Both put 120V in the trailer. What differs is where the energy is stored, what it reaches, and how much of your weekend goes into installing it.
The case for the fixed inverter
A hardwired inverter runs your existing outlets from the house battery you already own and paid for. Nothing gets carried, nothing gets plugged and unplugged, and an inverter/charger adds the shore-power charger and the transfer switch in the same box, so the rig behaves identically on shore power and off it. That last part is what people actually want when they ask this question: the microwave and the outlets simply work.
It is also the cheaper route if you have the battery capacity. An inverter without amp-hours behind it just empties a small bank faster. Adding a fixed inverter to a single lead-acid battery is how people end up disappointed.
If you would rather not design the whole balance of system, the BLUETTI RV5 is the packaged version of this route: our listing describes it as a 5-in-1 hub that replaces the converter, inverter, transfer switch, solar controller and DC-DC charger with one unit — 5,000W at 120V on a 48V system — paired with the B4810 battery, the Epanel distribution panel and the Epad screen. For a component build we stock Victron, where an inverter/charger such as the MultiPlus-II covers the same jobs with the wiring left to you.
The case for the power station
Buy the station when any of these is true: you rent or lease and cannot modify the rig; the existing house bank is small and you do not want to replace it yet; the power has to be usable outside — a tailgate, a job site, the house during an outage; or you want it working this weekend rather than after a wiring project.
It also doubles as your backup at home, which a hardwired RV inverter never will. Our Elite 200 V2 listing states 2,073.6Wh with 2,600W of AC output and a UPS switchover of 15 milliseconds or less. The Apex 300 is the expandable one at 2,764.8Wh and 3,840W, adding modules rather than being replaced when you need more runtime.
The four questions
- Do you already have the battery capacity? Yes leans fixed inverter, no leans station.
- Does the power need to leave the rig? Yes settles it: station.
- Do you want the RV's own outlets live automatically? Yes leans fixed.
- Are you willing to wire, fuse and size cable — or pay someone to? No leans station, or the RV5 route where the hub is engineered as one piece.
There is a legitimate third answer: a station now, a fixed inverter later. The station keeps its value as household backup, so nothing is wasted.
We are an authorised Victron dealer and stock genuine BLUETTI shipped direct from Bluetti's US warehouse, sold by RV Parts Giant in Upland, California.