This cutting-edge appliance can power your home during blackouts — and it qualifies for massive government incentives
Since those qualifiers likely include mostly everyone, the company's home-based batteries should be well-received news, especially given the deluge of utility line-dropping extreme weather events being endured, causing more blackouts.
If household power is out for hours, the damage could far exceed sour milk. There are 8.4 million Americans with diabetes who need costly refrigerated insulin to live, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Other essentials, like phones, internet, and basic home functions, can be lost with the lights as well.
BioLite's ingenious solution can be installed in about a half-hour. Its automatic battery system can be targeted to power appliances in your home that you can't afford to lose, like a vital basement sump pump that is keeping rising water at bay.
Amazingly, it charges by being plugged into a standard wall outlet. Appliances are plugged into the long, thin, laptop-sized battery. They run off the grid supply — bypassing the battery — until the power drops. Then, the battery takes over, lasting for 30-60 hours, all according to BioLite marketing vice president Erica Rosen, who talked with The Cool Down about the invention.
"If you can install a flat-screen TV, you can install this, no problem," Rosen said.
BioLite costs around $2,100 after applicable, budget-saving 30% tax breaks. Other types of large generators can cost thousands more and often burn planet-warming dirty fuels. Tesla Powerwalls are another option, storing power from the grid or from solar panels. CNET reported that Powerwall 3 runs about $14,000 before incentives.
Certain electric vehicles are also turning into blackout saviors. The Ford Lightning and Chevy electric Silverado are both built to power homes during emergencies. You can expect to pay $60,000 and higher for the rides, minus applicable tax breaks.
BioLite's lower-cost option can keep core parts of the home up and running during ever-increasing and worsening storms. Yale Climate Connections reported that the number of calamities causing at least a billion dollars in damage is increasing each year, reaching 28 in 2023. The inflation-adjusted calculation set a record dating to 1980.
Do you have a backup power source in your home?
Yes — a portable generator
Yes — a full-on generator
I use solar panels
No — I don't
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.
Worse yet, the Verge reported that there have been 60% more weather-related blackouts in warmer months during the last 10 years compared to the 2000s. Supercharged storms and a strained grid are the culprits, with Earth's overheating causing increased risks for the extreme weather, per NASA.
Battery backups can help you mitigate the damage should your power go out. Using less electricity to begin with can also ease grid strain and reduce air pollution. It starts by unplugging so-called energy vampires at night. The unused chargers and devices can suck up loads of juice, also increasing your power bill.
Better yet for BioLite's part, you won't notice the tech until it's time to use it. It's thin enough to install behind the fridge or other furniture.
"Out of sight, peace of mind," per the company website.
Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more and waste less, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
3 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Want more growth? Welcome more immigrants.
Which means the only way to ensure the population base needed to keep the economy growing is to increase the number of immigrants entering the United States. Much of the public supports President Trump's ferocious crackdown on illegal immigration. The administration is obsessed with rounding up and deporting foreigners who have been living in the country without proper documents. Whatever the wisdom of that policy, it ignores the fact that the vast majority of unlawful migrants who enter the country come here to work in peace. The US economy in recent decades has fueled an unprecedented demand for labor, but there aren't nearly enough legal channels to accommodate that demand. The result has been an influx of migrants crossing the border unlawfully. And that in turn eventually triggered the political backlash that helped send Trump to the White House. Advertisement All the while, however, millions of jobs are going unfilled in this country, because there aren't enough working-age Americans to fill them all. Clearly the best way to solve the problem of illegal immigration is to make it easier for foreigners to immigrate to America legally . That, in turn, is the only way the United States can have the expanding labor force necessary to achieve economic growth and higher living standards in the decades ahead. In The authors show that nearly half of the net growth in the US labor force over the past decade has come from immigrants. That might seem surprising since only about 1 in 7 Americans are foreign born. But immigrants are more likely to work than native-born Americans of working age. In 2023, just under 60 percent of US-born natives age 16 and older were working. Among immigrants, the percentage was almost 65 percent. 