GoldenMate 8 Outlets UPS Review: Live Off Grid? At Least With a UPS

UPS Battery

In this article, the Review Team would like to talk about UPS battery and take the GoldenMate 8 Outlets UPS as an example. Just good to give it a review too as we’ve used it as our work protector for a few weeks.

GoldenMate 8 Outlets 1000AV/800W UPS Battery

So if you’ve subscribed to our channel for over a year, you must know that we’ve reviewed and kept many power stations in the studio, just for emergency and outdoor uses. But the truth is, they mostly stand by at the corner and serve as backup power. The only feature that might make them useful for indoor uses is the UPS. Well, however, compared with a single UPS, those power stations are relatively heavy and bulky, and most importantly, they would cost you much more money. So the GoldenMate 8 Outlet UPS for about 170 bucks is a great example. if you value home and office power protection for every day, and without huge backup power demands – try the UPS!

Compact & Solid Design with LiFePO4 Battery Pack

Let’s take a closer look at the GoldenMate UPS. As a portable UPS, its design is quite simple. To its credit, it comes with up to 8 AC outlets. The outlets support up to 1000VA/800W load capacity. It’s not defined as a large power backup, but GoldenMate still gives it a built-in 230 Watt-hour battery in case of emergency. So basically if not huge demands on backup power, it’s a pretty safe setup to offer personal battery backup and surge protector.

The battery material is the most important feature that distinguishes the GoldenMate from most home-use UPS systems. Unlike most others using lead-acid batteries, it’s housing a built-in LiFePO4 battery, which would be lighter and offer a longer lifespan.

Off-Grid Tests – Work station

As claimed, the battery pack inside is certified with a lifespan of over 10 years and 5000 cycles. Well, that’s a long way off for our time of use. So we couldn’t actually test out its extreme durability. But the truth is it’s really stable for the past weeks. We’ve tried and tested it with various scenarios. No matter for our network and NAS devices or even my workstation with over 600W power, it always provides uninterrupted power connectivity.

During the tests, one of my biggest concerns is whether it will save my work when the power suddenly goes out. A power outage can ruin your unsaved work, and of course, a good day as well. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, you’re in luck. But still, it’s important to note that the causes of power outages are often complex; like the aging grid, overloading, severe weather, or maybe just a mad supplier. The GoldenMate UPS system supports an extremely short conversion time of less than 20ms, so it will be fine for continuously powering up a computer.

Power out

In addition to keeping an eye on its working state, we also simply simulated some extreme damage scenarios. For example, frequent power cuts to verify its reliability. As the recorded clips show, nothing happened to the connected PC and other small devices.

Tests with Network Devices

Then to ensure that a complete workflow wouldn’t be interrupted, we used another pack of the UPS to connect up multiple small network devices such as the gateway, two routers, the NAS, and so on. Well, the network connection wasn’t broken and it just looks like the workstation now can live off-grid.

Power out

Portable Size for Various Scenarios

You may have also noticed that we didn’t hold it in one position during the weeks. It’s smaller and lighter than we expected. So when we give it a test of different scenarios, I can easily carry it wherever we need it. And the upright design also makes it take up less space than a compact PC case.

Another good point is the fan cooling for heat dissipation. We’ve never once had a problem with overheating.

LCD Info Panel

Another great bonus feature is the LCD info panel. To be honest, it’s way more useful than we imagine. It acts like a complete power station providing real-time battery, input and output data. The visible data includes input and output voltage and power, battery status, output load percentage, AVR status, and estimated battery backup runtime.

Verdict

Now the GoldenMate powers one mini PC, a full-size tower PC, a monitor, multiple mobile devices, as well as a secure camera. During more or less frequent power outages before the generator takes over, it gives me peace of mind to know I will never lose data. And it also cuts way down on the wear and tear of power surges and brownouts. The UPS has proven reliable. Now we can just free those power stations just for outdoor or car-travel uses only.

For those who live in rural or any place where the electric grid is aging, I truly recommend a UPS. The GoldenMate is just a good example. I don’t expect you to use it often, but it would be there for those moments, and help you find peace of mind. So in case you cannot find a reliable one, you can check out the GoldenMate UPS store here.

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