Alpicool C12 12L Car Fridge 12v Car Mini Fridge Car
Alpicool C12 12L Car Fridge 12v Car Mini Fridge Car Refrigerator Portable Quiet Camping Fridge Freezer Vehicle Truck RV Boat Electric Cool Box for Driving Travel Outdoor Picnic
Have a wonderful time with our fridge!
| Weight: | 6.9 kg |
| Dimensions: | 42.5 x 32 x 30.9 cm; 6.9 Kilograms |
| Brand: | Alpicool |
| Colour: | C12 |
| Batteries Required: | No |
| Dimensions: | 42.5 x 32 x 30.9 cm; 6.9 Kilograms |
| Origin: | China |
It’s a tetris job packing it and bring bags of fridge items, not bottles (this saves space for beers and milk!!). But for a compact camp fridge – it’s nice and cold and brilliant. I love it!
I already have the g22 model I decided to buy another one for road trips or camping a bit smaller than the g22 but it’s perfect, it cools my drinks nice and icey cold and it goes all the way down to -20 not that I have it that low love the alpicool products well built and it’s quiet to .
Wanted this for months and months. Eventually but the bullet and it’s great! Big enough for 2 people and a few days away. Great performance and perfect for the micro campe
All good. Make sure that the internal dimensions are big enough to fit the bottles you plan to use it for. I went for the largest size so that it could fit water and wine bottles.
It seems to keep things cold for several hours after the power is disconnected, however I have not measured this.
Wanted proper fridge instead of electric cool box for camper, as never cool enough in hot weather. The fridge is slightly larger and heavier- but cools or freezes as required, silent operation and easy to operate.
I’m very impressed with this fridge, I power it from a 500w Jackery and very pleased, power consumption is good and it’s great to have cold drinks no matter where I’m working on any given day.
I’ve bought the fridge for use in my van, I’m a travelling industrial fitter that works from site to site looking after heavy industrial equipment and am away from home for up to one week at a time. I needed a fridge in which to keep my days worth of bait along with a couple of drinks and a few pints of milk – my amin meal on the evening being provided by a hotel, so I didn’t need a really large unit.
So, the usage:
The fridge really does cool impressively quickly, dropping from plus +20C to minus -4C in hardly no time at all – in this time the compressor runs continually but upon reaching the desired set temperature (user adjustable via the control screen or excellent phone app) the unit switches to maintain mode which has several options, or tolerances if you will. You can set the fridge to raise perhaps a few degrees before powering on again, or be really on the ball and maintain a perfect set temperature. The unit monitors the vehicle battery voltage and can be easily programmed to stop working if the battery becomes unsuitably low (perfect if for example you are connected to the main battery and require enough juice to be able to start the car/van/truck etc). During maintain mode, or eco mode, the fridge maintains the temperature to whatever you have set whilst using minimal power. The impressive thing is that this can be set low enough to be used as a freezer as well (you’ve got to choose fridge or freezer with this model, not both!).
The unit comes with two power methods, either a wall plug for 240V (UK) via a transformer brick or a 12v-24v cigar/aux socket plug (without the brick) – so plenty of options for power input. I have cut the aux plug off the cable and hard wired the fridge into my auxiliary fused supply so that it can be left turned on all of the time independent to my van operational circuits. (really easy to do with a secondary battery and charging kit) – but you don’t need to do this, just plug it into your vehicle cigar/aux socket and leave it to do its stuff – just set a low limit of perhaps 10.8v or something so that you know your vehicle will still start at the beginning of the day)
Storage:
It holds 3 x 3 cans of coke, 330ml stacked two high (the lid is recessed to take the height – so 18 cans of 330ml coke cans with space to spare). It will also hold 6 x 2ltr bottles of water/milk upright. The 12L version has enough space for a day or two of constant use – if it is used for just drinks for example then it’d easily be large enough for a week. If you are working/living with others then perhaps consider the larger version over the 12L model – but it is certainly fine for me. The advantage with a smaller unit is the efficiency and speed that the unit can cool the storage chamber, the power usage is minimal for long days and weeks away and it seems happy for me to turn it off after a week of work and leave it for a few weeks before turning it back on again – with rapid cooling once initiated.
