BioLite FirePit (2020 Model)

Update 4/1/2024:Four years later and this thing is still kicking. 5 stars because the issues i had in the past were because I am dumb not because of the product.I bought some heat reflective furnace tape that is rated for 500°F and put that on the battery unit a few years back to help provide additional shielding and that has kept it safe from the heat generated by even the biggest fires. I definitely stand by my recommendation of taking the fan unit off if it is not in use. At this point I have taken this on about 12-13 weekend long camping trips and countless backyard evenings. It used it as the primary cooking heat source for most of the times i used it, I purchased the Cast iron griddle and the grill top accessories for this thing and they open up so many more cooking methods. Once you get the hang of starting a fire and getting it to be smokeless and Ash-less then you can reliably cook with this baby. I have even been able to do charcoal and wood pellets out of it using stainless steel baskets for the wood pellets. I love this thing.Recommendations after 4 years of abusing this thing.- Place aluminum foil along the floor of the unit underneath the lower air pipe prior to use, it makes clean up so easy, especially if you are cooking meat or anything that drips.-Follow the manufacture guidelines and don’t overfill the fire pit with wood- Always keep the fan running so that the battery unit is able to keep itself cool, if you don’t want the fan running take the whole thing off so it doesn’t get destroyed by the heat.- do not leave it out in the rain as it will rust very quickly-Consider using furnace or fire resistant tape on the battery unit to further insulate from radiant heat.- buy the griddle and the grill top accessories and some wood pellet trays on amazon if you want to be a campsite hero and cook. they area. Game changer.- search YouTube to see what others do with it.Update 5/13/2021:I let a buddy of mine who is an air force avionics systems technician look at the fan unit and he got the fan unit and battery working again by taking it all apart and using two probes to charge the batteries back from dead.When it overheats the batteries will die beyond being able to charge by the micro USB apparently???Moral of the story is if it does on you just take it to a computer repair shop and as them to charge the internal battery for like $20 they should be able to fix it for you.Four stars because this thing is awesome but minus the one star for being so high maintenance and lack of product support or information online. I am okay with high maintenance but if that’s to much for you I would recommend one of the SoloStove bonfires or fire pits instead of this thing.Original:Bottom line up front: this fire pit is able to get very hot fires going. So hot that the battery and fan unit gets burned and no longer functions.I bought this little smokeless beauty in April of 2020 and used it for 3 camping trips and about 8 different occasions of sitting in the backyard making s’mores before it burned out in November. It had not issues on any of the previous trips and when being used in backyard. Starting fires with it was relatively easy using newspapers or dryer lint. It even had enough space for cooking some stuff on it. It controlled the fire, ash and smoke really well if you placed the wood correctly.The grand mistake I made was going inside to clean dishes one fateful night and leaving the fire going with teenagers. They decided to load the pit up to the brim with wood to burn and then turned off the fan so that the wood would burn slower once it had started. Without the positive pressure air moving through the fan unit and ducts, heat and smoke was able to travel up the ducts and into the fan and battery unit ultimately heating it up until the battery was to damaged to function.My advice:-Follow the manufacture guidelines and don’t overfill the fire pit with wood- Always keep the fan running so that the battery unit is able to keep itself cool, if you don’t want the fan running take the whole thing off so it doesn’t get destroyed by the heat.- do not leave it out in the rain as it will rust very quickly-enjoy it.

UPDATE:One thing I would like to add about this product is that it does rust extremely fast. I've even gone as far as storing the grill inside to try and avoid rust altogether and there is still spotting after only a few uses over the course of a month or so. At the end of the day, it does not affect the functionality of the grill, more so just the aesthetic. In addition to that, though the device is light, it trades out easily bendable metal. I ended up bending a hook inside of the grill slightly with little to no pressure. Other than these two minor inconveniences, the grill works perfectly.ORIGINAL POSTI recently purchased this product after reading a lot of so-so reviews. I will absolutely say that a good majority of the negative reviews are due to operator error.Smoke:This isn't a magic smokeless device. It's fire so it will naturally have some smoke, but it has significantly less than anything else I've experienced. What's important is to follow not only the handbook but watch down all - and I mean all - of the video tutorials. Biolite lays it out very clearly what will and will not generate smoke. I started using the pit as any old fire pit and it started smoking a lot but after watching the tutorials halfway through, I found the operator error. I highly recommend using their website for tutorials.Warmth:When using the campfire, it's not going to warm a group of 10. It's a very intimate campfire pit and it requires a decent amount of attention but I would say if you're appropriately dressed for outdoor fall/winter use, then you should be fine in a group of about 5. I used this for the first time in weather with a 48 degree low and a windchill of about 15mphs and I had no problems but I also run warm. My girlfriend, on the other hand, does not so she was cold at times. The campfire went through a decent amount of fuel - about 3 standard sized log bundles bought at Walmart, roughly 5-7 logs per bundle. That lasted us from 5pm until midnight. I would highly recommend buying a bag of small and large fire-safe woodchips and blocks for smokers to start. They help get the perfect bed of coals before you can throw on a log - unless you have an axe handy that is then I would move past that.Cooking:Cooking on this was a little difficult at first cooking with wood but it should take some time getting used to. I would recommend getting fire/heat retardant gloves so you can continually slide the rack back and forth to add more fuel while you're cooking. I used 100% wool gloves and didn't have a problem grabbing the grate by hand. It probably takes about a good hour or two into burning logs before you get a hot enough and stable enough bed to cook from my experience.Battery life:At this time, I've only used this product once. I ran it for about 8 hours total on the low setting and I just barely went through one bar of energy.Overheating: TLDR: It didn't overheatFrom what I can tell, most stories about people overheating their devices is from not following the directions. They more than likely overstuffed the unit and ran the fan on high for hours without paying attention. I did not have any problemsAll in all, I'm very happy with this product. I can't wait until my next camping endeavor to really give it another shot.