Kenwood LiFePO4 Portable Power Stations
Our Take
- Battery generators of varying sizes
- A few outlets, a few USB-A ports, a few USB-C ports, and more
- Super easy to read display
- Is it available in Georgia Red: No, but if might help you watch the Georgia game during a power outage
Your Take
Power Up
Mid-morning on Monday, August 10th, 2020, I did what had become a bit of a ritual that summer: I set up my laptop out on the deck to get some work done. Sure, with all the humidity, it could be a little sticky, but it was worth it to get some fresh air. If anything, the weather often drove efficiency. In the comfort of my air-conditioned home, I tended to laze about, farting around on the internet rather than getting straight to work. Outside, in the heat, on the very edge of my wifi, I wasted little time.
Only, not that day.
I’d barely opened my laptop when I looked west and saw, in the distance, a storm rolling in. Not a problem, though; by the time the first drop fell, I’d be inside, proofreading (something I do, in fact, do) and loading my copy, I thought.
It turned out I was wrong.
I’d only typed a few words when I looked up again to check the storm’s progress. I expected it to be darkening just a bit more of the horizon. Instead, the entire sky looked like slate. It wasn’t rolling in; it was rocketing towards us, a fact made all the more surprising given I’d checked the weather app that morning, and I was sure I hadn’t seen the rain icon.
I got inside just before the derecho touched down. At the back door, I stood with my phone raised, recording the wind and rain. In the video, you can see the reflection of a light in the window. About halfway through, it flickers out. It did not come back on for over three days.
Now, I want to be very clear here: we were extremely lucky. We lost power. Others lost a lot more. Some big branches came down in our backyard, but they didn’t do any damage, and the trees themselves stayed intact. The main thing for us was that we had to deal with a few days that were very hot and very boring.
And that still sucked so bad!
At one point, given that we didn’t have a generator, I drove an hour each way to buy a four-pack of beer so that I could spend time in my car’s AC and charge my laptop and my phone on the way.
Which brings us, at long last, to today’s product.
These things aren’t full-blown generators. They’re not even the biggest battery generators we’ve sold. And if you do lose power for an extended period of time, they won’t keep the experience from sucking altogether.
But they will make it suck less by charging your laptop and powering your wifi for a little while so you can watch a show, or keeping a lamp on so you can read after the sun goes down, or running a fan at night so you can enjoy a little air flow and white noise. And that’s pretty nice, isn’t it?
So go ahead and buy one. You might not use it right away, but you’ll be glad you have it when the need arises.
