Runtime & Sizing Guides

We already covered how many watts a router and modem actually draw and what that means for runtime. This is the follow-up: the actual steps to set it up correctly, including one detail most guides skip entirely — your router almost certainly runs on DC power already, which means there’s a more efficient way to […]

Short answer: yes, but the runtime is short enough that “run a space heater” and “heat your apartment through a winter outage” are two very different promises — and most product listings blur that line. Here’s the real math, and the much more efficient alternative we’ve recommended elsewhere in this series. How Many Watts Does […]

If the power goes out mid-workday, most guides tell you to add up your laptop, monitor, and router wattage and match it to a power station. That math isn’t wrong, exactly — it’s just missing the one detail that changes the answer the most: your laptop already has its own battery. The power station’s real […]

If you or someone in your household takes insulin, biologic injections, or any other medication that needs refrigeration, the moment the power goes out, a countdown starts — and it’s a much shorter one than most people assume. Here’s what actually protects your medication, based on real cold-chain guidance rather than guesswork, plus where a […]

We’ve now run the real math on three of the biggest outage priorities — a CPAP machine, a wifi router and modem, and a full-size fridge — and each one told the same story: the number on the box doesn’t tell you what you actually need. This article pulls those numbers together into one sizing […]

Of everything we’ve run the numbers on for this series — CPAP machines, wifi routers — the fridge is where the marketing gets the most misleading. Product listings love to show a power station “running a refrigerator,” and it’s technically true, but the number that actually determines whether your food survives a multi-day outage isn’t […]

  Here’s some genuinely good news, after all the CPAP math in our last runtime breakdown: keeping your internet alive during an outage is one of the cheapest, easiest things you can do with a power station. A wifi router barely sips power compared to almost anything else in your house — which means the […]

  If you rely on a CPAP machine and you’re staring down a hurricane forecast or a winter storm warning, “will my power station last the night” isn’t a hypothetical question — it’s the one that actually decides whether you sleep safely. Most articles on this topic hand you a vague “it depends” and move […]