60 27 April – 10 May 2022 • Issue 630
Stay online
in a
power cut
A battery backup device will keep your PC and
Wi-Fi router running when you lose power.
Robert Irvine explains what to look for when
buying an uninterruptible power supply (UPS)
Connect your PC and other devices to a UPS
to protect against power cuts and surgesThis AmazonBasics UPS
provides surge protection as well
as battery backupI
t’s easy to take electricity for granted- until you lose it. Even battery-
powered devices such as phones,
tablets and laptops need regular
recharging via a wall socket, while your
PC, monitor and wireless router are
totally dependent on the mains. When
your power supply is cut off, so is your
access to your computer and the internet,
and outages are more common in the
UK than many people realise – and not
just when storms cause power cuts, as
happened in February.
By investing in a battery backup device
called a UPS (uninterruptible power
supply), you can protect yourself against
most power problems – and it may not
cost as much as you’d think.
Why you need a battery backup
The most obvious threat to your mains
power supply is a blackout – a total loss of
power. In many cases, this is short-lived
and power will be restored automatically
within a few seconds. However, when
permanent damage has occurred or
planned maintenance is taking place, the
outage could last hours.
A long blackout is inconvenient and,
even if you use a laptop rather than a
desktop PC, the loss of power to your
router means you won’t be able to get
online. Depending on how recently you
saved your work, and how well the
software you were using can recover lost
data, it might take you a while to get back
to normal once power is restored. And
because your PC won’t have shut down
properly, there’s even a danger of filecorruption.
Less common than blackouts are
brownouts, where the supply voltage
drops below its normal level. PC power
supplies are fairly tolerant of low voltage,
so you might get away with a brownout,
but it could still cause access problems.
Other threats to your mains supply are
caused by power spikes and surges,
which can result in the supply voltage
exceeding its limit and causing
permanent damage to PC hardware.
Thankfully, a UPS will protect against all
these types of power fluctuation.What is a UPS?
In simple terms, a UPS is a device –
usually a black box (as pictured above) or
strip – that contains a large rechargeable
battery, allowing it to continue to operate
in the event of a power cut. When youlose mains power, your UPS will
seamlessly switch to battery power, and
connected devices will remain on and
running until service is restored, or you
can safely shut them down. It’s similar to
the battery in a laptop, which lets you
keep using your computer even when it’s
disconnected from the mains.
Most UPS units – even smaller, cheaper
ones – also offer protection against power
surges. For example, AmazonBasics UPS
units, the cheapest of which costs only
£71 (www.snipca.com/41550, pictured
below), have three sockets to protect your
devices against surges and three for
battery backup and surge protection, so
you can plug your most important
hardware into the latter. Some models,
such as the Eaton Ellipse Eco 650 (£95
from http://www.snipca.com/41567) have
sockets you can plug network cables into,
too, to safeguard against power spikes
over your phone line.