Post
Topic
Board Goods
Re: Mobile Battery- Powerbank - Indiegogo
by
MarkAz
on 08/05/2016, 04:37:38 UTC
This is so fake lmao

I doubt it's fake, but whether or not it's worth buying is the question... I also think PassThePopcorn's point about Flexible funding on Indiegogo is spot on, I've had probably 50% success on Flex projects actually delivering, whereas I'm probably closer to 80-90% on goal-based (although I primarily use KickStarter, which tends to filter projects better than Indiegogo).

Let's look at the stats, it's basically a 2500 mAh battery with higher discharge cycles (5x by their example, although annoyingly they repeatedly call it 3x) than a traditional one, for $50+shipping.

I'll compare this to the Anker Astro E1, which is 5200 mAh and available right now including shipping for $15, from Amazon.  Assuming it gets 300 discharge cycles (Anker doesn't specify, so just using the Flash Pack's numbers), that means if you replaced it every 300 full cycles it would cost $75, so maybe $10 more than the Flash Pack when shipping is factored in.  Of course, the Anker is also 2x the capacity, so much more device handling, plus the port will peak at supplying 2a of power (vs 1.2a).  Size ironically looks to be 1.5x the Anker, even though capacity is less - probably because of the different charge circuity, but who knows.

The big benefit is that it fast-charges when using the wall adapter - no real rocket science here, they're just using higher voltage and amperage.  Depending on your use case, it could be pretty convenient to have it ready to rock and roll quickly - but on the flipside, 2500mAh is pretty small, and it isn't available now, you're buying into the dream.

FWIW, the batteries they're using are LiFePO, and assuming they're using 2x lower voltage batteries, they probably have $20 alone in just the batteries, so I'm not saying the price point is necessarily wrong for what they're offering - but it runs under the assumption that you're really going to be using the device repeatedly.

I wish them luck on their project, and I think the fact they're taking Bitcoin is cool, but for my money it isn't anything compelling enough to make me pull the trigger.  I have a 20000 mAh Anker, and I doubt I have even 10 full discharge cycles on it.  It's also cool to see different incubators trying things around the world - it's virtually impossible to get hardware projects funded here in the US, everything is very software-centric.