Mr. Pearlstein had a generator that provided intermittent power at his home in Montvale, N.J. But he used the battery to keep his Samsung Galaxy smartphone running. He then used the phone as a portable hot spot, creating an Internet link for five additional devices. That link meant he, his girlfriend and her two children could use their laptops and watch Hulu, even without the lights.

Usually, Mr. Pearlstein said, he uses the battery just to charge his phone on business trips. “Not a trip goes by that I don’t recharge the battery at least once in order to stay productive,” he said. But, he added, the battery “never provided so much utility as it did last week.”

The widespread power failures, which led, in turn, to broken Internet connections after Hurricane Sandy, served as an extreme example of the challenges business travelers face when they are on the road and need to recharge their smartphone, tablet or laptop, or when they are in underdeveloped countries and the power goes out.

 In situations like these, “frequent travelers are a pretty resourceful group, making do with what’s available to them,” said Ron DiLeo, executive director of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, a trade group.

 “When you’re a frequent traveler, you learn how to charge your phone off your laptop until you can get to a place where you can charge the laptop,” he said. “You learn to go to your favorite coffee shop, so you can have access to Wi-Fi and Internet. You learn how to manage your time at airports with Wi-Fi hot spots and recharging stations.”

Travelers have also been helped by the development of all sorts of products in the last few years that provide backup power for everything from a small cellphone to a large laptop, said Darren Murph, managing editor of Engadget, an online consumer electronics magazine. “These handle voltages for devices like laptops and tablets,” he said.

 One category of backup power systems charges cellphones and smartphones. This includes portable smartphone chargers from Energizer, the Instant Charger from Duracell and the Mophie Juice Pack Air, a case for an iPhone containing a rechargeable battery that allows users to talk, text and send e-mail for well over nine hours. In addition, Panasonic’s Eneloop mobile boosters contain lithium-ion backup batteries that can charge a smartphone and tablet simultaneously. The Trent iMirror heavy-duty external battery pack can do the same thing. Duracell’s car charger works from any car’s cigarette lighter adapter, and allows the user to charge various devices — including cellphones and tablets — while driving.

 With Duracell’s Powermat system, which features a mat that can either be plugged into an electric outlet or operated by a portable backup battery, users can put their tablet, smartphone or cellphone in a special wireless case before placing it on the mat. The charging surface and device then communicate, and electric energy is transferred wirelessly to the device.

 The HyperJuice system is a rechargeable, external battery for MacBooks that, depending on the model, can extend a MacBook’s power up to 45 hours and an iPad’s power up to 53 hours; it can also recharge an iPhone up to 52 times.

  In an emergency, there is Duracell’s self-powered turbo flashlight, a hand-cranked flashlight that can charge a cellphone, and the similar SOS Charger hand-crank emergency cellphone charger and flashlight.

 Solar energy can also come in handy for charging consumer electronics in an emergency. Solio’s Bolt and Classic2 battery pack and solar charger systems use a battery and rotating solar panels to charge smartphones, e-readers and tablets. Goal Zero’s USB solar charging kit contains a battery pack, solar panel and cord, and rechargeable batteries, and also charges smartphones, e-readers and tablets.

 Even clothing can be an energy generator. Although the “power felt” fabric now under development at Wake Forest University — it uses a thermoelectric device that converts body heat into an electrical current — is not expected to be in commercial use before 2014, Timbuk2, a maker of messenger bags, last week introduced bags containing a rechargeable Joey T1 power supply that charges a phone, tablet or e-reader in the bag with a USB cable.

  Consumer electronics experts offered these other tips for managing power during a blackout.

  Dan Ackerman, a senior editor at the technology Web site CNET, who both lives and works in Lower Manhattan, where power was down for days, recharged the internal battery of a bulky Dell laptop before he lost power during the storm. He used the laptop’s USB port as a power source when the laptop was closed or in sleep mode, charging two iPhones, an iPad and other devices.

 To manage power on a phone, Charles Golvin, who follows the wireless industry for Forrester Research and relies on a USB car charger and multiple cellphones for backup power on his travels, recommended turning off anything that consumes unnecessary power, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. He also suggested choosing text messaging as the default communications choice, since this consumes less power than a voice call. Also helpful, he said, is to dim the screen on the phone, and turn off the cellular data connection if the phone is going to be used only to make and receive calls.

  To further stretch a smartphone’s battery life, Roger Cheng, executive editor of CNET, recommended closing unnecessary apps and stopping the use of streaming services. And Chris Ziegler, senior editor of the Verge, an online consumer technology publication, suggested turning the phone off entirely unless a call was expected.

  Mr. Murph of Engadget urged travelers to “charge everything you possibly can 100 percent before you leave home,” adding, “Even if you think you know logistically when and where you’re going to find power, interruptions in these plans can keep you away from that power for many hours.”

 Or, as Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst and co-founder of Atmosphere Research Group, pointed out, “A pilot can never have too much runway, and a business traveler can never have too much juice for his devices.”    

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/business/business-travelers-improvise-with-backup-power-systems.html?partner=rss&emc=rss