is 24-inches, and the cooling portion takes up just under a third of that, making it somewhat heavy on that side when carrying. The exterior feels rugged and able to handle some abuse with its tough plastic outer shell. As stated, the volume is 21 quarts, but I found it wasn’t tall enough to hold a plastic gallon container of milk upright. It would be nice if it could do that, but it will work if you lay the container on its side. It has no problem holding a 24-pack of eggs. The reason I mention that is because our primary purpose of getting the Euhomy car refrigerator is to safely transport our cold items from the grocery store to home. If everything fits, we can take our time getting home and not worry about our food getting warm in the car. The unit is powered by a standard 110v plug or a 12v car plug. Both are included and plug into the cooler with a proprietary plug, so make sure to label your plugs and don’t lose them. Euhomy adds battery protection circuitry so that you won’t wear down your car battery. Controls can be found on the cooler itself, but I find it much easier to use their smartphone app that communicates using Bluetooth. I was a little concerned when I searched for the app as it doesn’t say “Euhomy”. Instead, it’s called “Outdoor Joy”, but it works well and provides a simple easy-to-use interface to set the temperature, battery protection level, and a read-out of the current temperature. I plugged it in with the temperature showing 90 deg-F (stored in the garage) and it quickly cooled to 34 deg-F in about 15 minutes. I proceeded to drop the temperature down to 0 (zero) and that took another 15-20 minutes. Quite impressive! It also comes with a ice-pack divider that will help keep your items cold longer without power. You can pre-freeze it as well to get a jumpstart on cooling. There is also a shallow built- tray area on one side that I presume can be used for smaller items that you want to keep cold like chocolate candy bars, etc. Operation is very quiet and almost inaudible, so it won’t disturb anyone if you use it for camping. The lid seals with a satisfying click, ensuring a good seal. I decided to add a portable battery station that provides both 110v and 12v, so I can have the unit working wherever I choose to go and not rely on finding power or using the car’s battery. Now I can even use it at home in the event of a power outage and keep our most expensive frozen meats from getting ruined. It has features two power settings, max (45 Watts) for quick cooling and Eco (28 Watts) to save battery life for extended use. Overall, I am quite satisfied with the quality and features of the Euhomy Car Refrigerator and I expect it will see lots of use on our weekly trips to the grocery store, attending our grandson’s outdoor soccer, and for backup refrigeration should we ever need it. Lastly, it’s really nice to have a cooler and never have to worry about going to the store and getting bags of ice. It might not replace our ice chest for every occasion, but it’s perfect in most cases.

We love to go camping but hate having to deal with keeping coolers filled with ice - the food always gets soggy and wet. I struggled with older refrigerated coolers that used electronics and an aluminum plate for cooling - while they usually kept items “cool” they never really got cold. This Euhomy portable refrigerator changes everything. On the outside, the build quality is top notch and solid. The compressor has slight movement but this is a good thing as it sits on dampers to help keep the noise down. Speaking of noise, this cooler is very quiet. You can hear it in a silent room but in the back of my SUV it's unnoticeable. I really like how the lid is done. Rather than attached hinges, the lid comes completely off, allowing you to reverse sides depending on your packing situation. The clamp holds tight on either side without worry. You get both the 12 volt and 110 volt power cords but the cooler uses a non-standard plug so be careful not to lose them. I do like that the plug is a right angle plug - making it easier to pack the cooler in a loaded trunk. On the inside, it is small! There is the larger main compartment and a smaller shelf above the compressor for smaller, delicate items and to hold the cords when not in use. The water-filled ice pack slides on rails in the center of the compartment, cutting it in half and taking up a good amount of usable space. Speaking of space, the interior is about an inch too short to hold a gallon milk jug or large water or soda bottles. In my mind, this is an easy fix due to the lid coming off. Offer a replacement raised lid with bump out to increase the vertical storage height enough for these items. Controls - the cooler is operated via the four-button control panel or the app. The app is bluetooth only so you do need to be somewhat close to the cooler to operate it. You can choose your temperature from -4 to 68 degrees. Usefulness - due to the size, it's pretty clear this was designed for road trips where you have a few bottles or cans of soda and a couple of sandwiches for lunch. Due to the height, you can not stand up gallon milk jugs or large bottles of water. I set the unit to 0 degrees and it took more than a few hours to freeze the included ice pack mostly solid and overnight for completely solid. I measured the chamber temp and it was consistently about 10 degrees higher than the display said. I don't see this as a fault as the refrigeration coils are behind the plastic and there are no fans to circulate the cold air. Overall, I am really pleased with this car refrigerator and have recommended it to all my camping friends. Five stars

