Gadgetory

batteries we're used to finding them in our flashlights remotes phones cameras cars boats and even our adult-oriented toys but apparently Elon Musk has gone and shaken things up again by suggesting that we all go and put batteries in our homes - we already keep batteries for all that crap in our homes ow so tesla powerwall then the premise is fairly simple lower your electricity costs by consuming less during peak hours and more during off-peak hours when it's cheaper and more ecologically friendly to generate it or when paired with solar panels reduce your reliance on your city's power grid or even sell some of the power you generate back to the local utility company but let's open up with some criticism at $3,000 us for a 7 kilowatt hour capacity model or 500 more for a 10 kilowatt hour capacity power walls are expensive but the truth of the matter is that thanks to its features the power wall simply isn't competing with anything right now so for anyone who would have needed a backup solution for power outages anyway the benefits of using Tesla's batteries for this application conserving fuel and money during peak hours and reduce reliance on the grid without being detached from it seems to outweigh the cost for many including entities like Amazon since the powerwall and its industrial-sized cousin the power pack ended up selling out nearly as fast as a PlayStation 2 did but what about the performance detractors point out at 2 kilowatt continuous and 3.3 kilowatts max you can easily overpower a power wall with a handful of microwave ovens and is seven kilowatt hours or even 10 kilowatt hours really enough capacity anyway the average North American home uses about 30 kilowatt hours of electricity per day adding a few extra kilowatt hours for folks who really love watching the tumble dryer run which means that it would take more than one bigger unit for pretty much any household to have enough stored energy to get through the evening with all of their devices calling for juice at the same time so that's expensive hey the batteries themselves plus installation invert or solar panels depending on your setup yeah so why not save some serious scratch and do it yourself well first off it turns out that it takes about ten deep cycle lead based batteries to equal the storage capacity of a single ten kilowatt hour power wall and at a conservative cost of a hundred and fifty dollars per battery that puts you at about half of the Tesla solution without having factored in electrical components connections maintenance costs over time and the fact that you'd have to have the world's most understanding wife to let you all noun to tangled mess of car batteries and wires in your garage secondly with homemade units owners are usually restricted to on-site power generation and it's at least not as easy or efficient to switch between grid and battery power compared to the power wall but is the concept of this home battery system even practical anyway Christopher Hellman from Forbes points out that at an estimated cost of 30 cents per kilowatt hour within the reasonable lifespan that is discharges in charges for your battery pack most North Americans would actually end up paying far more for their power overall than if they just bought it from their electric company anyway but I guess that's how all these things start out anyway and while I won't be lining up to buy a power wall I'm definitely excited for a future where energy storage is affordable and practical speaking of affordable and practical FreshBooks it's designed for freelance workers or small businesses and it's an online accounting tool that makes invoicing tracking hours getting paid tracking expenses and getting paid that's really important that's why I set it twice actually I just screwed up my list so getting paid easier all the little details like you know history for your invoices and seeing if your client has actually looked at the invoice yet and getting them to pay through the online service by credit card is all taken care of so if you're your own boss you should be using stuff that makes you feel like a boss and freshbooks allows you to spend your time working instead of spending your time figuring out how to get paid for the work you did so head over to FreshBooks comm slash tech quickie and don't forget to enter tech quickie in the how did you hear about us section it doesn't actually go like that it's just how did you hear about us it's just text it's very straightforward but don't worry about that so I think that's pretty much it guys like this video if you liked it dislike it if you thought it sucked leave a comment with a video suggestion if you have well things you want to see us cover and as always don't forget to subscribe and follow also if you're looking for something else to watch right now check out this video where Luke and I on our Channel Superfund channel can't understand each other because we're wearing headphones hilarity ensues really it's funnier than it sounds