No Plug, No Problem

We’ve been dealing with some crazy wind where I live, so it didn’t come as a huge surprise the other day when the power flickered and then went out entirely. It remained off for about twenty minutes, which isn’t a big deal, but I find the ten minute mark of an outage to be the point at which my thinking goes from Ugh to Oh shit, is this something I actually need to deal with?

Luckily, I happen to work for a company that once sold big battery generators every other week for six straight months. About the fourth time I wrote something along the lines of, “You’ll be cursing yourself for not buying this thing in the event of a major power outage,” I decided to take my own advice and bought one.

Like I said, the outage resolved itself in no time at all, so I barely got a chance to use the thing. Still, I was glad to have it, because I knew that even if we remained power-less for a long time, I could rest assured that we’d have something to power the fan at night, the coffee machine in the morning, even the fridge for an hour at a time if things got really dire.

But you know what I wouldn’t plug into it?

Lights.

Because things like these BrightEase Work Lights exist.

Here’s what you need to know. First off, they’re pretty bright. 500 lumens bright, to be exact. That being said, you have four settings: high, low, and normal. Which means you can use them when you’re going to check the breaker box in the dark corner of the basement, but you don’t have to worry about them blinding you while you’re trying to read a book at dusk.

What’s more: they’re versatile. They’ve got a rotatable handle, so they’re easy to carry. They’ve also got a stand and can be mounted via magnet. That means you don’t need to hold them at all if you need one or both of your hands for something.

I.e. They’re perfect for anywhere you need a little light but don’t want to wire up something more permanent (like a temporary work bench in the basement) or where you can’t wire anything up (like outside, when you’re putting new wiper blades onto your car at midnight for some reason [and yes, this hypothetical example may be pulled from my own life]).

But most importantly, they each take 4 AA batteries. Which isn’t nothing, but does keep them from drinking up all the precious energy from your bigger power banks and/or generators during an outage.

Pretty good, right?

So get some.