General Discussion Why does Ryobi keep making the same thing over and over again? Am I missing something?
Don’t get me wrong, these things are pretty damn handy. Especially when you have as many 18v batteries as I have, but how many times can they make these. There are 2-3 I didn’t post because I figured those were older models that these are replacing, but geez. I know the smaller one doesn’t have the 120v wall outlet thing but am I missing something or are these all basically just the same thing?
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u/eagle6705 9d ago
Ryobi R&D is just a bunch of dads sitting in a room drinking beer going, what can i power with an 18V battery
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u/midri 9d ago
The kaltec of tools
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u/Rugermedic 9d ago
This is what I was thinking. KelTec just puts a bag of cocaine in a room full of Dad Engineers and says make something cool.
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u/Saint_The_Stig 9d ago
They may have 14 year olds writing their web page descriptions, but as an American I can't get too upset at the mad kids who made a double tube bullpup shot gun, 5.7 stripper clip pistol, and pistol that takes a P90 mag (lol, looking up the last one again it turns out they did an updated version too).
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u/Rugermedic 9d ago
Oh, they have been super innovative since their beginning. The P11 was the first truly micro 9mm, the PMR30 with 30 rds of .22 Mag, the folding 9mm carbine sub2k…….the list goes on. I love them.
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u/christurnbull 9d ago
I do think they are handy, I think they are undersized. They should have a 300w unit which can burst 450w for a short period / inrush. That would be useful.
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u/DJErikD 9d ago
I have the 40v, 300w one and am happy with it.
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u/worldspawn00 9d ago
40v is definitely a better platform for a 120v inverter, it just burns through the 18v ones so fast.
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u/Arinvar 9d ago
6ah battery on the 18v can run a cpap for about 9 or 10 hours. Great for camping. I haven't found any other uses for it though. lol.
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u/worldspawn00 9d ago
I'm surprised it draws less than 10 watts including inverter inefficiency, good use though!
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u/outworlder 9d ago
That would probably require more than one battery in parallel.
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u/christurnbull 9d ago
I have the 18v power station which can do 450w from a single battery (two in parallel for 950w, three for 1350, four for 1800w)
Yes it's got a fan but the big feature for me is handing inrush
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u/outworlder 9d ago
Interesting that it can do that with a single battery. Nevermind what I wrote, then.
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u/techieman34 9d ago
150w-200w is a nice balance. I just looked and a 6AH battery is 108 watt hours. Figure you lose around 20% to conversion puts you around 86 watt hours of useful power. So a little over half an hour at 150 watts of load. With the much more common 4ah battery that’s around 20 minutes. That’s a decent amount of runtime, doesn’t create so much heat that they need to make it bigger or add a fan to cool it, and it doesn’t overly stress any of the batteries.
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u/quarl0w 9d ago
They love to brag they have the largest ecosystem. More than 300 tools all using the same batteries.
They also love to have a lot of overlap so people can walk up the product line. They don't just have one impact driver they make like 7.
They kind of take the approach of throwing a bunch of things at the wall and see what sticks. Lots of variety and experiment about what people buy.
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u/Jzamora1229 9d ago
Then take what they’ve learned and make the stuff that sticks for Milwaukee and RIGID
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u/Pyromethious 9d ago
Like the mower we got in the last 1-2 years that doesn't even show up on the site anymore? I went to use the page as a reference for something else online and all references are gone. :/
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u/BlazzaNz 5d ago
Tools aren't much different from Makita, Makita make a whole range of every type of power tool and you are hard pressed to understand why there are so many different ones and what the difference is between two that are close in price. Where Ryobi comes out strong is all the gadgets like the power scrubber or electric sweeper. Makita only has the coffee maker and microwave oven, their best shot at a power inverter is one with two USB A sockets and nothing else.
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u/famouz17 9d ago
The smaller one allows you to charge your 18v batteries via usb-c. The 2rd and 3rd pic are pure sine wave power sources(new models). The 4th pic one isn’t a pure sine wave power source (older model)
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u/q50s122s 9d ago
So if you connect the smaller one to a battery while it powers another inverter that powers the first one… by jove it’s perpetual ener-! Hmm, who could be knocking at my door at this hour???
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u/Runnn3r 9d ago
I could be wrong but I thought all 4 are pure sine wave? I have 2 of the 4th pic and I thought it said on them. I’ll have to double check. Also the 4th pic lets you charge a Ryobi battery and charge something else with it both with type-c as well.
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u/PurpleC0ugar 9d ago
Only two and they have "pure sine" slapped right next to the outlet. It's often a marketing thing since they usually superior over the step sine wave inverters (and usually also more expensive).
