No More Ice Runs: Testing the Bodega Electric Cooler

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For years we have camped with our trusty Igloo 168 110 Qt/ 168 12-oz can Rolling Cooler, dealing with the melting ice, soggy food, and making another ice run mid trip. Once we started camping in Gilly, our faithful Thor Chateau, we were able to use the fridge/freezer unit which helped some. But any trip longer than a weekend meant we would need to go get more ice and often meant we couldn’t pack as much food as we wanted because of the room needed for ice.

Credit: https://campinganswer.com

Then, Bodega reached out to us offering a free electric cooler for testing and review. After looking over their website and reading other reviews, we became quite excited and placed our order.

In a hurry? Our verdict is that the Bodega Dual Zone Refrigerator is:

Best for? car camping and family camping
Biggest advantage? no melted water or soggy food
Biggest drawback? no wheels (other models do have wheels though!)
Would we take it camping again? Absolutely!

Bodega Electric Cooler Testing Conditions At Home

As we do with any new product, we started by testing the electric cooler at home. This gave us a chance to make sure everything was working properly and to familiarize ourselves with its controls, functions, and features before taking it into the field. We had a ThermoPro thermometer on hand and, while it’s designed for grilling and high temperatures, we liked that it has two temperature probes, a second temperature reading, and an alarm that can alert us when the temperature reaches a set point. We also downloaded the apps for both devices to monitor the temperatures from our smartphones.

Indoors plugged in

Our first day of testing involved setting up the Bodega in our living-room and the house was set to 70 degrees (summer, Tennessee, don’t judge us). We labeled one probe for the freezer and one for the fridge and taped them down inside. The Bodega was off so testing basically began and ambient room temperature. Though the unit is a dual zone we started testing by setting the freezer side to 5 degrees to see how much the cold would transfer over to the fridge side. Initial testing started off with the Bodega being on the MAX setting verses the ECO setting. The Bodega was plugged in, turned on and set to 5 degrees at 10 am. Also, testing started with the cooler being empty.

11:20 AM Bodega read 5 degrees/59 degrees; ThermPro read LLL*/57 degrees
11:50 AM Bodega read 5 degrees/52 degrees; ThermPro read LLL/46 degrees
1:11 PM Bodega read 5 degrees/44 degrees; ThermPro read LLL/39 degrees
2:20 PM Bodega read 5 degrees/41 degrees; ThermPro read LLL/36 degrees
4:00 PM Bodega read 5 degrees/40 degrees; ThermPro read LLL/37 degrees

*LLL meant the temperature was too low to read.

What did we learn from this first round of testing?

The Bodega cooled off very quickly on the freezer side. Impressively fast!
The bleeding over from the freezer side to the fridge or Step side was gradual. It started off at 52 degrees and remained a steady drop down to 40 degrees a few hours later. This begins our first issue with the Bodega but really it is an issue with their app. We wanted to use the chart feature to monitor the temperature but for some reason the app would not cooperate with our desire or it is an issue with this model of Bodega. Maybe the temperature charting feature in the app works for other Bodega units? We don’t know. However, just having an app connected via Bluetooth technology is a win.
There was about a 5 degrees temperature difference between the Bodega and the ThermPro but we will blame the ThermPro for that. Again, we just wanted a second opinion of the temperature and the alarm feature of the probes as well as the monitoring via the app.

So far for the first day of testing the Bodega we were impressed with the unit. Inside the house the unit is very quiet. The noise level just blends in with the background noise and you can kind of forget that it is running. The temperature seems to be steady once it gets to the desired temperature. Verdict – we like it so far.

Indoors unplugged

This time we wanted to test how well the Bodega retains a temperature once the unit is turned off. Instead of an empty unit we simulated a full one by adding a 7 lbs bag of ice from the local gas station. The Bodega had been running with a freezer side setting of 5 degrees when we added the bag of ice. Testing was still done in the living room with a 70 degree house temperature. The Bodega was turned off and we set the ThermPro alarm to 40 degrees at 6:30pm.

8:00 PM Bodega read 28 degrees; ThermPro read 22/24 degrees*
9:00 PM Bodega read 32 degrees; ThermPro read 28/29 degrees
10:00 PM Bodega read 35 degrees; ThermPro read 32/32 degrees
11:35 PM the ThermPro alarm sounded**

*That was kind of interesting that there was a temperature difference between the two with the Bodega app reading higher. That LLL reading on ThermPro kicks in at about 17 degrees so the app reading 22 and 24 degrees is a good second opinion to the Bodega app.

** Alarm was set for 40 degrees on the ThermPro when it went off and the reading on the Bodega app was also 40 degrees. Inside the cooler the bag of ice looked good with no signs of melting. The main thing we were getting from all this is that the Bodega seems to be pretty good at holding a temperature and a gradual increase if there is no power or the unit is off.

At 8:00 AM the next day the Bodega app read 41 degrees while the ThermPro read 42 degrees. At this point there were signs of melted ice and water at the bottom of the Bodega.

What did we learn from this second round of testing?

What we learned from this round of testing is that the Bodega can go several hours without power or turned off and keep things cold (or frozen) before temperature becomes an issue.

Outdoors plugged in

Remember when I said Tennessee earlier? Yes, we are going to test the Bodega in the direct sun of a Tennessee afternoon. We place it on our back concrete patio. The Weather Channel app said that this day would be 87 degrees and mostly cloudy. We did the same kind of temperature testing and monitoring via the apps for the outside as we did for inside the house. Temperatures remained the same and there were no discernible differences.

Fourth day of testing. More of the same in direct sunlight. At noon the Weather Channel app said the temperature was 88 degrees but a “feels like” of 98 degrees and a possibility of afternoon showers. But at 12:30pm we are in “Full On Rain Downpour” testing.

What did we learn from this third round of testing?

Frankly, we think the Bodega did not care if it was inside or outside in the full sun. The Bodega didn’t miss a beat. By 2:30pm it was back to full sun and no noticeable temperature issues. Additionally, even with the pouring rain, the cooler remained watertight.

At Home Verdict

So far inside or outside, rain or shine the Bodega trucks right along. Temperature held fast to whatever it was set to. Could more scientifically rigorous testing be done? Sure, but we are not scientists, nor do we have that kind of equipment. We are not BASF either. As the casual camping adventurers that need a portable fridge/freezer… we think we have a winner. This is a great start.

Bodega Testing Conditions At the Campsite

Next we hit the road for a state park camping trip near the end of July. At the campsite we used the exterior 120 volt jack for power to the Bodega and set both sides to freezer. We loaded the Bodega with frozen breakfast burritos, hashbrowns, and frozen veggies. As seen in the picture there is ice build-up on the walls like any other chest freezer and that’s to be expected. (We kept the divider in the unit solely because we didn’t want to remove it and potentially misplace it.) It kept everything frozen throughout the trip and we didn’t have any issues with food safety. Plus we can definitely use the extra space on our next (longer) camping trip.