My family was among them 367,000 PG&E customers experienced major power outages In the San Francisco Bay Area last week, and now we’ve lost power on The second outage affected about 193,000 of us. High winds downed trees and power lines, and left us without power, internet, or heat for exactly 24 hours the first time, with the second outage likely to last even longer.
sucks.
The outages made me appreciate how great access to electricity and the Internet is, and how important they are to modern life. Working from home, hearing from schools and the electric company, coordinating with my wife – squeezing it all out with a woefully inadequate cell phone network connection.
But a few things helped me get over this rough patch. Some of them were pretty high-tech, but there’s still a place for pre-Internet products in your emergency kit. That’s what I turned to.
Anker 535 PowerHouse battery
the Anker 535 Powerhouse It is one of a bunch of bulky batteries that, while expensive, are really useful in a power outage. I’ve used it to charge my laptop and phone, use the LED light, and most importantly, power my broadband modem when I need my fast network. The screen helpfully told me that my network equipment required 26 watts of power.
The Anker 535 PowerHouse has a bright LED light on its front face along with four USB ports and four power sockets.
Stephen Shankland/CNET
During the first outage, I didn’t use PowerHouse enough. I was trying to save our resources. But the battery is big enough to power your modem and router for hours.
It also has a built-in LED light bar. It’s very bright, and I would have preferred a duller option.
This model comes with two conventional AC power sockets along with one USB-C port (not enough) and three USB-A ports (too much). You’d be better off charging your devices directly from USB ports if you can: plugging your charger into one of the battery power sockets means you’ll suffer a loss of efficiency when converting from DC to AC and back.
Connectivity
Connecting my laptop to my phone to take advantage of the mobile network was crucial to getting through a power outage. I’m amazed at how much anyone can accomplish with a smartphone these days, but in my case everything seemed to run at least 2 times slower than on a laptop. Some tasks, such as complex image editing, require a laptop. So for me, tethering is essential.
Unfortunately, the networks my phone uses (I have a Google Pixel 7 Pro and an iPhone 14 Pro) aren’t terribly fast, and with so many others having their internet access disrupted during a power outage, I’m guessing the networks were pretty stressful. I remember the crushing feeling when my browser estimated that it would take 40 minutes to download a 4.2MB image file.
Pro tip: On Android, you can With a USB-C cable It can be more reliable than Wi-Fi and keeps the phone charged as well. He. She Works with iPhones and Lightning cables also. This approach is where the term “tether” came from, of course, but I mostly tether to Wi-Fi these days because it’s simpler and more flexible.
However, tethering was slow enough that I often preferred using my phone directly for tasks like email and messaging.
I used extreme battery saving mode on my Google Pixel 7 Pro to drastically cut down on power usage during a power outage.
Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET
Phone battery saving modes
I love my phone’s battery saving modes and use them a lot when I’m in conferences all day, on a long walk, or when I’m not sure when I’ll be able to charge. A long time ago Customize my iPhone’s Control Center with the Low power mode switch.
I like the Pixel phone’s style better, since you can Set the battery saving mode To react automatically when the battery charge reaches a certain percentage. It was set to power on at 60% but during the first power outage I left it on all the time.
Android goes a step further with its massive battery saver, which turns off all but a few essential apps and apps you select. You can turn on and use anything, but unless you add it to the exceptions list, Extreme Battery Saver will lock it back in. Overnight, the Pixel’s battery charge only dropped 2% during the first power outage.
During the second outage, I left my phone in extreme battery saving mode almost the entire time, sometimes waking up apps as needed. After a few minutes, the phone puts them back to sleep.
This fiber optic flashlight toy proves useful during a power outage.
Stephen Shankland/CNET
My baby frog lamp and other LED lit toys
Our toddler loves little toys as much as any other elementary school age kid, and I was delighted when at night he realized he’d brought home some LED-lit party favors. I’m not sure what to call them, but they have a flared cylindrical handle with a brush of plastic fiber optic filaments sprouting from one end. They are new products but it turns out that they are flashlights too.
My baby frog lamp.
Stephen Shankland/CNET
I was happier with another gimmick, though Frog flashlight we got from REI to try to impress him on camping trips. Its climbing design allowed me to clip it to my belt loop, and it was great for a quick light at bedtime.
candle
Candles are a technology that is thousands of years old, you know what? They are still working. After more than 10 hours of power outages and no idea when it would end, I was anxious to conserve whatever battery power I had left.
I pulled some soft ice cream from the not-cold-enough freezer, lit a candle from our emergency kit and ate a late-night dessert.
I dripped some wax on this tomato can to give this candle a safe and sturdy setting.
Stephen Shankland/CNET
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