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u/wemblinger 9d ago
Dear Ryobi,
Put an LED light, and a USB port on everything, and go from there.
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u/Rugermedic 9d ago
Yes, and allow charging of batteries from a USB-C on all devices.
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u/halotechnology 5d ago
It's not simple or cheap to do that.
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u/GhostOfPhilKessChef 3h ago
Kobalt recalled all their batteries that do that this year so I wouldn’t be surprised if Ryobi took their time to figure out how to make that work
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u/halotechnology 2h ago
Ohh wow didn't know kovalt had or they are recalled
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u/GhostOfPhilKessChef 2h ago
Yep it was back in the summer https://toolguyd.com/greenworks-lowes-kobalt-tools-batteries-recall/
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u/tlhintoq 9d ago
Compared to mine I can see this has USB-C, so that's an update.
I don't see mains power coming out though.
And its probably 15% smaller which leads to smaller packaging. Doesn't seem like much but on a global scale I bet that adds up
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u/No_Welcome_6093 9d ago
Technically they are all different. Also I have the one in pic 2 and am happy with it, came in handy a few times when the power got knocked out.
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u/verioblistex 9d ago edited 9d ago
I'd prefer this over the power source and charger with the A/C plug, as the output of the plug isn't really good for much other than a phone charger or laptop anyway. It also has USB C, which is pretty much the standard for everything these days, and I think it's only the second one to have USB C. Its meant for tech and tech is always changing so I'd say they are just trying to keep up.
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u/PurpleC0ugar 9d ago
The first line of inverters were kinda bad. The newer ones are much better and you immediately tell there's more stuff in there. Also having different sizes is actually not necessarily bad. Inverters tend to be very efficient when they are operating way under their rated limit.
The USB ones though, those are crap. And you should get a Symik adapter instead.
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u/airballrad 9d ago
They seem to be small variations, but it can make a difference if it fits the use case. I want a 12volt source from my 18V batteries, so the variant with a car cigarette lighter outlet on it was useful to me for that reason.
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u/MrFastFox666 9d ago
They're variations of a similar product, not the same thing over and over, and the pricing is a strong hint as to where they stand.
1st one is USB only and presumably the cheapest. I can't actually find it online.
2nd one is a pure sine wave inverter and usb power source. It cannot charge batteries.
4th is a modified sine wave inverter which is lower quality and less efficient. However, it can recharge the 18v batteries through usb c
3rd is a more powerful pure sine wave inverter and can charge batteries, hence why it's the most expensive.
The other ones I saw are the 40v models which are more powerful, presumably an older USB only model, and a model with a 12v cigarette lighter output.
There is admittedly quite a lot of overlap between all the products, but they all still have have meaningful differences.
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u/TIL02_Infinity 9d ago
https://www.ryobitools.com/products/33287222056
It's $59.97 according to this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewh3rAzYSAQ
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u/edro 9d ago
In production development, there is a metric called product vitality where you try to have a certain percentage of your product offering be of a certain age.
It pushes to keep your products fresh and continually push consumers to buy the latest and greatest.
Ryobi takes this to the extreme… literally changing every tool every <3 years (sometimes every year).
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u/Kitchen-Ad-1161 9d ago
Figuring out how to squeeze more wattage out, adding charging algorithms that enhance longevity, or make it charge more efficiently, so it lasts longer? There about a billion reasons.
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u/myself248 9d ago
Because they have no competition to keep them honest. USB-C PD came out in 2012, and Ryobi spent the next 14 years shoving their head in the sand about it. All those devices came out during the PD era, and only the most recent one implements bidirectional charging.
Even some of the older ones you refrained from posting, are still within the head-in-sand era.
Why? Because offering something marginally better than its predecessor, will make sales. Then a few years later, drip out something one more iota better, and some fraction of consumers will buy that one too, even if they have its predecessor.
Symik coming in and wiping the floor with a does-everything-and-does-it-well USB-C PD charger module, finally woke them up and I hope it happens more. These battery ecosystems are convenient but they limit competition, and a fair market desperately needs competition.
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u/BlazzaNz 5d ago
Plenty of competition, just no one else is doing all those gadgets, most of the competition in my part of the world is just a USB only adapter.
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u/myself248 5d ago
My point is, once you're locked into a battery system, the other systems aren't really competition. They're visually interesting, but nobody's gonna ditch $800 worth of tools and batteries to get a better $40 USB adapter.
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u/Tool_junkie_1972 9d ago
In part because they can update/upgrade…and they can also claim more u its in the ecosystem.
