Power banks are great, they give you a way to quickly charge your gadgets on the go. As great as they may be, they are never exciting. There’s just nothing about a battery sitting inside an enclosure that stirs up your enthusiasm. The Storm 2 Liquid, however, just might change that.
Yes, it’s a power bank that you can use to charge all the consumer electronics you carry around throughout the day. Except, they made it look a fair it bit more exciting with a transparent shell that lets you see the underlying electronics and an LCD panel that allows you to interact with the device differently than other power banks. Seriously, we can’t believe how much cooler this thing felt with the simple addition of see-through electronics and an information display.
The Storm 2 Liquid is a bigger-than-usual power bank, as it holds a substantial 27,600 mAh battery, which holds enough power to charge an iPhone seven times, a MacBook 1.2 times, and a GoPro 15 times. It also has a 99.36Wh rating, which clears the 100Wh limit allowed by airlines, so you can take this on the plane to keep your gadgets powered up during a trip. The device has four ports all available on one end – two USB Type-C slots, a USB-A port, and a DC port. One of the Type-C ports and the DC port, by the way, can pull double duty as both input and output slots, so you can use them to both charge devices and recharge the power bank’s battery.
It supports simultaneous charging for all four ports, by the way, so you can charge your drone with the DC port, a laptop and phone with the Type-C slots, and even a tablet with the third USB slot, complete with pass-through charging support, so you can charge the battery while charging your gadgets, too. Even better, all three USB ports get fast-charging ability, with support for three-way simultaneous fast-charging. Oh yeah, the input and output Type-C slot supports 100W PD both ways, allowing the battery to replenish its stores from empty to full in just 1.5 hours.
The Storm 2 Liquid gets a transparent shell that lets you see the underlying circuit board that controls its power management. As simple as a power bank may be, its electronics make for a fancy-looking sight that feels straight out of a futuristic movie. Well… that or it looks like a bomb that you’re going to use to blow up a plane. From the side, you can also see the battery array sitting beneath the board, which is, admittedly, a lot less affable to look at. The 1.14-inch LCD panel has a default layout that shows the battery level, voltage, current, temperature (battery and circuit board), running time, and the working state of both input and output. There’s also a menu that lets you switch between different layouts, so you can see more detailed information.
As with modern battery packs, it has a comprehensive protection system that includes high-voltage protection, short circuit protection, and temperature management. The whole thing measures 5.9 x 1.8 x 2.3 inches.
A Kickstarter campaign is currently running for the Storm 2 Liquid. You can reserve a unit for pledges starting at $99.