In our electronically fueled world, virtually every tool needs power. Only a few years back, when cellphones died and a wall outlet wasn’t handy, the only answer was an anemic little rechargeable battery. Expensive little buggers, but hey, they had the power to recharge our stuff on the go. Maybe even twice if we bought the good one….
we no longer live by cellphone alone….
My every day, basic, go-to-work ditty bag holds my cell phone, an extra little camera because I’m unusually paranoid, maybe a GoPro, a few teeny LED lights (for stills, not movies, though in a pinch…) and a voice recorder. My laptop, too, of course. I try my best not to need them all at once….
No problem if I’m working in a studio or near an outlet, but these days that’s rarely the case. I need a charger with real oomph. Something that lasts as long as long as long as my day, with the power to charge everything, anything, all the things I plug into it.
Enter the LifePower A2. with enough juice to power any low-power AC or DC device with a whopping 25,600 mAh battery. It’s like nothing you’ve used before.
Yes, that’s right, I said it’ll run AC.
Yes, that’s right, I said it packs 25,600 mAh….
That’s enough juice to power a lamp or amplifier, laptop, camera, drone, mixer, audio deck, amplified speakers and any other electro-digital gear that meets its generous specs. A bit like holding your own portable genny that can be reloaded from zero to full charge in three hours, using AC or DC or solar power.
The LifePower A2 charges up to 80% capacity over a long lunch hour (or two), perfect for those run-and-gun shoots with little time to waste.
Charge an iPhone-6 up to 10 times, adding 146 hours of use. It even kept my reading light on and on and on until I was ready to turn myself off for the night. That’s impressive.
Tap into all that power through a USB port AND a standard AC outlet. Yep, AND, not OR. Power them both at the same time if you like. Really. Plug in your light, LED TV, computer, cellphone, any low-power device. (No, you can’t run your air conditioner on it, though it handles fans very well indeed.)
power up almost anything that needs juice….
If you prefer not to adlib. you’ll need a bit of very basic math to calculate what you can run (and for how long). <math> Divide LifePower’s 100Wh AC power rating by the Watt rating of whatever you’d like to power. If you’re running a 30W device divide 100 (the LifePower’s AC power output) by 30 (the draw of that 30W device). You’ll get a full 3.33 hours of power. </math> That wasn’t so hard, now was it…?
The company calls it a portably wall socket and I’m inclined to agree. So I agreed to put it to a test.
I was heading over to CES NY (the East Coast Computer Tech Show) for a full day of products, pictures, reports, interviews, videos…. I packed a fully charged LifePower to see what it could do.
With photos and video and audio I can usually squeak my cellphone through three or four hours before I have to hit the juice. My aging AC laptop runs for about two hours before it urgently needs to be topped off. The rest of my stuff could stock a Woot-Off grab bag and every bit of it needs power….
Not only did the A2 keep my life powered up through a 12-hour work day, it even kept my laptop happy and still came home with a bit of juice to spare. I’m duly impressed.
The LifePower is also quite a looker with its hefty brushed aluminum exterior, clean surface, and neat black carrying pouch. When I pulled it out of my backpack to re-up my gear, the ever-curious folks in the press room gathered round me. “Wow”, first. Then “What”. And “How”. And, of course, “How Much”…. Given that I was sitting next to a bank of outlets, I got a lot of “Why” too.
From the general responses, I’m sure I was personally responsible for a major uptick in A2 sales that day.
I hate to quibble, but….
There’s so much stunningly good about this charger that I really don’t want to quibble. But, of course, that’s my job….
- Instead of an alphanumeric power indicator, the LifePower A2 uses a band of lights that begin with red (to show startup or overload) which then changes to green (to announce that the AC outlet is powered) which then morphs into a five-step blue light (to show available battery capacity). There are far better ways to convey all that information. In a hurry, no one has time to guess if they’re seeing two or three little colored bands.
- There are both AC and USB outlets, but only one of each. That fine for AC, but not a very good option for charging two or three USB devices (phone, GoPro, selfie stick, recorder, whatever) at the same time. Instead of apportioning time, another USB outlet (or two) would have solved that problem nicely.
And after that, well, uh, damn, I have nothing left to quibble about.
Given its versatility and affordable cost, the LifePower A2 deserves a place in every filmmaker’s toolkit (unless 
you’re the genny operator). And its value doesn’t end with film crews.
One unit won’t be able to power the whole band, but it can definitely keep your guitar gently weeping far from any nearby AC. And there’s no reason to limit yourself to one guitar or one LifePower. Take the whole band on the road, anywhere, everywhere, and keep on playing like never before. You no longer need a genny or an AC outlet for remote recording sessions.
but wait, there’s more….
For a few bucks more, you can have an updated A2 L version with the same good looks and even more power. This little big brother packs an extra 1,500 mAh (27,000 mAh) using the same lithium ion battery technology that powers a Tesla. Both versions are allowed on an airplane since they’re below the FAA mandated 100Wh limit.
Of course, batteries need power, too. When you’re off the grid and away from AC, recharge with sunlight using an optional 40w/h Solar Pack or a basic car charger. I don’t know the recharge times for those two but I’m just happy to have the options.
The LifePower A2 is a well-made, gorgeous hunk of power that can go to work in almost every toolkit and ready for its close-up at almost every emergency. It’s like no other battery charger I’ve ever used. AC and DC from one source and packed with serious power for a long workday. This is definitely a keeper.
Now I can barely wait until there’s a power outage so I can keep right on working….
Dimensions: 15 cm x 15 cm x 2.5 cm (5.9″ x 5.9″ x 1″)
Weight: 800g
Battery Capacity: 99.9Wh (25,600mAh at single cell V level)
AC Power Output: 100W continuous, 120W peak
Conversion efficiency: 85~90%
USB output: DC 5V / 3A (15W)
Charge input: 19V / 2.1A
Recharge time: 3.5 hours
MSRP: $300
lifepower.be/product/a2-25600-mah
- More Power to You Getting Juice with the LifePower A2 - September 8, 2016
