Autowit Super Capacitor Jump Starter, 12V Batteryless Portable

Bought this several months ago after I left the lights on my car and had to get a jump from a stranger. I didn't want to deal with the embarrassment of asking someone for help, so I looked up alternate ways to charge my car battery. I then remember an old video by Scotty Kilmer who highly recommended this product. It looked like a gimmick, but judging from the hundreds of glowing reviews about this, I got it. Looks like that battery was on its last legs - 3 months later, I was doing an errand, went to start my car... nothing. Heard the solenoid trying to engage and that unpleasant clicking noise. So I busted the Autowit out. Read the instructions - very easy. Plug the blue side of the included jumpers into the supercapacitor. Match the red to red, black to black. Wait about 3-5 minutes (my battery went from displaying 11.6V all the way down to 10.2V as it was charging). When it hits 100%, it beeps to tell you it's done. You hit the red button on the thing to start the discharge process. It beeps for 10 seconds giving you enough time to get in your car. Once the 10 second countdown is done, it'll do a long beep as it discharges the supercapacitors. Start the car during this period and bam. It's like the battery never died. Next day, I figured the battery was bad and I needed to get it replaced. Well, lo and behold, the battery proved me right - car refused to start up again. Same thing, pulled it out of my trunk, hooked it up, same process, car started right up. Went to my local Sam's Club to have it replaced and now I'm happy as an oyster. No batteries - officially rated to be stored between -48 to something like 130 degrees Farenheit. If your battery is so flat it can't charge your SuperCap 2, it also includes both a mini USB cable you can hook into any computer, phone charger, or power banks you take with you. It also includes a 12V cigarette charger. If you have a spare car or you know a friend is nearby but they don't have jumpers, you can simply plug it into their cigarette lighter and it'll charge itself in just 3 minutes. It's a bit pricey, but I'm willing to pay that price. The non-Lite version is nicely rubberized, built tough. It comes in a handy storage case that contains all the wires you need and of course the instruction manual. The presentation on this product *exhumes* quality. You get what you pay for folks. I recommend this to all my friends and family.

I bought this unit because I have a mid-engine car. The trunk is thus basically in the engine compartment and gets extremely hot. I had a lithium jump start battery for a couple of years but it swelled after one. Not only is that dangerous, swollen lithium batteries are very hard to recycle properly. Plus they have to be recharged occasionally. Before that unit I had sealed lead acid units. Even with periodic charging (every 3 months), they all randomly failed when I needed them. In addition, they won't fit in the tiny trunk of my current car (which has a 33 lb trunk weight limit on top of that). So I bought this Autowit since it shouldn't have problems with the heat, weighs nothing and doesn't have to be charged ever. Three years after I bought it, I finally went out to my car when I was away from home and had it not start. It wouldn't even click. The battery was dead, dead, dead. I read through the instructions, hooked the Autowit up and it took 2-3 minutes until it beeped that it was charged. I hit the button on the unit, waited for the solid tone and the car fired up as if it had a new battery. I drove home and found the battery didn't even have enough juice to do the little lowering the window thing cars do these days when I closed the door. I should add that my car is a 1.75L turbocharged 4-cylinder. Anyway, this thing is perfect for my car and I'm glad I bought it.

It works as advertised and started quite a few vehicles already. It has limitations as others have stated. If the battery is dead, dead it won't do you much good unless you find a way to make it see voltage. I built something something to bypass this but unless you are into electronics it may be out of your scope. Also, if you are working on old or hard to start equipment or vehicles this isn't for you. If you are looking for something easy for emergencies this is terrific. It is easy to use and doesn't require charging every few months. I have had it a few years now and it has started everything I have needed it to. Including my 6.0 diesel above it's rating. I would recommend for anyone. Addendum: I gave now used it maybe 50-60 times far above a normal user. It has started everything except equipment that needs constant cranking to start. If you are NOT using it as a mechanic for diagnostics or repair then it is great. I now have 2 of them and they have both worked as advertised. YOU DO NOT KEEP IT CHARGED. So, if your battery is below 10 volts or so and you need to jump it quick, it isn't for you. Fortunately, I carry a small battery pack that has USB ports, ac ports, etc. When my own daily driver battery died a few days ago I just used it instead of the van battery. It takes only a few minutes from most alternate power sources. As an example, if you drive your car every day, park it and come back and boom, dead battery. It will work perfectly. Just put it on, let it charge a few minutes past 90 something percent. I usually just wait until 100%. Hit the button, wait and it is going to start provided you connected the clips tight.