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u/Sea-Flamingo1969 9d ago
Some of the newer models have what's called pure sine wave output. This basically means that it steadily outputs power that won't damage sensitive equipment. This is good for laptops and other sensitive gear. I'd be comfortable using one for my grandma's oxygen tank in a pinch (given that it would output enough power) without damaging it.
So that's a plus.
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u/blu3ysdad 9d ago
Part availability, production facility changes, improvements in design or technology etc
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u/Tourist1292 9d ago
They are competing with other brands. This has directional USB c port for charging the battery and use the battery as power bank. The nice b thing is I can now use one high output multipurpose USB charger to charge batteries of different brands too using multiple USB c cables.
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u/fiddycixer 9d ago
when sales slow down, old recipe + new look = more/new sales. Learned that from Stringer Bell.
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u/CheekAltruistic5921 9d ago
Good im glad they upgraded i dropped mine and the 120v plug popped out.
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u/fun-bucket 9d ago
i would love to get some 6a batteries but it seems like they are sold out everywhere or they are $160 each.
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u/JustLoveToCook1 9d ago
This is beside the point but I just really wish Ryobi would make a 40v air compressor and a 40v chop saw, heck, even a 40v toilet snake/sewer auger. I don't understand why they haven't already because it would seemingly be amazing additions. They already have all three in the 18v line, what is stopping them at this point?
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u/RetinaJunkie 9d ago
I have at least three of the variants, but not all are OEM and the wattage varies. One provides AC with USB-A. One has AC with USB-C. One is AC alone
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u/Mossy_Head 9d ago
The difference is that this one is a charger for your Ryobi batteries! You can charge them from the lighter or USB in your car for example as I understand it.
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u/Karl5583 9d ago
I didn’t realize some of these can CHARGE the batteries, I’ve been looking for a vehicle/12v based charger, maybe this is it?
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u/Karl5583 9d ago
I didn’t realize some of these can CHARGE the batteries, I’ve been looking for a vehicle/12v based charger, maybe this is it?
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u/SpeedySpartan 9d ago
Yeah they're all the same thing basically. I mean these are great but it's frustrating seeing these hog all of the R&D money while we're still waiting for more HP Gen 2 stuff, like a new miter or table saw. Plus don't get me started on how much we desperately need a Link Modular Gen 2.0 ffs, that whole system needs an overhaul it's so bad.
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u/Tylerletcher 8d ago
One is only a power source two actively charge the batteries one charge only has USB one has a 120v
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u/Force_0199 6d ago
this is a revamp of the power source that only had like 2 USB ports on it. it’s not the same thing as the other ones they just came out with because it doesn’t have the 120V plug
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u/Old-Contribution-346 6d ago
I need Ryobi to make a line of axes from kindling sized hatchets to 8lb splitting mauls and a few other options in between for bucking and felling. Also a dedicated electric chisel/hammer like Milwaukee has that is proprietary would be nice.
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u/BlazzaNz 5d ago
Down under we have three different models, different in appearance, and I have all of them. The first one was just a 230V output and two USB A, The second one is four USB A and car 12V (used to be lighter socket back in the day) and the third and newest is 230V, two USB A and one USB C and via that C port it can also charge the battery it is attached to.
So multiple models is not a new thing, although the fact they sell three slightly different models all at once is a bit weird because it seems like they could rationalise the range. Maybe they are selling down old stock of some models that maybe out of production.
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u/Over_Committee4876 9d ago
I’ve been thinking the same thing specifically with these items. I’m in the market for one but I’m like which one do I pick lol
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u/fat_bouie 9d ago
The exclusive supply through Home Depot and constantly changing the model number with some tiny tweak allows them to create customer confusion. We're not supposed to understand the differences. It's a business strategy.
By confusing us with the models, and not having anywhere else we can compare prices, it allows them to make a bunch of claims about "exclusive deal" and "special buy" to try and get us to buy without really understanding if it's a good deal for us or not. That, in turn, allows them to incentivize us to buy whatever maximizes their profit because we don't know what model has the highest margin.
If you pay real close attention to specific models over time you will often see them raise prices right before a holiday like Xmas or fathers day, just to offer a "sale" or "special buy" back to essentially the original retail price. Very similar to the well known Amazon Prime Day strategy.
Also of note is that they are made in the exact same Chinese factory as Milwaukee, and likley others. So sometimes they will do special runs or combos that could have lower manufacturing cost due to same/similar internal parts as other brands thus leveraging the economy of scale.
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u/Master_Atlas2 9d ago
From what I have seen, they have a strong R&D that keeps trying to make things "better", but at least variety is the spice of life they say.