Technology in the darkness

By Gary M. Kaye Special to PRIME The snow started while I was standing in the driveway as two delivery guys unloaded our new refrigerator. It was about 11:30 in the morning on Saturday, Oct. 29. And it kept on snowing. Then we heard reports of widespread power outages. Our house still had power, but not for long. Around 7 p.m. the lights went out. About an hour later I heard a loud pop, like a big firecracker. It was the sound of a power transformer exploding. I knew it was going to be a long night. I had no idea that it was also going to be a long week. Since I work from home, being in the dark and without access to my gadgets and the Internet was going to be a real problem. But over the years I had put together a collection of chargers, solar panels and the like. Clearly this was the right time to pull them out. Here's some of the stuff that worked (and didn't work) to get me through my week of darkness: Handheld solar chargers. Overall these were more disaster than disaster relief. I tried five small devices and found them all lacking. Each consists of solar panels that are supposed to charge an internal battery. The Orange Joos, a solar panel with mirrors indicated it was charging, but never generated any power. The Solio Magnesium was able to boost my cell phone charge by about 20 percent before it went dead. The Kiwi U-Charge supplied power to my cell phone for about five minutes, and then actually started sucking power out of the battery. The tri-told Energizer Energi To Go solar charger (model SP 2000) never even turned on. The Kinesis K3 Wind and Solar charger never got beyond two out of a possible four charging levels, but did provide some output. In each case I charged the devices in direct sunlight for three days. Solar Panels. I had two large folding solar panels that I spread out on the hood and roof of my car. I used the Brunton 5200 panel as well as the PowerFilm F15-1800. Both worked quite well. Neither had a built in battery, but both had outputs into cigarette lighter receptacles. I plugged automobile USB adapters into those to power up cell phones, tablet computers, a wireless hot spot, and variety of battery chargers. Both panels were able to generate a full charge from early morning until almost sunset. 12 Volt to 110 Volt inverters. These devices plug into a cigarette lighter receptacle either in car or on a solar panel taking the 12 volts of DC power from your car and converting it to 110 Volt AC current, which is what most of your electrical devices need. Unfortunately these inverters are only good for low wattage devices and will burn out if you ask them to do too much, which I did, burning out two of the inverters as well as two of the fuses for my car's cigarette lighter plugs. But before they fried, they let me charge up my laptop computer, as well as a portable storage battery that requires AC. Portable Chargers. I had several portable chargers that I charged from solar panels or inverters by day, and then powered some USB connected devices such as cell phones, my iPad, and a MiFi wireless hotspot by night. I was very pleased with the performance of two Powermat devices: the Powermat 2X portable mat that would charge two devices, and the Powermat dual 1850 rechargeable backup battery, a small pocket sized square box that delivered enough juice for two complete cell phone charges. I was also happy with the Richard Solo 1800 charger for iPhone and iPod, as well as the Energizer Energi to Go XP2000 (not to be confused with the non-working solar charger from the same company). Connecting to the Internet. Because my business requires access to my email and the Internet, staying connected was critical. I was able to use the mobile hotspot feature on my HTC Thunderbolt smartphone running on Verizon. Unfortunately as a hotspot, it sucked battery power. I was able to get lots more battery life from a dedicated wireless hotspot, the TruConnect MIFI, from Novatel running on the TruConnect network. It enabled me to connect to the Internet on my laptop and my iPad for more than three hours at a stretch. The bottom line here is that if your gadgets are mission critical there are ways to keep up and running in a disaster. But like anything else, they require some advance preparation. Though, I think next time around maybe getting that propane fired generator might just be a better idea. Gary M. Kaye is an award-winning journalist who has covered technology topics for more than 30 years. He writes and does radio pieces for AARP and is senior writer for Tech Toys Magazine. In addition, he runs a consulting business helping hi-tech companies with strategic communications. For more information, please visit www.compellingtelling.com.