I use this in an auto auction environment where we constantly run into dead batteries. I have a golf cart with heavy duty jump-start batteries and 20 foot cables to start cars with but they are very heavy and bulky to drag out every time I start a car so I bought this unit to make my life a bit easier. I've had several li-ion jump starters in the past (including a NOCO) but they are hit and miss and are very easy to damage. This thing is a beast, but it does have its limitations. I'll start with those: 1> Sometimes when hooked up to a COMPLETELY DEAD battery it will not recognize that it is hooked up and therefore will not go into JUMP START mode, effectively making it useless. This happens about 10% of the time with completely dead batteries. 2> This cannot be left hooked up for a car with a bad charging system to run off of, as it only give you about ten seconds of power before shutting off. With that being said I knew of these limitations before-hand, but there are some cool features of this unit: 1> It's easier to use than the super heavy duty jumper cables coiled up in the bed of my golf-car truck. 2> I can hook it up to my jump start batteries in my cart to pre-charge it so it's ready to go pretty much any time 3> I don't really have to worry about damaging it by leaving it hooked up too long or cranking too long with it 4> Some diesel trucks are difficult to start with the batteries in my cart. I charge this up (with the same batteries) then hook it up at the same time as my heavy duty cables and it adds enough power to start those suckers up! This works like a charm almost every time. I don't regret my purchase and am giving it four stars, however if there were a way to force it to go into jump-start mode even if it didn't detect that it was connected to a battery then I'd give it 5 stars.

Update #3: Have not needed to use it since last edit but it connects & loads up using any & all of the included connectors. I’ve even used my little 10w USB solar panel. (Took forever for reasons obvious). All worked & when I tested each, used the truck & it was ready to go. So no issues. Works as stated. Works well. The only variables are the vehicle & the user. Aside from a tiny solar who-cares-what-you-have-going-on-today panel, each method you use determines your charge time. It’s math. It works. Buy it. Just double check your connections like I didn’t. Wink-wink. Vanlifer tip for those with steeds & iffy electrical systems: Load it with your USB pack whenever you park. If you occasionally need a jump but think often enough you might need one every time, this practice will ensure less downtime when you have to go but ‘Damn! Three days since last jump. Trickled down to 20%, USB battery, yikes! I’ll be on the road in forty five minutes, not 2.5! Damn damn! :insert Doc Brown facial expression: So, shortly; Have a weak electrical system? Buy this & habitually connect it to your USB battery pack on parking. Less downtime. Update #2: I gave it a day. Out of frustrated fairness, I gave it another go. Connected to a charged battery this time. Used only the jumper connector to turn it on. Worked. Seems intermittent. Unsure of cause. Will continue use as needed & update review as my experience evolves. Update #1: It’s been a few short months & it no longer works. It will charge but not begin the countdown when the button is pressed. Damn waste of homeless guy funds! Original review below: The BEST thing about this is that it will crank a light truck. Others I looked at won’t work very well with even my little 4.6L motor. When I was experiencing an electrical issue, this helped me stay moving until I found the issue. It’s light, so easy to stow, carry, and retrieve out of your VEDC. Simple to use. Very few connections. It’s literally plug (or pinch) & play. & in the event you have a tragically low battery, you can even prime this thing with your cell phone charger or a portable USB battery. Takes longer but it works. One-person use with a ‘beep’ loud enough to hear inside your car if it’s freezing outside while you wait for it to charge. And it’s tough. With no battery in it, you don’t have to worry about handling it like you would a lithium ion or a lead acid battery jump starter.

- I've used other lithium battery emergency jump starters in the past, but if they're not kept fully charged, they don't work. Also, because they're lithium, they present a fire hazard. We all know that if the lithium catches fire, your entire car is burning to the ground. And if the car is inside the garage, your entire house is burning down. - As an electrician, I have always understood how capacitors work. This Autowit Super Capacitor operates on the same principle, except that it is designed specifically to "discharge" all its electrical capacity directly into a dead car battery so you can start the car. It's amazingly simple and effective. - To get started, connect the Autowit to your dead battery, which will then begin charging the Autowit. It will let you know when it's fully charged and ready to do its thing. - Depending on how "dead" your car battery is determines how long it takes to charge up the Autowit. Even if your battery is really dead, the Autowit could be charged in 10 or 15 minutes. - Once the Autowit is ready to "jump" your battery, it will let you know. Then, all you do is push the little red button, and it'll start beeping for a few seconds. This lets you know to get in the car and get ready to press "Start" or turn the ignition key on. - Listen for a steady beep, and then start the car. Once the car is running, disconnect the Autowit and put it away. It's that easy. - This gizmo eliminates the need for jumper cables, although I still keep them in my trunk, just in case. We have one of these in every car in the family. It gives you lots of peace of mind, especially if your kids are driving.