'Over the past decade, immigrants have filled nearly 40 percent of the new jobs in America,' Vedder, Moore, and Denhart write. And for most of that time, the unemployment rate has remained at historically low levels — evidence that immigrants are not displacing US-born citizens from jobs that would otherwise have gone to them. With roughly Advertisement But what makes immigrants so valuable to the US economy goes beyond their propensity to work. There is also their extraordinary performance as innovators and entrepreneurs. More than 45 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, and immigrants are more than twice as likely as US natives to start a business. In 2023, according to Such statistics are striking, but they also stand to reason. Almost by definition, immigrants have a higher than normal willingness to take chances, to relinquish the familiar, and to try new things. It shouldn't come as a surprise that newcomers from abroad are fired with a passion to dream the American Dream, or that Immigration increases both the labor supply and labor demand, which helps explain why states with the highest immigration inflows, such as Texas and Florida, are associated with lower unemployment than other states. Because immigrants are more likely to work and to start businesses, their presence leads to higher rates of economic growth. 'The parts of the United States with the highest proportion of population coming from other nations have higher levels of total output per capita,' the Unleash Prosperity authors show. Thus, in the 10 states with the highest percentage of immigrants, output per capita is nearly 40 percent higher than in the 10 least immigrant-intensive states. To be sure, correlation may not prove causation, and immigration is not the only factor affecting economic output. But it is hard to dispute that immigration and growth go together. Advertisement What is true nationally is true locally. At a presentation I attended in 2012, Boston's then-mayor Thomas Menino rattled off a slew of numbers that underscored how much foreigners added to the city's prosperity. There were 8,800 immigrant-owned small businesses in Boston, Menino said, producing nearly $3.7 billion in annual sales and employing more than 18,000 people. At the time, immigrants living in Boston were spending $4 billion per year, generating $1.3 billion in state and federal taxes. Since 2012, the To fully understand why robust immigration boosts American prosperity, it is crucial to take into account the contributions of their children . The United States would never have become the world's foremost economic powerhouse if not for the innovations of first-generation Americans — men and women whose parents were immigrants. Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, was the son of an immigrant from Syria. Larry Ellison, creator of the software firm Oracle, was born to a single mother from Ukraine. Jeff Bezos was raised by Miguel Bezos, who immigrated from Cuba. Henry Ford's father came to America from Ireland. Advertisement Needless to say, millions of other first-generation Americans, though not as famous or as rich as the megabillionaires, have contributed to every American industry and field of endeavor. And in the process they have typically risen to greater heights than their foreign-born parents. 'Since immigrants arriving in America are typically poor (particularly these days because of the large recent inflow of relatively unskilled illegal aliens), immigrant poverty rates are higher than that of native-born Americans,' the three authors observe. 'But poverty among their adult children is typically below that of the native born. Moreover, while immigrants themselves are more likely than native-born Americans to receive graduate or professional degrees, their education is modest relative to their own children, who exceed native-born Americans in terms of high-level educational attainment.' In short, without immigrants and their children, the United States would be a poorer, duller, less influential, less desirable nation. That is especially true given the crisis of America's 'birth dearth,' since immigrants tend, on average, to be younger and to have more children than natives. According to Census Bureau calculations, the number of working-age US-born Americans is projected to fall by 5.3 million between now and 2040. Over the same span, the population of working-age immigrants is expected to grow by 1.9 million. Immigration has always been the great growth hormone of American history. More immigrants have always meant more economic development, more innovation, more cultural richness. That is as true today as it has ever been — and it is compounded by the fact that the US economy desperately needs more workers. Border control is not incompatible with a policy of welcoming immigrants with open arms. And the surest way to dissuade illegal immigration is to create more opportunities for would-be Americans to immigrate lawfully. Advertisement Anti-immigrant demagoguery may excite some in the MAGA camp; there has always been an appetite for Expanding legal immigration is a pro-growth, pro-worker, and pro-sovereignty agenda. It is the best way to strengthen the rule of law, suppress mayhem at the border, and maintain America's role as a safe haven for the oppressed — all while attracting the young and dynamic workforce on which US growth depends. We have always needed more immigrants. Now, as the United States is about to enter its second quarter-millennium, we need them more than ever. To open our gates to striving would-be Americans is to turbocharge the economy and enrich the American way of life. Much has changed since This is adapted from the current , Jeff Jacoby's weekly newsletter. To subscribe to Arguable, visit . Jeff Jacoby can be reached at
Miami Herald
3 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Social Security email says policy bill eliminates tax on benefits. Does it?
