Voltaic Systems V50 Always On External Battery Pack with Dual USB Ports - 12,800mAh

We needed a power pack for the lights in our tent. It had to be always on even when the lights weren't working. This power bank works great. Is compact, hold enough charge for more than we need. Very simple to use, just plug in your device and its on! Easy to charge, great quality. Very happy with it.

If you are looking for an “always on” portable power source this is it. Other reviews touch on its purpose in solar or other scenarios. I purchased because I was looking for a portable power supply that didn’t require me to press “on” and merely drawing power by connecting a device would enable charging. This device does that. However, since it will always send a trickle of power if you don’t pair this battery with a solar panel or other continuous charge source it will discharge over the course of a week. This isn’t a design flaw. But if you are just trying to charge a phone it’s probably not the best power bank. That said, this tech is truly impressive. Pass thru charging. The ability to continuously trickle charge. The use of lithium ion instead of lithium polymer. This is engineered for a very specific purpose and I don’t think any other company is solving this. This takes IoT to new levels.

So I have one of the original Voltaic solar backpacks from wayyyy back in the day (if you feel like digging you can find that review here on Amazon) - and the backpack / panels are still going strong. The rechargeable battery that came with the backpack no longer holds a charge, though. So I did a little research for what came next. I noticed that Voltaic no longer offers the exact same type of battery that came with my backpack, so I evaluated the replacement options they had available. The V44 seems to offer the best bang for the buck, in terms of milliamp hours / price - though I took a long hard look at the V72, I'll admit.So far I've been using it for about two weeks, and I love it. I use it to charge my cell phone - and I get about a week's worth of charges, at which point the battery is down to about 50% capacity. Based on every thing I've read, lithium batteries seem to work the same way the deep cycle marine batteries do - they work best when you bring them down to roughly 1/2 capacity, then charge them back up to full. So far, that's what I've been doing, and it's been working great.I love this battery because I don't have to worry about charge controllers, amps, volts, - I just plug it into my (admittedly old) backpack, and let it charge. I don't have to worry about overcharging or anything of the sort. So it doesn't necessarily offer the power storage capacity of a marine deep cycle battery, but it offers a whole bunch of electronic logic and convenience that takes the guesswork out of solar charging. Well worth it.

The always on feature is wonderful for charging things that don't take much current, like my FitBit watch. All the other power banks shut off at low charge rates. But the capacity is a bit small: would not fully charge my iPad, for example.If you need the always on feature for low charge rate devices, then this would be great, but for larger items, get something else.

This is one of the view power banks that works as a UPS. You can plug and remove power to the side port without causing a raspberry pi it’s powering to reboot.Others claim this, but they all (nitecore, zendure, etc) have a blip. That’s probably because actual pass through requires a circuit path change. What you want are separate charge and power circuits like this unit has.It will charge at up to 10 watts. A new Pi will peak at 12, but average lower. So just enough on the pi4 I tested with.

I have a motion detector light in the hallway and since there is a lot of traffic I have to charge about every day. Regular power banks turn off when the light goes off and doesn’t turn on until you press the button to turn on as you know. With this it is constantly charging and I haven’t had to charge the battery for over a week so far and very little charge is depleted in the power bank. It is expensive so make sure you need this type of power bank. There appears no competition so that’s why it is expensive. All my other power banks are useless in this application. I intend to buy another one for sure.

I do stage video productions, and need my GoPro cameras to stay on for over 3 hours.. sometimes an entire day is needed. Usually there is A/C power nearby, but sometimes I'm mounting one in a suspended screen or middle of the room where there simply is no easy power access.Mistakingly I used a more typical external battery pack for one gig and lost half the show's footage as a result. As others have explained, typical battery packs shut off automatically when they sense your device is fully charged. Now imagine you're shooting a show -- and the GoPro fully charges.. and your battery pack shuts off as a result.. then the GoPro battery dies. Done.. no footage.. WAH!This battery pack works as advertised -- on = on. So if you're powering a device with it, that device will keep being powered (like being plugged into a wall receptacle. 5 Stars because it works exactly as expected, and holds a long charge.I agree with other reviewers -- it'd be nice to have a better indicator showing that the *always on* mode is indeed active.3/15/19 UPDATE -- love the battery still .. just purchased a second!

I had been looking all over for this feature for unattended surveillance in-line to a power bank. I needed a setup that could continue to function for a short while if the power was cut and send me more footage. Camera to power bank to charge while charging device. Everywhere blogs said it is not possible, this beautiful company has solved it.Well done Voltaic Systems! Consider more advertising alerting despondent techs out there of this awesome charger's ability to charge while charging.