After getting it in hand and running through an initial charge cycle to check if the unit works correctly, I found that you cannot leave it alone. Like other reviewers have mentioned, this needs to be unplugged (or stop charging) from its source as soon as it hits 100% - leaving it connected longer just causes the unit to discharge, which had me scratching my head. It would've been pretty easy to design a stop-charge mechanism, especially when it's over $100? There are a lot of other battery packs that are cheaper... Charging it through the USB port took way too long - it felt like an hour, but the docs says it's supposed to only take 30 minutes. Realistically, you really need a 12V source, as this should cut charge time in half or more - since you have to disconnect the device when it tops off, this is a more manageable time. It also claims a 10 year life, with 100,000 charge cycles possible - so you're going to fire this 10,000 times a year??? That's over 800 times a month, or over 25 times a day??? I find those numbers baffling... ADDENDUM: So... I finally got to do a real world test on the unit. Test vehicle: Honda Civic with a half flat battery, 7VDC - 8VDC The Super Cap 2 was taking too long to charge from the half-dead battery, so I found another battery to charge from, as per instructions. It took 5 - 10 minutes with a solid 12VDC! I watched the display flicker from "12.0" to "12.1" volts, but the percentage charge quickly went up. Once it beeped (buzzed?), I quickly disconnected and reconnected on the Honda battery. I then hit the ON / OFF button and the unit started to count down from 10. Once it started to beep (buzzed?) again, we started to crank the car... Now, this car has a history of hard starting, so this would be a true test; sure enough, after about 10 seconds of cranking, the car did not start. After 10 seconds of cranking, the Super Cap 2 was DONE - display showed 47% capacity, and it would not induce another cranking cycle. What does the Super Cap 2 instructions say to do in this case? Start another charge cycle...AGAIN. That's it. Now, I would think most people would use this product in an emergency situation; I would not think they would like to go through SEVERAL charge cycles just to get a car started. This is where this product disappoints. I would assume this product would fire the engine on the first try - NOPE. I think you're better off getting a lithium jump pack, which should be about the same price. Now, I dunno about you, but this was a major disappointment for me. Unit returned for refund. ADDENDUM: So it looks like this manufacturer / distributor likes to sic it's customer reps / techs on you whenever you write something bad about their product, like I did... THEY claim the unit is supposed to keep recharging (above 95%) if kept connected to charge - which my unit DID NOT DO. They claim the unit is supposed to be able to discharge several times once it's 100% charged - which my unit DID NOT DO. They claim the "100,000" cycles is for commercial / business use - why isn't this explicitly stated? My (returned) unit couldn't even restart the first time. This is the first time I've encountered such a hostile response from a "vendor" for leaving an unsatisfactory review. I pointed out to them that I was merely stating my direct experience with their product - it could have been possible the unit was defective. (If the unit was defective, their quality control sucks; I was not going to get into a back and forth shipping headache for this.) Be careful dealing with their "customer service."

