From Anand Parthasarathy
Bangalore, February 15 2016: Some ideas are so elegantly simple, we ask ourselves 'why didn't anyone think of that before?' I was struck by this thought when I saw the Router UPS which won Bangalore-based Resonate, the Best Startup award last week, at the Vision Summit of the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA).
Many of us have a home WiFi router which lets us wirelessly use the same wired broadband Internet connection, across multiple PCs, laptops and mobile phones. We are also plagued by frequent power cuts because the router which takes its power from a mains power adapter, goes off every time. In my own case, a sort of perverse Murphy's Law seems to operate -- such interruptions to my Net connection, invariably occur when I am in the last stage of an e-commerce transaction, entering my credit card number.
Resonate thought: why not create a special UPS for routers -- a scaled-down version on the lines of the power bank one uses to charge phones? The Router UPS is just that, a palm -sized battery backup for all standard routers that offers up to 2000 mAh and 4 hours of backup -- enough for most urban power cuts. The UPS comes with three different bridge cables, which between them should match any router in the market. You remove the power adapter that comes with the router, and insert the UPS between the router and the adapter, then plug the adapter to the mains. That's it! As Resonate founder Sudhir Sathiyamurthy says, ' When power goes, the WiFi doesnt!'
One caution. You need to closely examine the power adapter of your router and buy the Router UPS model that matches the DC voltage requirement of the router -- usually 5, 9 or 12 volts. The 12V 2A Router UPS is currently available at FlipKart and Amazon for Rs 1499. The 5V and 9 V versions cost Rs 1299.