GuidePower & facilities
Calculating backup runtime for a home office
By Inara Crest Engineering 1 min read
Add up the devices you need during an outage, convert to watts and estimate how long a UPS or inverter will last.
Working from home through power cuts needs a little planning.
1. List essential devices
Router and fibre terminal, laptop, monitor, phone charger and a light.
2. Find power use
Check labels or measure: a router uses little power; a monitor more.
3. Add them up
Total the watts of everything that must run.
4. Check runtime charts
Manufacturers publish runtime at different loads. Choose a unit that covers your target duration with headroom.
5. Prioritise
Keep the router and fibre terminal running — laptops have their own batteries.
See our backup power solutions.
About the author
Inara Crest Engineering
Engineering team
Written by the Inara Crest Technologies engineering team, who design, install and support software, network, security, power and data centre systems for organisations in Kenya and East Africa.