The drawbacks:
Hmm, so everything has to have a negative I suppose… I’d say that the one thing that I notice is that the lid has to be ‘snapped’ shut rather than just naturally closed – you have to push down until it clicks shut and give a good pull for it to open. I think it’d be better if it had a magnetic close rather than the plastic interference fit of the current design for ease of use and improved quality feel for the user. Other than this, so far – so good. It seems to be reliable and continue to draw minimal power from my auxiliary battery setup, it’s handy now that I can make up a days food and store it knowing that I can reliably know that the unit will keep the contents in good condition regardless of the hot weather outside.
Would I recommend the 12L version:
Yes certainly for short breaks, days away, site work where other means are available for larger meals. If you’re buying for a family them I’d consider the larger version – but give Alpicool a go as their compressor fridges/freezers are really energy efficient and have great power saving features.
I’ve waited to write this review until fully testing this fridge, I can agree with others in saying for the money this fridge is excellent.
We went on holiday to France and this fridge ran non-stop for Seven days, being switched from car to mains power overnight.
Kept all our food cold even when external air temps hit 32c. Never had an issue with battery drain on a Cheokee KL with an 80amp battery even when running for hours.
Worth every penny, great for day trips to throw drinks and sandwiches in and bring back cheese and pate in.
he fridge is well designed with good build quality, magnetic catch is a nice touch.
Quieter in operation compared with the Dometic fridge it replaced, that unit lasted 12 years, hopefully this Alpicool fridge will be as reliable.
The remote control via a phone App was a pleasant surprise.
Have used it for about a week now, when it arrived I noticed a small dent on rhe lid and few light scratch marks so contacted amazon, they said they would call me back the next day to make sure it was working OK and talk about the marks. They didn’t call back, can’t fault rhe fridge though not to happy about the marks on the lid, battery protection works great have left rhe car off for over 12 hours, fridge still cold and can still starts.
We then went off camping for a few days and kept the C12 in the boot of our Skoda Yeti, I kept the battery protection set at high and we was using the C12 as a fridge set at 6c and monitoring it via the Alpicool app.
Well it worked flawlessly and my vehicle battery ran the C12 for 48hrs without me having to start the car, I ran the C12 at max cooling until we arrived at our campsite and then switched it to eco mode, I think the final voltage reading was 12.2v which was displayed on the C12 and the app was great for checking on the unit when we was in our tent, we were approximately 20ft away and the app stayed connected.
Our food items were kept fresh and cool during our stay, with the C12 only fluctuating between 6 – 7c, the outside temperature was in the low to mid 20’s and our car was shaded most of the day by tree’s.
The high lid on the C12 is great as it allows you to mound up items within or store taller items compared with the C9, the size is perfect for a couple of people and does not take up a lot of room in our boot, I placed lighter items on the lid which is very strong, when I packed the car, making sure to keep the control panel and the 3 air circulation vents unobstructed.
The size and the volume of the C12 is perfect for us as a couple and kept essential items like milk, cheese, eggs, butter and some chocolate goodies nice fresh and cool, during our 2 day trip.
We think we chose the ideal size for what we need a fridge/freezer for and if the C12 continues to perform as it did on it’s first trip, then we will be very happy with our choice and I would definitely recommend the C12 to others, especially if your car packing space is limited as we take some large/ luxury camping items with us as well as 2 border terriers, so definitely ideal for 1-2 people and a couple of pooches.
I took this fridge on a 2 night camping trip. I had it in the boot of the car and powered it with a poweroak power station. It worked flawlessly and stayed at 4 degrees I set it to. I expected it to flatten the power station battery but it was still showing 60% when we got home. I will be installing this fridge in my campervan build and running it off solar. The fridge lid is a little awkward to open at times but other than that I highly rate it.
