Power outage

An Anker 535 PowerHouse, a large battery with a carrying handle on top and lots. Anker's 535 PowerHouse. Stephen Shankland/CNET. My family ...

More than 10 hours into the power outage and with no idea when it might end, I was eager to save any battery power I had left. I used it to charge my laptop and phone, to use an LED lamp, and most crucially, to run my broadband modem when I needed my fast network. Its carabiner design let me clip it to my belt loop, and it was great for quick lighting at bedtime. You're better off charging your devices directly from the USB ports if you can: plugging a charger into one of the battery's power plugs means you'll suffer efficiency losses converting from direct current to alternating current and back. I have it set to turn on at 60%, but during the power outage, I just left it on all the time. You can launch anything and use it, but unless you add it to the exceptions list, extreme battery saver will shut it down again. It [works with iPhones and Lightning cables](https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/share-your-internet-connection-iph45447ca6/16.0/ios/16.0) as well. [Anker 535 PowerHouse](https://www.anker.com/products/a1751?ref=naviMenu&variant=41686355771542&listingPlan=a&discount=WSCPERRWEO) is one of a host of hulking batteries that, although expensive, can be really useful in a power outage. Android goes a step farther with extreme battery saver, which shuts down all apps except some core ones and the ones you specify. Working from home, hearing from schools and the power company, coordinating with my wife — it all was squeezed through a woefully insufficient mobile phone network connection. I remember the crushing feeling when my browser estimated it would take 40 minutes to download a 4.2MB photo file. Connecting my laptop to my phone to take advantage of its mobile network was crucial to getting through the power outage.