CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD PFC Sinewave UPS System, 1500VA/1000W, 12 Outlets, AVR, Mini Tower,Black

CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD PFC SinewaveSo good, I bought 2! UPS systems in this class can easily cost more. I have had poor experience with APC systems in this range, so I gave CyberPower a shot. First one I bought for all my network equipment. I bought the optional network card as well. I have a couple routers attached, several WiFi Mesh base units attached by PoE router, laptop, NAS and a couple other items. I get 1 hour or more of uptime! (YMMV, yada yada) All the items I have attached amount to about 40% load if they are all on at the time.The 2nd UPS I bought about a year later for my home entertainment stuff - TV, stereo and a couple miscellaneous network items. Also gets about 1 hour uptime. No net card on the 2nd one, I wanted to test connecting it to HomeIt via HomeBridge and RPi.I don't need to manage these UPSs on a regular basis. We live in the mountains and power can be flaky. I wanted to have some way to monitor utility power when I was at work. The NIC adapter is perfect for that. I think it is a little on the $$ side, but has been worth it. Plugs right in and easy to configure. I started out with a 1 year promotional subscription to their service, but don't really need it. I still get power change notifications even without the subscription. When I get a power out notification I know I have about 1 hour of uptime before I need to turn on the generator. I did get the other CyberPower UPS to hook up pretty easily to my RPi unit running HomeBridge, with NUT UPS plugin. NUT can have a reasonably steep learning curve. I did get it working, but haven't really had the need to play with it too much since I still have the other UPS with the NIC. FWIW, I already had the RPi unit in place for a bunch of other IoT integrations with HomeKit - I would not go that route just for UPS management! ;PA word about generators:Most UPS systems will not play nicely with your standard portable open frame generator, regardless of how large/stable it is. It's the shape of the stepped wave that can often fool the UPS causing it to trip on. The only foolproof way around that is to 1) Get an online UPS system at 3-5 times the cost of line-interactive 2) get an inverter generator. Don't get too fooled by 'generator' modes on line-interactive or standby UPS types. Those modes may help, but in my experience it will not work 100% of the time. Initially I had a standard Champion 7kw open frame delivering power to whole house. Performance was rock solid voltage and frequency delivery without fluctuation. These CyberPower systems worked off the generator about 75% of the time, tripping on the rest of the time. I have a couple APC systems with 'generator' mode that would have nothing to do with the generator - they would trip instantly even in 'generator' mode. Still, this was not stable enough for me. My solution was to get the inverter generator - a 9kw Westinghouse delivering power to the whole house. It was actually cheaper than getting an online UPS equivalent to this CyberPower! Ultimately it wasn't just the lower cost, but the versatility and stability of delivering super clean pure sine to the whole house. Better for everything inside. Zero issues, of course, with these CyberPwoer UPSs. They just see the generator output as regular utility power.

I purchased this unit for my Mid-2011 27" iMac / 2.7GHz i5 Quad-Core / 1 TB Hard Drive / 16 GB RAM (Self Upgraded) / 512 MB Video/Graphics.The main reason I purchased this unit is, well, because in my opinion, if you have a desktop computer you absolutely NEED some sort of battery back-up unit, because power failures/outages WILL happen. Not to mention, brown-outs, where the voltage drops to an unusable level. The only time I would really say that you don't absolutely need a battery back-up is if you have a laptop, as they have built in batteries obviously, which will prevent it from doing a hard destructive shut-down with loss of power. Though if it were me, I would still purchase a battery back-up, because most of them feature AVR (automatic voltage regulation), which levels out the power output without having to resort to using the battery's power supply. For example, if you have a high load being drawn on that circuit, or for some reason your voltage drops some (not too much of course), this unit (and some others) will compensate for that and give you a more constant amount of voltage. In my area, here in Florida it's pretty common to have outages, especially during storms and such. The most common outage is a very quick 1-2 second outage, and then the power will come back on. Which isn't great at all, it actually sucks, very much.I had JUST purchased my iMac and I was shopping around for Back-UPS units, when my house had a quick outage, and my brand new 27" iMac did a hard shut down. Which gave me sort of a kick in the pants and coaxed me to purchase one VERY soon and ship it VERY fast. I was considering the APC Smart-UPS units, but they were outrageously expensive. Yes I realize that you pay for what you get, in some cases, but I just didn't want to spend $500-$600 on a battery back up. I absolutely needed a unit that provided Pure Sine Wave power when on battery power, because the newer iMacs all have PFC (Power Factor Corrected, I believe that's what the abbreviation stands for) Power Supply, and your average Back-UPS units like the APC models that you find at Staples, Office Depot and Wal-Mart absolutely will not work with computers that have these power supplies. This is because those Back-UPS units provide a "Stepped Approximation to a Sine Wave" when