https://archive.ph/1G2Ut
Probably not. The community is always hungry for ways to trim weight, any new offering in the field is interesting, but since the battery is one of the most critical items, well, people tend to be conservative and stick to established models.
Most ultralight folks go light so they can cover more ground while being more comfortable. Experienced ultralighters consider how a weight reduction introduces risk against that goal, rather than simply "lighter is always better". Aka, don't go "stupid light".
An ultralighter is basically guaranteed to use their phone for navigation. A surprise battery failure may cut a trip short and possibly risk their well-being, both of which go against the goal.
It's not recommended to use battery models that haven't been extensively tested because there are conditions in the backcountry that you may not think about or be able to test beforehand, such as performance in cold conditions, whether the IPX rating really holds up, whether it's possible to brick the device accidentally by pressing the wrong button combination, etc.
A common recommendation is the Nitecore nb10000[1] for 10k of battery, and if you want 20k then bring two. (One of the Anker 20k models is also popular.) Bringing two 10ks is ~0.3 oz heavier than one 20k (per manufacturer specs), but it gives you charging parallelism (shortening down your recharging time by N hours, if your trip requires that you recharge midway) and device redundancy, both of which help you move faster with more reliably.
Related, it is also recommended to only use a battery bank that you have personally used for a few full charge cycles beforehand, to smoke out manufacturing defects.
[1]: https://nitecorestore.com/products/nitecore-nb10000-gen-2-qc...
[2]: https://nitecorestore.com/products/nitecore-nb20000-gen-3-du...
Why your [ultra-light hiker] friend suddenly has [the world's lightest] power bank.
I remember Colin Fletcher, years ago, writing in The Complete Walker about trimming the borders off his paper maps to save weight, which seemed like an insane over-optimization to me. But then, I'm not an ultralight hiker.
I am impressed folks are getting their loads down to 10 pounds though.
> Ultralight culture seems a little nuts to the uninitiated.
I prefer "Durable, but as light as possible", not the other way around. Most ultralight gear breaks after a few uses or when it is mishandled in anything-less-than-perfect conditions, which, happens a lot outside.
20Ah for 23 bucks? Seems like it's almost too good to be true. Wouldn't surprise me if it was just half that, would explain the price and weight.
> I haven’t done capacity testing yet
Seems like this article is skipping something important. What's the point of a light battery if it won't hold enough charge?
You can learn a lot from the ultra light dudes.
I replaced all my travel electronics to be powerable from USB-C. This saved me from a lot cables and adapters.
Even re-soldered the cable of my electric shaver to use a USB-C PD adapter PCB. As long it's somehow close to the standardized voltages (5/9/12/18/etc.) there will be no problems.
Is the manufacturer of these things trustworthy? I am especially skeptical of any battery pack manufacturers because of the inherent risk of these things.
This is advertising done right. Wish more companies would do this. Instead of spamming me with your brand on every platform, sell a dirt cheap product with your branding. This way the middle man gets nothing, everyone else is happy.
Sorry for being off-topic, but why with all the advanced technology today I have to manually copy ounces and pounds into Google to learn how much it is? Instead of adding dark themes and material design, it would be better to add a unit converter.
Also do you really need a power bank for a 2-day trip? In airplane mode a phone can live like 2 weeks.
Better question - why do you keep linking to websites that block visitor from reading the article?
I traveled ultralight until I got into landscape photography. Those tele zooms are heavy AF. I got bigger quads and biceps.
We used to say this in mountain biking years ago, but I guess it applies here too:
-Lightweight -Durable -Reasonable price
In reality, you can only choose two of these.
Has anyone actually measured the true capacity?
In a typical hike, not only do I care about weight and capacity, but also recharge speed from AC.
I often will be stopping at a cafe for lunch, and in the 45 mins I'm there I want my phone to charge from 15% to 90%, and I also want my battery to recharge from 15% to 90% to give me another 3 days hiking before the next recharge stop. That involves carrying a dual-output USB adaptor where both outputs are fast charging, two cables, a battery bank and my phone.
