Olight Ostation 2 Pro Review – Automatic AA & AAA Charger

Pricing & Availability

Olight sent me this charger and some batteries in exchange for an honest review. Here is the Amazon US page where you can see current pricing. That’s a tracked link so they know I’ve sent you, but I’ve chosen not to earn any sales commissions. At the time of writing it’s on sale for $112 USD, but the regular price is $140.

This is the Pro version that has a touchscreen and two magnetic charging ports for Olight flashlights. There’s also a standard version without those extra features at a lower price point.

What comes in the box?

The box is cardboard with some foam inserts to hold the charger securely. Inside is:

The charger itself
Power brick & cable
User manual

Design & Construction

I love the new design. It’s smaller, darker, and sleeker than the original Ostation X. It just looks smart. Build quality is good. It’s made of plastic but it feels solid.

Size & Measurements

Height: 8.5″ with top doors closed, but you need clearance above to open the doors and drop batteries in.
Width: 3.5″ with MCC door closed, 7.5″ with MCC door open.
Depth: ~6.25″ (7″ including the power cable)

User Interface & App

All you need to do is drop empty batteries in the top and pull fully charged batteries out the drawers at the bottom. Everything below is optional.

User interface: This Pro version has a touchscreen on the front. It’s cool but doesn’t really add any significant functionality. It does show charging status for batteries currently being charged and cycle count (for the special Olight 1.5V Li-Ion batteries only). It also displays a “AAA/AA Storage Compartment Full” message any time either compartment is full. I find that kind of annoying because the screen will stay on with that message until you manually dismiss it. The screen doesn’t appear to have an auto-sleep function so it just stays on all the time. There’s a setting to turn it off, but that only lasts until you touch it again. Overall, the screen is not a reason I’d buy the Pro version over the standard Ostation 2.

App: Both versions of Ostation 2 can optionally connect to the Olight App. The app lets you monitor charging remotely, manage some settings, and update the firmware. Nothing critical or even particularly useful. I like that you don’t have to create an account to use the app, but you do have to give it location permissions and connect it to your home WiFi to control it remotely. I don’t like that because I don’t want it online all the time. It makes me wonder if it’s collecting some kind of data. I’d much prefer if it just connected over Bluetooth directly to my phone. Overall, the app seems superfluous and I don’t recommend using it.

Batteries & Charging

Supported batteries: Ostation 2 (Pro) supports both AA and AAA batteries in the same device. That’s a huge improvement over the outgoing Ostation X. It can charge NiMH cells as well as Olight’s special 1.5V Li-Ion cells. It can store up to 12 AAAs and 12 AAs in the charged hopper, but there’s lots more room in the discharged hoppers on top. I imagine it can fit around 50 batteries total. It will pause charging if the bottom hoppers are full though.

Unsupported batteries: If you drop in batteries that aren’t supported (alkaline disposables or 3.7V li-ion) they’ll be dumped into the invalid tray. That’s also where damaged/defective NiMH cells end up.

Initially I was disappointed that 3.7V Li-ion 10440/14500 cells aren’t supported. But I think that’s ultimately a good decision. It keeps it simple and fool-proof. You also won’t end up with a 14500 trapped behind a bunch of NiMH cells in the queue when you need it. Perhaps they can add a 10440/14500 bay-charger on the side in the next version, kind of like the fold-out MCC charging pads.

Loading the charger happens through two doors on the top. The front, smaller door is for AAAs and the rear, larger one is for AAs. You just drop the batteries in lined up horizontally and they’ll fall into the hopper. They need to be lined up horizontally, but they can be pointed either direction.

MCC: The Pro version has a two-port MCC charging dock that folds out the side. That let’s you conveniently charge any Olight model with an MCC charging base. That’s handy, and means I don’t have to keep an extra MCC cable plugged in for my Olights.

Power is provided by the included 18W USB-C power brick and cable. There’s no USB-C out port for daisy chaining like there was on Ostation X. I like that it’s USB-C and that the power brick is included.

Reliability

I only had a couple of hiccups when using Ostation 2 Pro. There was one time I dropped in AAA and it didn’t detect it until I jostled the charger. Overall it’s been very reliable.

Competition

Linogy 1.5V Li‑ion AA/AAA Rechargeable Batteries + All‑in‑One Fast Cha

Linogy is the only direct competitor I could find. It’s a bit less expensive, but also a bit less automated and doesn’t seem to include a power brick. It has 8 charging bays you have to populate manually, but it drops the batteries into the hopper at the bottom when they’re done charging. To charge AAAs you have to use goofy AA-size adapters. It supports NiMH and 1.5V Li-Ion cells, just like Ostation 2 Pro. I don’t know if the Olight 1.5V Li-Ion cells and the Linogy 1.5V Li-ion cells are interchangeable.

Conclusion

I love the new smaller size, new aesthetic, and AA/AAA support in one device. I can simply drop batteries in the top and they end up fully charged at the bottom. It’s reliable and I don’t have to think about it. The MCC ports on the Pro version are nice, but I don’t find the screen useful so I’d probably buy the standard version instead. The app seems superfluous and raised some privacy concerns for me. Overall, it delivers on being a “drop dead batteries in, pull charged batteries out” fool-proof charger and I like it.

Thanks to Olight for sending me this charger for review!