Keeping a few lights and phones on in an outage

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What the load draws

GE rates its Classic LED 60-watt replacement A19 bulb at 8 watts for 800 lumens, on GE's product page. The "60 W" on the box is the old bulb it replaces, not what it draws. Your own bulbs list their real watts on the box or the base.

A phone charges from a USB port, and the port's rating caps what it can draw. Add up the bulbs you will run at once, then the phones while they charge.

Where each plug goes

Lamps go in the AC outlets. Phones go in the USB ports on their own cables, so the phone's wall charger can stay in the drawer. Jackery's user manual gives each set its own button: the AC button turns the outlets on, and the USB/DC button turns the ports on.

The job: hours

A UPS holds a load for minutes, long enough to save work and shut down. A generator covers days, but it runs outdoors and needs transfer gear. Lamps and phones through an evening sit in between: hours of battery that can stay in the room with you. That is a portable power station.

How many hours

Divide the station's watt-hours by the watts you added up. That is arithmetic, not a test, and it runs high: the inverter and the station itself use part of the battery. Running a refrigerator on a portable power station works through the same sum and where it falls short.

Recharging between outages

Jackery lists 1.58 hours to recharge from a wall outlet with its AC adapter, and 12 hours from a car's 12 V socket, on Jackery's product page. Plug it back in whenever the power returns, even for a short while. Charge from a car only with the car parked outdoors, never idling in a garage.

Temperature matters too. The manual lists a charging range of 32 to 113 °F and a storage range of 32 to 77 °F, and Jackery's product page says that outside the charging range the station's charging may be limited or stop. Keep it indoors between outages, not in a cold garage.

If outages where you live run for days, the battery will run down between recharges. That is the days job, and Standby vs portable generators for home backup compares the two kinds.

The unit: Jackery Explorer 1000 v2

Jackery lists the Explorer 1000 v2 at 1,070 watt-hours, with three 120 V outlets for lamps, a USB-A port rated 18 W, and USB-C ports rated 30 W and 100 W for phones, on Jackery's product page. That is far more battery than a few bulbs need. It is also the pick in the refrigerator guide, so if the fridge is next on your list, that guide checks this unit against it.

Best home battery backup power station and Jackery vs EcoFlow compare units from the makers' numbers. Every guide in this class is in Portable power stations.