It’s brilliant. Properly cools down drinks and food all the way to freezing. I suppose my main issue is I wish it was a little bit better insulated. Ie after a long days driving everything is properly chilled. Next day my food is warmer and the day after that it’s a lot warmer. My only solution is to add ice packs to this container to keep food cold for a weekend, ie if you are in a car and not running it over a weekend or by mains. Still, I love it.
This fridge/freezer is amazing. Quiet and efficient. 5 stars!
The PSU is cheap junk! Tested the unit overnight after purchase on mains power. Occasionally when the compressor started, the fridge would ‘reboot” along with an annoying beep. The current surge was clearly triggering the PSU to shut down.
Ran it on car battery and it was perfect.
Ran it on an alternative 12V PSU and it was perfect.
So, brilliant fridge, PSU is just terrible, factor in buying an alternative 240v 12V/10A supply.
Should really demand a replacement PSU but I figure the quality is poor so why bother 🙁
We need to keep things cool in our new half built camper van, first looked at cooler but found they on cool to about 16c below ambient temperature. not cool so we found these on amazon and wow!! its a freezer, or a fridge. 20c below or 20c+ 25L was plenty for 2 people, kept my beer cold and all the food. Its quiet and effective. runs on 12V or mains 230, also 10hours cool down time so you can unplug and take to the beach or park with cool food and drink. And the big bonus is the Bluetooth, you can monitor it and change settings from your phone. I would definitely recommend.
Really impressed with this. With temp set to 3c and ambient temp of just over 20c and fully loaded it runs 1/4 of the time and only takes 2amp when it’s running. Proper compressor fridge so works out at roughly half an amp hour per hour or 12ah over a 24 hour period. Could probably run it for a few days on an average leisure battery. Loads of space in it, very quiet too and the Bluetooth app is class!
Purchased for working mobile in a van all day out on the road. Great in the summer for keeping cold cans of drinks and bottles of water. Auto shut off at low voltage is a good function even when running of a leisure battery. Much better than these cheap non compressor type cool boxes. Can go down to freezing temperatures also.
While I’ve not had this long as of writing, I am fairly confident I spent my money well.
It’s not whisper quiet, but Alpicool didn’t make such a claim, just quiet. It does make a little noise when the compressor and fans kick in, but settles to a moderate hum in a reasonable time.
The dimensions are quite clear in the promotional images on the Amazon page, and are accurate from what I can tell. It fits a decent number of 500ml cans, yet to fill or measure, but it should hold 12 or so nicely.
the weight distribution can be jarring while empty, the compressor is on one side and makes it a little odd carrying it empty, but once it had some weight in the cooling compartment it balances nicely.
The carry handles are nothing to scream home about, functional, comfortable enough while carrying for a little, and don’t get in the way when not in use. They are large enough for most hands to hold, the ho have extra large shovels for paws might struggle for a comfortable grip, as well as those with baby fingers will likely not have the best time.
On to the lid. It seals well, and is a little stiff to open, however that likely works in it’s favor, it is well suited to be a camping cooler, and will, if not stop little hands from opening it, slow them down enough to keep them from getting at something you’d rather they didn’t, beer and other adult bevvies, medication, that sort of thing.
All that praise over, for those with weak hands, such as the elderly, or if you have a medical issue, best find someone better hands to avoid any accidental injury or pain.
The instructions are clear, though they do apply to lots of their products, so might take a few seconds of reading to get to what you want/need but it was intuitive to just wing it, and it has app connectivity via bluetooth to make it easier to use yet.
I do have a pretty major issue, the app asks for more permissions than I am comfortable with with no option to not give it everything it asks for. if it was less intrusive on it’s requests I’d not have any gripes.
I’ve nothing to say about the USB port or the care battery protection, as I’ve not used it, but it’s a nice extra I suppose.
I’ve tested the temps to low as -5C in an ambient of about 20C. It cooled a roughly 500ml bottle of water to 0-4C in about 2 hours from the ambient 20-ish. and froze to a slight slush in about 4. Obviously cranking it down to the lowest will give different results.
