Being an adult feels different to how I imagined it as a kid. We all had grand ideas of where we would go, what we would do and what our lives would look like. For the most part, the life I’m living now is filled with far more happiness, friends and opportunity than childhood Arielle could ever have thought.
However, the one thing I never anticipated dealing with but is now an unavoidable part of our everyday life is power cuts. As a child, I just presumed that something like electricity was a given. I was aware that there could be circumstances in your life that could get your power taken away, but I never really thought that would be my reality, and yet here we are.
In December, my partner and I moved into a place of our own, and all of a sudden, dealing with these scheduled outages became our responsibility to deal with. No longer could I get angry at my parent’s reluctance to get solar or an inverter – it was now my mess to deal with. But because we’re renting and in a complex, dealing with it was not without its own obstacles.
When we looked at our options, multiple hurdles had to be overcome. Firstly we needed a solution that would be able to power my PC as well as the tv and PlayStation. Because I work from home and playing games in a timely manner is quite literally in my job description, this was non-negotiable. But then cost and logistics also came into play.
Because we’re renting in a complex, solutions like a generator or solar were entirely out of the question. So is a built-in inverter system that would require any form of rewiring. That left us with the option of an inverter trolley or power system that could go in the house, be portable, generate as little noise as possible and not use up all of our food money per month to run or acquire.
That is how I ended up with the EcoFlow River Pro with an additional battery. Would I repurchase it? Abso-freaking-lutely. Now before I go any further, this is not a review. If you want a review, you can read our Editor’s thoughts here. Instead, I want to talk to you about how I wish someone had spoken to me and tell you what my experience has been since I’ve been using the unit daily for three months now.
First, if my Eco flow is anything, it’s quiet. It’s so soft that most people who come to my house presume that my PC’s sound must be the EcoFlow. It’s only when I switch my PC off that people realise how quiet it is. And that’s great. It’s also unexpectedly light and portable, meaning I can take it with me when I go on trips without too much hassle.
Let me take a moment to paint you a picture of how I have this bad boy set up and what my life with it looks like. So under my computer desk I have the EcoFlow set up and plugged into the wall with its additional battery next to it. Then plugged into the EcoFlow itself I have my multiplug and a lead. The multiplug houses everything I need to stay on when the power goes out. So it has my PC, two monitors, my freestanding speaker and my fan. Then, if you follow the lead, it connects to my TV in the lounge, my PS5 and my media server.
This setup makes it so that if the power goes out over a weekend or in the evenings, I can still watch TV or play games as usual, and because the EcoFlow is essentially a UPS, I don’t have to worry about powering my system down before load-shedding hits only to start it right back up again. Instead, everything I want to be on stays on.
Regarding usage, my experience with the EcoFlow is a mixed bag. If I was using it to lie on the couch and watch TV, I could get a solid day or night out of it without breaking a sweat. And I know this because I’ve done it. Likewise, if I’m the only one using it and I power my PC to work, I can get about 6 hours. However, when I start playing any resource-hungry game, that window drops down to about 4 hours, and if my partner connects his PC as well, we’re looking at closer to 2 hours or slightly less if it’s supporting my PC, the PlayStation and TV simultaneously.
However, if load-shedding stays on two-hour slots and I keep running my EcoFlow from the wall so it can charge between cycles, my experience during load-shedding is smooth riding. I’m also hyper-vigilant to keep my EcoFlow above 30% to ensure the batteries stay good for longer.
This brings me to the crux of the matter: knowing what I do now, would I recommend an Eco Flow to a friend after three full months of use? 10,000,000,000 times yes. While it’s not going to power your whole house, and it will never be a complete replacement for a solar system or a generator, it doesn’t have to be. If I’m being honest, I don’t NEED all my lights to burn when the power goes out, and thanks to a small gas camping stove, I don’t even need the kettle to boil.
What I need is to be able to work during work hours with as little interruption as possible and to know that outside of work hours, I can still enjoy playing a game or binging Netflix with my partner, and in that regard, the convenience of the EcoFlow is unmatched.
And sure, I could have spent roughly the same amount of money and bought myself an inverter trolley and had a comparable experience – there is no denying that. But having lived with the EcoFlow and experienced how silent it is and how ascetically appealing and easy it is to hide, I don’t know if I could ever go for something else. Having something bigger and more clunky might not be a deal breaker for everyone; in fact, two of my close friends have a system like that in their lounge that they love, but for me, it is.
It’s a no-brainer. The EcoFlow is an option that gives me all of the benefits I’m looking for and none of the drawbacks, and I can’t imagine going back to life without it.