Thats a lot of stuff to carry, when someone would ideally make a single AC adaptor with a built in battery and cable such that when plugged in to AC it recharges both itself and an attached phone, and when unplugged from AC it discharges itself into the phone.
With clever design, some of those bits of electronics can be combined and casings and heatsinks shared making the whole setup smaller, lighter and cheaper. By integrating the battery charging logic into the AC adaptor, the temperature of the adaptor and output towards the phone can be used to adjust the charging speed to maximize use of the flyback transformers saturation current.
Those extra ounces will build muscle. Those extra hundreds of dollars you save won’t hurt either.
Canoe camping is nicer than backpacking. I’ve done both and I’ll never prefer backpacking again. Much easier on the body to canoe, you can hold 200 pounds of gear, ice, cot, cast iron cookware, guitar, huge power bank.
Backpacking is spartan and uncomfortable by comparison. And with canoe camping, much more primo sites and much fewer people around.
There are better options out there. I recently bought the INIU 10,000mAh 22.5W powerbank from Amazon for $29.69 CAD [0].
It weighs 205g/7.2oz.
Is this same model with different "Powelephant" branding? Looking for one available in Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/Built-Cable-20000mAh-Power-Bank/dp...
EDIT: Doesn't seem to be. Similar design, but two USB cables on that one. Not sure I trust the capacity.
I use INIU 20000mAh Mini Power Bank. Is also small and weights around the same. Don't know why there aren't more of this kind out there
I thought the point of back country hiking was to get away from technology and society.
Weight is of course a major consideration, but its not the primary reason im not bringing batteries on a hiking trip.
Are these actually designed by Haribo? Or is it just a branding on top of a Chinese generic?
I guess I default to assuming this is BS?
I was in the market for a 20Ah battery to power my Burning Man totem last month. I ended up buying two off Amazon - a no-name brand and an Anker for 2.5x the price ($65 for 28Ah). The Anker bank was heavier than the no-name and had substantially longer battery life under the same usage patterns.
I don't know a lot about batteries, but what I do know is that they're very important tech and any performance wins would have cascading effects through multiple industries. It's incredibly unlikely that there is new battery tech that is meaningfully better while also not taking the world by storm. It's far more likely that whitelabel/noname brands are just lying about the specs/cheaping out on energy density and hoping consumers don't notice or care.
I’m kind of disappointed that the earbuds mentioned in the text aren’t shaped like gummy bears (and the power bank not like a pack thereof)
This article seems like referral link spam. Who is upvoting this?
This is great and all, but for me it feels like much more of an achievement when I reach the summit with 30kg+ of mixed gear and child on my back - and there’s nothing quite like the feeling of putting it all down and feeling like you might just float away.
Then again I am the kind of masochist who used to run ultramarathons with a backpack full of rocks just for the jollies.
Nitecore is somewhat accepted as the best lightweight battery, but they aren't cheap.
10Ah battery is $60, 5.9oz. the 20Ah is 10.2oz and $100. Unlike the Hasbro, it comes close to its rated specification.
My backpacking trips have definitely not needed 20Ah. For two or three nights I can usually get by with a 5000mah, if I shutdown at night and frequently use airplane mode. And my phones are usually getting on, don't have Greta battery life.
This is a very poorly researched article. A few things worth considering:
- 20,000 mAh is the rated capacity. Anyone who has tested 18650 batteries (which are the cells typically used in these battery packs) knows the rated capacity != tested capacity.
- Watthours is more important than amp hours
- Tested watt hours as typical loads is more important than amp hours
- It's very normal to see tested capacity to be roughly 70~80% of rated capacity.
- This commenter said they got "At 18W average, I pulled out 55.4Wh" on the Haribo [0]
- The generally considered "gold standard" for ultra light batteries in this range is the Nitecore NB20000 Gen 3, which regularly tests around 56 Wh.
So yes the conclusion is correct - you get roughly the same amount of capacity for a typical load (18W phone) for a cheaper price and slightly less weight. Very curious what battery cells the Haribo uses.
[0] - https://old.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/comments/1li5rxw/20000ma...