Power outages suck. There’s no lights, no AC, and all the ice cream you have stocked in the fridge will probably start melting if power doesn’t come back soon. If you’d rather maintain access to cold drinks, ice cream, and whatever else you keep in the fridge, then you might appreciate something like the Jackery FridgeGuard.
A backup battery specifically designed for home fridges, the device can give your refrigerator up to 15 hours of backup power, although actual time will depend on how cold you actually set your fridge to run at. That makes it ideal for outages that can happen during inclement weather, allowing for uninterrupted fridge operations while you wait for the grid to get back up and running.
The Jackery FridgeGuard is a backup battery housed inside a case measuring just 23.6 x 12.8 x 2.6 inches (width x depth x height). The outfit claims it’s the world’s slimmest battery backup for fridges, allowing you to install it in a pretty discreet way. At the size, it’s designed to be mounted on the side or the back fridge with the use of the optional mounting bracket, although you can also just set it down on top if you’re not using the top of the fridge to store anything. It also weighs just 23 pounds, too, so you should be able to set it down anywhere it’s convenient.
Inside, it houses a 1,024 Wh LiFePo battery, which is enough to keep a fridge running for up to 15 hours off the grid. It’s also expandable to 2,048 Wh, so you can double the effective runtime if longer outages are more common in your area. To ensure uninterrupted operation, it has a built-in UPS that keeps the fridge on while the system switches to battery power, while offering up to 1600W peak output straight off the bat, ensuring it’s ready to supply full power to any fridge right from the get-go.
The Jackery FridgeGuard plugs directly to a wall outlet and the fridge plugs into the backup battery instead. Don’t worry, it won’t be using battery power the whole time. Instead, it only draws from the battery when the grid is inactive. When the grid turns back on, the fridge will continue drawing from the battery as the it charges; however, as soon as the battery is fully-charged, it will switch to a bypass mode that sends power directly from the wall outlet to the fridge, skipping the battery entirely to help preserve it for longevity. According to the outfit, the battery is rated for 6,000 recharge cycles, with an estimated lifespan of up to 16 years.
Of course, the device isn’t restricted to powering a fridge. It’s still a normal backup battery, which means you can use it to power any electric appliance and gadget at home when needed. Other features include an operating noise of under 40 decibels, plug-and-play operation, onboard LCD screen (for essential information), and a companion app that you can use for more detailed stats and settings.
The Jackery FridgeGuard is available now, priced at $799. There’s also a package that bundles a battery expansion for 2,048Wh total and a mounting bracket for $1,299.