I thought I would own this item for a year or more before I needed it, but less than 3 days after it arrived, I found my Prius's 12V battery was too low. I got lots of info on the dashboard, but it refused to start. I'm lucky that my 2020 Prius e-AWD has the battery right up front in the engine compartment, like any other car. (My older one had the 12V battery hiding deep under the cargo compartment, behind the rear seat. That location would have made the Autowit even more convenient, compared to stretching jumper cables from another car.) I removed the Autowit and the main booster cable set from the zippered case. The other items in there are just for charging from another source if my car battery is really far gone. A flexible rubber cover protects all the ports and the power button on the Autowit. The blue plug that fits into the side of the booster is marked + and - to match markings on the unit, and the plug is shaped so it only fits one way. I didn't have to press any switch; as soon as I connected to the battery (red to red and black to black, like any other jumper cables) the unit beeped and began charging from the car battery. The display in the top edge of the front of the booster is very small, but crystal-clear and steady. I had to slow down my camera shutter to get it to show the whole display - the the naked eye it isn't blurred at all. The Prius hybrid has a much smaller 12V battery than most cars, since it only needs to fire up a small gas engine. Mine was down to 9.8 volts, low enough for the car to refuse to attempt to drive. I didn't time how long it took to fully charge the Autowit's capacitor. It seemed like forever, but was probably 8 - 10 minutes. That little display counted up 1% at a time, while it reported the battery voltage dropping slowly to 8.0V. Having that display makes it obvious that I'm waiting for it to charge, and that it's going fine. At 100% the booster beeped. The beep is so quiet (to my 70 year old ears) that I didn't try to hear the long beep that tells me the 10-second timer is up. After the "ready" beep I pressed the small red button to get ready to start (the only button on the unit), and I just counted 10 seconds while walking around to the door and sitting, before starting the car normally. And it worked! BUT THE PRIUS STARTED THE ELECTRIC DRIVE SYSTEM ONLY. The dashboard showed the car was up and running, but it was silent - it hadn't started the gas engine. I pressed the gas pedal to force the car to start the gas engine (still in Park), and it fired up and began charging all the electrical stuff. After a few seconds of running I got out and went back to the Autowit. That little display told me the car battery was now being charged at 13.8V, exactly what you expect in any 12V car system. I have AAA, and calling for a jump start would have been free, but I would have waited most of an hour at best to see my rescuer. I have a battery thing that provides 110V AC and 12V DC, but it's too small to provide the big, sudden current needed to start a car. It would have blown a fuse. I could buy a bigger battery-based jump starter, but those are big & heavy, and they need to be kept charged if their going to be any use. Maybe plug it in overnight once a month. Just fine if you start dead cars for a living, like the AAA guy, but if I never used mine, I'd forget, and when I needed it a year later, it would be dead. This Autowit is built to not need charging until it's needed, and then it charges itself off your low battery. (That's not some new miracle electronic circuit. Voltage multipliers have been around for decades. This is a perfect application for it.) If my car battery was so dead that it couldn't charge the Autowit, I could still use that battery power unit to charge my Autowit, or even my power bank for recharging my smartphone. That would have been very slow, but could save me out on some logging road, far from cell service. And I can feel better about helping others with dead batteries. Toyota warns that the Prius has thousands of dollars worth of computers controlling the engine, and connecting it to some old beater with a dead battery might kill my car, resulting in a very expensive repair after getting it towed. But I can quickly charge the Autowit from my running car, disconnect it from my battery, and carry it over the the "victim" car for a quick & easy start, without ever endangering my car with electrical noise from the other. I still need to learn why my car battery got so weak. Probably my dash cam system constantly recording while the car is parked. (VanTrue N4 3-channel system with optional GPS camera mount) Or maybe Toyota's latest software update is causing the car's computers to drain power - seems less likely. But whatever is draining my battery, the Autowit rescued me easily, automatically, and relatively quickly. I'm very glad I bought it, and it's going to live in my car for as long as I have it. *** EDIT *** I was going to contact Autowit about my ling charge time, compared to other reviewers, but decided to test it first, so I would be armed with actual times and photos. I left my car parked and off, and turned on the headlights to drain the battery, testing it with my voltmeter. When it was well below 10V I tried to start the car normally. It refused, giving me the same low voltage message I had seen before. I hooked up the Autowit and watched its display of battery voltage and capacitor charge %. Starting from 17% charge (residual from previous use, I guess), it reached 100% in about 3.5 minutes, much better than my first experience. I pressed the button on the unit, got into my car while I counted 10 seconds, and started the car. Perfect. Again, it came to life in Electric mode, so I pressed on the gas (still in Park) to force it to start the engine. I let it run while I got out and disconnected the Autowit, closed the hood, and went on my errands. Another benefit: I never saw any spark when I connected or disconnected the cables to my battery, both times that I used it. Using standard jumper cables and another car is a bit scary, because you sometimes generate big sparks when the cables touch the battery poles. Since a dying car battery often vents hydrogen gas, that's scary. The hydrogen can burn, and it it burns inside the battery, it can explode. That's not common, but it can happen, and can burn your skin, eyes, and clothes with flying sulphuric acid. To avoid that I learned early to hook up the + (red) side first, then connect the - (black) clamp to some heavy metal bracket on the engine. It's always the second connection that will spark, at either car, and making that second connection on some part far from the battery can save you from an awful mess. But that's with normal jumper cables. I never saw even a tiny spark from the Autowit cables, while connecting, or removing them.

Nachdem schon 2 Powerbanks versagten bin ich mit dem -immer funktionierten- Starthelfer - auf der sicheren Seite

Good solid build, draws it's power from the flat battery. So if your battery goes flat and no one else is around it could be a live saver.

Simple et efficace

Slower to charge on usb than advertised

Brilliant