A petty niggle for me was the beeper, it was a little loud, those sensitive to sounds like that beware.
A less loud/lower pitch beeper would be welcome, maybe something that can be adjusted in app. It is at least just a quick little beep, and not an extended siren wailing in your ear attempting to shatter glass and eardrum alike, like some devices can have for no rhyme or reason.
From a standing start it was down to -20 in under half hour, and its been able to maintain icecream for days on end. the bluetooth app is a nice touch though not really needed..
Its not super economic on battery if running in Freezer mode , but in fridge mode it uses very little and can Easily maintain 3c
Seems overall to be a well made unit , nice quality seels, easy to use and to be honest suprisingly quite
It performed perfectly keeping my beer cans at ice cold temperatures even though the awning was sweltering in the unusual high temperatures, it was running of my caravan 95Ah leisure battery that was always kept at 100% charge by my 100w solar panel on the vans roof so basically in sunny weather this thing can run forever.
Even after using the fridge through the night it must have only sipped the battery power because by 10am my battery was back up to 100% with the solar charging.
I’m very happy with the fridge and hopefully it’ll work for many years because I’ll only be using it on caravan holidays every few weeks.
Bad points. None really. Ice tray is a bit of a novelty that I can’t really see myself using, but am very pleased with this since I was worried about the compressor noise but there isn’t any really.
One of the first things I noticed about the fridge was its compact size. It’s small enough to fit in the backseat of my car or the boot, but still large enough to hold plenty of food and drinks. The interior of the fridge is well-designed, with an additional comparnment that make it easy to store a few cans of coke!
The fridge is also incredibly energy-efficient, thanks to its 12v power supply. It runs quietly and smoothly, and I can easily power it with a car battery. The temperature control is accurate and consistent, and I can set it to keep my items at the perfect temperature for hours or even days at a time.
Another great feature of this fridge is its durability. It’s made from high-quality materials that can withstand rough handling and outdoor conditions. I’ve taken it on bumpy roads and it has held up perfectly. The compact size also makes it easy to carry around.
Overall, I highly recommend the Alpicool Portable 12v fridge to anyone looking for a reliable and convenient way to keep their food and drinks cold on the go. It’s a well-designed and energy-efficient fridge that is perfect for outdoor enthusiasts, travelers, and anyone who wants to enjoy the convenience of a fridge wherever they go.
not exactly light weight but not heavy either, very sturdy. the lid is a tight fit and is a simple pull up, no catches, it needs both hands to open it but at least it makes a good seal. cooled down from 19 to -1 in approximately 7 minutes and super quiet, turned off when it reached the desired temperature too so saves battery.
the compressor is more of a low hum than a whine, I could definitely sleep with it turned on and I’m a light sleeper. we bought the 12ltr due to the space available but theres ample room in it for the 2 of us to hold butter, cheese, bacon (of course) with plenty of room to spare. the lid is also recessed so a taller carton of milk would probably fit but I havnt tried that yet. absolutely love it, perfect for what we need it for. we would definitely recommend it to anyone.
Previously I was using a peltier-based (thermoelectric) cool box which drew 3.7a *constantly*, and would drain the fridge bank completely in under 24 hours so I fitted a 30mins on, 30mins off timer and whilst that just about worked at the height of summer due to lots of solar power (tested during literally the hottest days on record), even with bottles of ice to help it along, (or ice bought under way) it was still only achieving around 9-10 degrees C, so food was spoiling much quicker than it should.
As soon as the weather got to be less than monster sunshine the peltier setup quickly proved no longer viable. At the time I was only using one panel so my first thought was MORE POWER so added the second panel but even that wasn’t enough for the increasingly grey uk weather, so I had to go for more efficiency instead. gah!
First I tried to buy one of the yokekon fridges which looked pretty decent but unfrotunately the one I bought got damaged in transit and needed to return it, and there were no others to be had so was back to the drawing board.
Eventually after much frustrated digging through lots of reviews it seemed like the Alpicool devices looked like the most promising – and whilst this one (G22) was a bit more expensive than I could really afford, the ice-cube tray is what swung it for me.
