EcoFlow RIVER 2 Portable Power Station

The cheapest unit worth owning, and the right one if your outage list is a router, a laptop, phone charging and a fan. 600W of continuous output and 256Wh of capacity. Read those two numbers in that order. The 600W figure decides what will run at all: a router draws around 10W, a laptop charger 65W, a pedestal fan 50W, so all of them together sit comfortably inside it. The 256Wh figure decides how long, and on that mixed load it is most of an evening. What the RIVER 2 will not do is a kettle, a microwave, an iron or a hair dryer, because those sit above 1000W and the inverter stops them regardless of how full the battery is. The cells are LiFePO4 rather than the older lithium chemistry, which means thousands of cycles instead of hundreds and better behaviour in heat, and heat is the relevant variable in this country. Mains recharge is one hour, so it can be topped up between outages rather than left flat. Nothing is installed, nothing is wired, and no building permission is involved, so a tenant can buy one and take it to the next apartment.

• Runs a router, a laptop and phone charging through a typical evening cut
• Recharges from empty in about an hour, so it is ready for the next one
• LiFePO4 cells hold up better than older lithium in Dubai heat
• No electrician, no landlord permission, moves with you when you move