they are running on battery power", and newer computers, both Macs and PCs, with the PFC Power Supplies will NOT run them when it's running on battery power.I was debating on whether or not to purchase one of these CyberPower units, because I've seen a couple bad reviews on them, but a very large majority of the reviews were in fact very positive and the people had nothing but good words to write about these units. I think a majority of the issues come from the items being mishandled during the shipping process. I witnessed this when the customer service lady at UPS basically body slammed my Back-Ups unit onto the table right in front of me as I was picking up packages. They really don't care, because you could see what the item was, as it was shipped in the manufacturer's product packaging. Which is absolutely fine so long as someone doesn't use it to kick a field goal, as the manufacturers product packaging box is double walled cardboard, with a very generous amount of foam and extra cardboard spacing inside. Even with the super body slam, my unit worked absolutely wonderfully, no fan noise or anything.The build quality of these units isn't QUITE as great as the APC tower type units that you'll find at Staples and such, the outer skin on the CyberPower tower units is slightly thinner than the APC units, though it's still sturdy and not at all flexible or pliable. Everything else is absolutely wonderfully built. If you shake it there are no rattles, when you press on various body panels on it, none of them are loose or incorrectly fitted, receptacles are nice, and everything is great. Menu/interface functionality is great, easy to navigate and very intuitive. The buttons are solid when pressed also.One very large advantage that this unit has over it's non Pure Sine Wave APC counterparts that you'll find in stores is that these units are SMALL. Nice, small, and compact. I would say about half the size of those APC tower units. Making it possible to place it on your desk if you would like, next to your computer tower (if your computer has one) or somewhere else on the floor. It will not take up much room at ALL. It will maybe take up as much room as a single size 11 shoe will, that's it.The performance of this unit is great. I witnessed a couple times where the power dropped some and this unit properly compensated for it without having to kick over to battery power. There were quite a few times where household power was lost all together and this unit provided a perfect, instant, flawless transition to battery power and if it weren't for the click from the unit and the light sound of the fan kicking on, you wouldn't know it switched to battery power. Unless of course your computer notifies you when you are running on battery back-up, which my iMac did. I had my unit set on the highest sensitivity, and it was perfect. Sometimes with other units you will have an issue with the units being far too sensitive to have it on high sensitivity and really protect your computer and fast, and you will constantly hear the unit turning on and turning off, which was the case with the APC non-Sine Wave unit I purchased from Staples a couple years ago for another computer, and I had to leave that one set to medium sensitivity.The unit comes with software that you can use to set up automatic shut downs via different determinations such as the amount of time your computer is running on battery back up, how much charge the battery has left, and other parameters. THOUGH, and this is very important! With newer Macs, you absolutely do NOT need to install this provided software, or use any other kind of third part software. This is because you can go into System Preferences, and into Energy Saver, and once you have the Back-UPS unit connected to your Mac via the USB cable, your Energy Saver settings will automatically give you options to set up the Back-UPS unit and set up automatic proper shut downs by different parameters, like battery charge left, time running on battery and such. So these CyberPower units REALLY integrate very well with Macs, which is a very large plus.Bottom line is, if you are looking for a very nice Back-UPS unit for your computer that has a PFC Power Supply, and you don't want to spend $500 or more, then you really MUST look into this unit. It is absolutely amazing, and the price is amazingly ridiculously amazing (if that makes any sense, lol). CyberPower also has higher watt rated models, up to 2000VA I believe, my unit was a 1000VA, which is like 600w or such, and when it switched to battery power, it would give me a run time of 34 minutes, which is great, considering I was running quite a few programs and such at the time. So if you have a similar set up, you will have no problem getting adequate time to properly do everything you need with this model. If you have a much higher end gaming computer or such, I would possibly go with the 1350VA, 1600VA or 2000VA model. I am about to order a new Late-2012 27" iMac (the new thin models) with the i7 Quad-Core / 3 TB HDD / 8 GB RAM (I'll be upgrading it to 32GB myself, which you can't do with the 21.5" models, oddly enough) and 1 GB Video/Graphics, and for this one I plan on purchasing the 2000VA model, which will do me just fine.ALSO, ANOTHER VERY IMPORTANT WARNING. If you have a laser printer, or anything else that has a very high current draw, DO NOT, I repeat do NOT plug the printer into the battery back-up provided side of the unit. Plug it into the Surge Protected Only side, or better yet, a completely separate surge protector strip, which is what I did. Because when you turn on the laser printer, or start printing, you will see the voltage drop on the display of you Back-UPS unit quite a bit.