BioLite Energy 4+

I can’t honestly say that a companion app was a major consideration in my decision to purchase my BioLite BaseLantern XL, but it was a neat feature I looked forward to trying. Unfortunately, I found the experience lacking.

I particularly liked that the app is supposed to provide a realtime readout of how many hours and minutes are left in the battery. The lantern, itself, has battery indicators that might give you a rough idea, but the fact that it has multiple modes that use different amounts of power, as well as the ability to charge/power external devices, means that 50% battery remaining could mean very different things depending on how the device is being used at the time.

After fully charging the lantern, I was surprised to find that the app indicated only 27 minutes of battery remaining with no external devices plugged in. I let the lantern and app run for a few hours to see if they needed to perform some sort of calibration, but the time remaining just jumped around between the 15-50 minute range. Fortunately, the app was wrong and the lantern lasts significantly longer that 27 minutes on a full battery, but, unfortunately, this feature of the app has proved completely useless. I was further disappointed to find that others have expressed concerns with this feature not working, but that BioLite hasn’t updated the app in over a year.

Beyond this glaring issue, the app is pretty clumsy in layout (it really shouldn’t be difficult to locate any of the functions in an app that is designed to control a lightbulb), but it otherwise does the other things it is supposed to do.

It’s a little over-the-top to make a lantern with Bluetooth and a companion app, but BioLite did it - and more importantly, they included functions in the lantern that can only be accessed through the app - so they really should make sure the app works, and they really should update it at least somewhat regularly.

As a side-note, some websites say that you can use the app to set the lantern to strobe to your music. BioLite appears to have removed this feature from the app. This feature doesn’t interest me, but it is concerning to see that BioLite has actually removed features from the app and lantern, since a few people may have actually bought the lantern for that feature.

App is good for running the fan, but the app always asks me to pair bluetooth with “batmanager”? Not sure what this is about.

I love my Biolite. The app overall is kinda useless, except if you’re new to the fire pit, as the app lets you control the fan speed from your device and shows you how the different fan settings affect the battery life and exactly how much life is left in the battery by time. So I like it for that.
Once you get a feel for it and how it works with the different settings you won’t need the app. But again, good in the beginning.