I’ll need to double check but if memory serves me correctly it was using about 2.8amps when the compressor was running (which is less than the stated 40w which should work out to 3.3a) , and whilst obviously it needs to run continuously initially, it doesn’t really seem to need to run that often to maintain temp.
As soon as it arrived i let it stand for the required 6 hours, then tested it to 0C, then down to the max frosty setting of -17C and then put it in the van, set it to 2 degrees c and set off on my travels. It was a bit of a gamble as to whether it was going to work power-wise but thankfully it didn’t disappoint.
Even on a very grey weekend trip away where it rained most of the time (late october in uk) my fridge battery bank ended up with power left over. With the peltier unit it had always been struggling but thankfully with this one I had power to spare – which was just as well because it was very cold and I was getting very little from the solar. Even so there was enough juice left over that I could actually heat using that bank, which I very much appreciated because it was pretty much brass monkeys weather.
Even with the fridge maintaining 2deg C, running some USB stuff off that bank and even some heating, we still never dropped below 12.2v which is pretty impressive (3 days away, 2 nights, pretty much constant rain with just a few non-rainy interludes). The fridge never reached the safety disconnect voltage so can’t comment on how well that worked, which seems like a win tbh.
The build quality seems nice and there’s some well thought-out touches. There’s a little chain to stop the lid from bending back too far and damaging the hinges (which the yokekon doesn’t have), the light inside is very handy for when you’re looking for a late night snack without having to turn lights on (also not something the yokekon has) and the controls are pretty intuitive and work well. Tbh I wish our house fridge worked this well and the controls made as much sense.
I wouldn’t suggest sitting on it but other than that it seems sturdy enough, and given it’s a tiny van, any available flat surface is much appreciated. The insulation seems pretty good and my food stayed pristine throughout the trip. I literally didn’t need to even think about it the entire time, and to me when something is that good that you forget it was even an issue before, that’s a really good sign.
Apparently there’s an app which connects to the fridge over bluetooth, and which I didn’t really see the point of, but being a tech geek I tried out of curiosity. However it wasn’t happening on my android phone and just crashed when trying to connect, but really.. whatever, no big deal. I found I just set the temp and then left it alone, and didn’t really need to worry about it again, so not really sure why I’d need an app anyway.
There’s also a couple of nice thoughtful touches like as well as the current temp the display shows the battery voltage and it also has a usb charging point. I’ve not actually tried using the usb socket since my rig is littered with USB sockets anyway, but i thought it was a nice feature.
For me though, the thing that sets this fridge apart from the others I was looking at, and which convinced me to go a little over budget was the ice-cube tray. If you look on amazon you’ll see there’s plenty of similarly sized fridges, and some of the bigger ones have ice compartments but most of the smaller ones do not, and as someone who enjoys a G+T with ice along with her spectacular views, this was definitely a stand-out feature, and worked very well.
Some of the reviews seemed to be a bit underwhelmed by the ice-cube-making but perhaps the temp of the ice tray is affected by the temp of the main compartment. I ran it at 2deg C and whilst the ice took a while, it was solid all the way through and worked great.
You can actually run this as a freezer too – when I first got it and was checking it worked (after my previous disappointment with the damaged yokekon) I was very wary of the claims that it would reach 0deg in the 20mins or whatever it claims… but it absolutely did! so once it reached 0 deg C I cranked it all the way down to minus 17C or whatever the max was just to see if it would do that and it just did that too with very little effort.
Presumably it’ll use more power to maintain lower temps so prob bear that in mind but my freezer thermometer confirmed it was getting around the claimed -17C. awesome 🙂
Unfortunately I don’t yet have readings of the actual watt/hours used since I was running direct off the battery with the shortest possible cable to minimise attenuation, rather than through the charge controller, but I’m about to fit a power analyser so if that works out I’ll update this review with actual power usage figures over time.