Overall: The Euhomy 21 QT Portable Car Refrigerator plugs into your car’s 12V socket or a 110 outlet and keeps anything you put in it very cold. No ice needed, just power, and the thermoelectric system handles the rest. If you want a smaller cooler for two people or a small family for road trips or even for a campsite with electric hookups, this might be exactly what you need. Not having to worry about ice is an absolute game changer. I have been looking at these car refrigerators for a while, thinking they would be great for road trips and even short outings in the truck with my wife. This one turned out to be exactly what I hoped for. The Euhomy 21 QT Portable Car Refrigerator is essentially a cooler with a thermoelectric system that keeps everything inside truly cold. Not slightly cool, but actually cold. I tested it in the truck using the 12V adapter and at home on a standard outlet, and it performed the same on both. The cooler looks good with its all black modern design and the cup holders on the lid. At first glance it looks like a regular cooler, but once you realize it is a functioning refrigerator, it stands out. There is a small raised section inside that does not chill, which is useful for storing its cords or anything that does not need cooling. Capacity is better than a traditional cooler since you are not losing space to ice. You can fit a family lunch, several sodas or whatever else you want to bring. It also includes a removable plastic container that works as a divider and an ice pack to help maintain temperature when the unit is not powered. We used it on a day trip and packed sandwiches, sodas, meat sticks, veggies and dips, and still had room left over . Temperature control ranges from room temperature down to below freezing. How well it holds that depends on the outside temperature, but if it is powered, your items will not get warm. Build quality is solid and operation is simple. There are only a few buttons for temperature and an on and off switch. No app, no WiFi, just straightforward controls that work.

We’ve never had an electric cooler for the car. In fact, we didn’t know they existed before my brother-in-law put one in their Tesla. I thought it was an awesome idea, but assumed it was an electric-vehicle thing and not meant for gas vehicles like ours. But then I came across this one. The Euhomy 21qt cooler. I was excited to try it out because we do several road trips throughout the spring, summer, and fall. After unboxing, I was a bit surprised by the plastic construction. Sure, that’s what most coolers are made of, but I was expecting more high-quality materials than an average cooler. The quality of the hard plastic is so good that I'm not super concerned about it, and I think it should hold up well under heavy use. Maybe I was expecting stainless steel on the inside instead? It has no obvious moving parts and no fragile feel, but the plastic doesn’t look premium. It’s light enough, however, for stronger kids to carry. The locking lid remains secure and can be easily removed for cleaning or to access the interior. Another aspect that surprised me was the lack of space in the interior. Now, I realize it is a 21 qt cooler, so its capabilities are obvious, but when you open it, the battery takes up a lot of space. And the interior height is low too, so you really have to do some puzzle-solving to fit as much as you can in there by layering and putting items in sideways. Although the capacity is acceptable, the internal height is a bit insufficient. For us, this isn’t a major issue because we prioritize what goes in it versus what goes into one of our “normal” coolers. Still, I’d love more room, so if you have a choice to go larger, go larger. After unboxing it, I filled the internal ice pack with water, slid it back into the interior spot, and turned the unit on. You can decide how low you want the temp, but I set ours to 32 degrees farehneit to test it and see how long it takes to reach that temp when plugged in. Now, I didn’t stand there and time it; I went inside to get a few chores done, then came back about 15 minutes later, and it was at 32. That’s pretty impressive, especially considering it could have been even quicker, as I don’t know how long it was at 32. However, if you’re trying to cool this down outside in 90+ weather, I’m sure it takes longer. Or, if you go all the way down to -4, it states it can go. I’m sure that takes a while, but if you need it for the next day, plan ahead and plug it in and set it the day before. We have a Honda Ridgeline with a regular 12v outlet in the bed of the truck, so it’s great to keep this secured and plugged in there, and then unplug it when we arrive at camp, for example. You can also use the included car adapter for inside the vehicle, but we usually take the truck on our trips, so it works better for us in the bed. All in all, I think the cooler is a great buy if you are going to use it frequently. As I said before, though, I’d go bigger if you can afford it. The price seems reasonable for an electric cooler, considering other options out there. At $136 (currently on sale), it’s a decent value. I just wish it were higher quality. I’d love to see it differentiate itself from normal coolers more in the design and materials.