Under-Desk Power Backup for a Home Office: UPS or Power Station?

Laptop desks: a power station, for hours

Your laptop runs on its own battery when the power goes. What goes dark is the router, the modem and the monitor, and an outage can last hours. A UPS gives minutes: typically 5 to 15 on battery.

The RIVER 2 Pro is the one to put under the desk. Its manual describes the setup: wall power goes into the station, your gear plugs into the station, and in a blackout it switches to battery within 30ms on its own. EcoFlow asks you to test your devices on it first and recommends one device at a time in this mode, so start with the router.

How long it runs: your desk, in hours

Find the row closest to the total draw of what you run from it, whether that is the router alone or the whole desk once you have tested it. A plug-in power meter gives your exact draw, but you do not need one to buy: the pick is the same either way. Times for the RIVER 2 Pro use our planning allowance of 85% of its 768Wh, for conversion losses.

• 30W desk — about 21 hr 46 min
• 60W desk — about 10 hr 53 min
• 100W desk — about 6 hr 32 min
• 150W desk — about 4 hr 21 min

Will it fit under the desk?

Here are the makers' sizes to hold against the space under your desk. CyberPower angles the UPS screen so you can read it when the unit is placed 'under a desk'.

• EcoFlow RIVER 2 Pro — 10.6 x 10.2 x 8.9 in, about 17 to 18 lb (EcoFlow's manual and product page).
• CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD — 3.9 in wide, 11 in tall, 14 in deep, 24.9 lb (CyberPower).

Desktop tower: buy a UPS (uninterruptible power supply)

A station is a poor fit for a tower. A desktop power supply only has to keep running for 11 to 16 milliseconds after the power cuts, depending on the ATX version, according to LTT Labs. The RIVER 2 Pro takes up to 30ms to switch, so the tower can shut off first. EcoFlow's own manual says not to connect workstations that need 0ms switching.

Buy the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD instead. CyberPower sells it as battery backup for desktop computers and workstations and lists a typical 4ms switch to battery. It is rated 1500VA / 1000W and runs about 10 minutes at half load (2.5 at full load), per CyberPower.

Plug the tower and monitor into its six battery-backed outlets; the other six are surge-only. Server Room Environments, a UK UPS seller, recommends sizing a UPS to run at 80% or less; by that rule of thumb, on this unit's 1000W rating, that is 800W for the tower and monitor together.