It’s now been just over a week or so since I got back from my trip, and I’ve just left it running and despite it basically chucking it down with rain most of the week – the fridge is still just in the van doing its thing. Spot on 🙂
It does seem kinda ridiculous that in the house we’re getting price-gouged by the energy companies to the point that we’re sitting in the dark and cold and having to obsess about turning everything off, yet in the van there’s always cold beer and more power than I know what to do with thanks to free sun energy.. but hey.. strange times.
In conclusion – whilst I definitely overspent on this quite a bit, I really don’t regret it. I love devices that spark joy, and ones that spark joy and can bring forth icy G+Ts I like even better, and this does exactly that. Maybe I’m easily pleased, but being able to sit and enjoy a spectacular view and then just be like “ok well I might just have some ice-cubes with that” just seems like pure luxury 🙂
Great job Alpicool! Thank you 🙂
We can comfortably store 3/4 days worth of “chilled” foods for two adults. In the photo, we were storing a large box of strawberries, 2x bell peppers, an onion, 2x chicken breast pack, a pack of sliced ham, a box of filled fresh pasta, grated cheese and 2 pints of milk (just removed). Despite being relatively small, it’s deceivingly roomy!
It does make a bit of a gurgly noise when chilling. However, where the fridge is in our van is almost directly under our heads as we sleep – and neither of us have ever been woken up by it. During the day, I only notice it clicking on briefly once every 1-2 hours.
Its light enough that we were able to put it on a drawer runner to slide in and out the unit. It also seems to draw an exceptionally small amount of power. The most it dropped our leisure battery by overnight was about 0.4v. I would definitely be happy running this off the 12V in my car and not be worrying about being left with a flat battery!
A bit more pricy than some options, but definitely a worthwhile investment.
However, the temperatures reported both on the unit display and on the Bluetooth app are poppycock! All results were taken plugged into 240v plug and in ‘max’ mode.
I placed a brand-new Bluetooth temperature and humidity sensor inside the middle of the box as soon as it arrived and tested it for 2 hours.
First of all, when the target temperature was 4C the box took about an hour to reach this. The room ambient was 21C and the box was an initial 25C. This is much longer than it should normally take to cook down but that was probably due to the warm temperature the refrigerator was at initially and the fact that it had been in transit. What I saw was the box reporting a temperature of 4C but the temperature sensor was showing temps ranging from 1-8C! (Remember this was set in ‘max’ mode which should limit the Temperature range the fridge is allowed to vary – as in eco mode).
When I set the fridge to -20C it very quickly reportedly cooled down to this temperature according to the readout. However, the temperature sensor after 2 hours was only reporting -13.5C and it never got any cooler than this even though the box and the app were both reporting the internal temp to be -19 or -20C. So that’s a big difference.
One other thing I noted was that the box isn’t very well insulated! When the box was in freezer mode the outside of the box became covered in condensation quickly which dripped down the sides. The box felt very cold to the touch both on the sides and the top which would indicate rather poor quality insulation being used. I think when this is unplugged it would warm up much quicker than a standard cooler box of similar dimensions.
The main reason I bought this particular box was because of the low (ish) power draw (about 4-5 amps p/h) and the competitive price. I’ll be powering this via the car and a battery pack and 120W solarn panel. It works for my purposes.
You might want to wrap the fridge section (leaving all the air vents free and open!) In a blanket or duvet when camping or in the car, it should help enormously to keep the heat out and maintain cold temperatures inside.
I’ll update this review after a couple of months of family camping to see how it does.
4/5 to begin with though is a good start.
Edit: a brand new 240Wh battery pack only lasted about 8 hours when filled from 4C with 3L of room temp tap water to freeze at -20C. The battery was fully depleted and didn’t manage to freeze anything.
From a true -7C inside to +13C (with 3L of very cold water inside) only took 4 hours after the battery ran out. So, as suspected it’s not great at keeping things cold once the power cuts. Trying to see if I can freeze 3L water on AC now.
It’s a good fridge but it has limitations, pesky thermodynamics!
The absolute coldest this freezer will achieve (in ambient 21C) is a true -14.5C not -20C.