In a celebratory email sent to Americans across the country, the Social Security Administration praised the Trump administration's sprawling budget and tax bill and said it eliminated federal income taxes on most retirees' benefits. But that's not exactly what it does. Many retirees quickly took notice, with several writing The New York Times to question some of the agency's statements, while pointing out what felt to them like unusually partisan language. The agency's embrace of the legislation, which was signed into law by President Donald Trump on Friday, was also at odds with the effect it is expected to have on the program's financial health. The law is projected to further weaken Social Security's revenues at a time when it is already facing a financing shortfall. Eliminating taxes on Social Security, along with taxes on tips and overtime, was one of Trump's often-repeated campaign promises. The email, which went out Thursday, said the new law 'includes a provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries,' and, 'additionally, it provides an enhanced deduction for taxpayers aged 65 and older.' But the enhanced deduction will help reduce households' tax bills on their overall income, including Social Security income. 'The SSA statement implies there is a direct tax cut on Social Security benefits,' said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank, 'which there is not.' Instead, older single filers will get the extra $6,000 deduction ($12,000 for couples), as long as their income falls under a certain ceiling (below $75,000 for single filers or $150,000 for married joint filers). Above those income levels, the deduction begins to decrease, and it goes away once single taxpayers' income reaches $175,000 ($250,000 for couples). Nor will the extra deduction benefit all Social Security recipients. Retirees who are 62 through 64 are ineligible. And since the income of more than half of Social Security recipients is too low to be taxed anyway, lower-income people won't be helped much. The new break is expected to benefit middle- and upper-middle-class households, tax policy experts said. (Recipients who earn less than $63,300 owe an average of 1% of their Social Security benefits in taxes, according to an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.) 'It is discouraging to see such misrepresentation by the administration and the Social Security Administration,' said Martha Shedden, president of the National Association of Registered Social Security Analysts, a group that offers guidance to consumers and financial professionals on making Social Security decisions. The Tax Policy Center estimates that less than half of older adults, most of whom earn about $50,000 to $200,000, will get some benefit from the new deduction, though most of them will still owe some tax, Gleckman added. Under current law, an estimated 64% of beneficiaries did not owe taxes on their Social Security benefit, and the new deduction would boost that number to 88%, according to an analysis in June from the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Frank Bisignano, the commissioner of the Social Security agency said in the email, 'By significantly reducing the tax burden on benefits, this legislation reaffirms President Trump's promise to protect Social Security and helps ensure that seniors can better enjoy the retirement they've earned.' The email also says that 'nearly 90% of beneficiaries will no longer pay federal taxes on their benefits.' That, too, is misleading because the deduction is temporary, only in effect for tax years 2025 through 2028. The Social Security Administration did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment. The change will also weaken the program's finances. Besides the payroll tax, the program's lifeblood, the taxation of Social Security benefits adds revenue to the program's trust funds. The taxation of benefits began in 1983, in an effort to stabilize Social Security's finances, and is the type of measure that some policymakers say is needed again now. Social Security's retirement trust fund already faced a financing shortfall that, if left unaddressed, would cut millions of retirees' crucial monthly benefits by 23% in 2033. The Trump administration's bill is expected to pull that date into 2032 and deepen benefit cuts by roughly 1 percentage point, according to a recent analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Budget, a nonpartisan group that calls for lower deficits. That's because the new law reduces the amount of revenue deposited in Social Security's trust fund by decreasing the number of older Americans paying taxes on their benefits and cutting the rates at which some of their benefits are taxed. (The law also reduces revenue deposited to Medicare's trust fund.) 'The bill won't end taxation of benefits, but it will cut those taxes and as a result, accelerate the looming insolvency of Social Security and Medicare,' said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Budget. The year '2032 is just around the corner, and we are not ready.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Copyright 2025
Miami Herald
3 hours ago
- Miami Herald
The Rise of 84-Month Car Loans: Why Buyers Are Trapped
Regardless of whether you've nervously scrolled through endless listings on dealer websites or wasted hours of your life configuring your dream cars online, it hurts to know that new cars are expensive. According to analysts from Kelley Blue Book and Cox Automotive, dealers are doing the most they can to keep car prices steady; however, the average new car in the U.S. still costs a whopping $48,799 in May 2025, a 2.1% increase from the same month in 2024. Although data shows that tariffs have influenced some buyers in the U.S. to defer or delay their buying decisions, other buyers must finance their cars, which keeps a disturbing trend alive among new car buyers. According to new data released by car buying authority Edmunds, Americans' auto loans are reaching a point where Dave Ramsay and Caleb Hammer would declare a personal finance armageddon. While automakers and dealer groups would advertise their single-digit promotional financing rates as terms that extend over 60 months (5 years) or 72 months (6 years), buyers are stretching their payment plans for much longer. Edmunds reports that in Q2 2025, more buyers than ever are taking out loans over the course of 84 months (7 years), making up about 22.4% of new-vehicle financing in the quarter, up from 20.4% in Q1 2025 and 17.6% during the same period last year. Though buyers are willing to stretch and spread out their loan terms for a lower monthly payment, they aren't being spared from paying out the wazoo every month. According to Edmunds, over 19.3% of new car buyers had monthly payments that exceeded $1,000 in Q2 2025, a notable increase from the 17.7% in the previous quarter. As more buyers opt for extended loan terms, Edmunds' consumer insights analyst Joseph Yoon warns that this could have later consequences, especially as the risks and tribulations of car ownership, such as upkeep costs and depreciation, kick in. "While extended loan terms may make a monthly payment more palatable, consumers need to keep in mind the risks associated with a loan extended that far into the future, including increased costs for upkeep down the line and the risk of being underwater on the loan if the car is traded in before it's paid off," Yoon said. "If payments on a more standard 60- or 72-month loan don't fit your budget, you might consider leasing. While you won't be building equity in your vehicle the way you do with a purchase, leases afford time to get your finances in better shape with lower monthly payments in the meantime." Although ads on TV during select promotional periods, like certain federal holidays, show that your local [insert automotive brand here] dealer is offering 0% APR loans, or a number close to it (such as 0.9%) on a specific model, these kinds of rates are far out of reach for the average new car buyer. Edmunds says that the average buyer financed their cars at an annual percentage rate (APR) of 7.2%. However, this doesn't mean that 0% finance deals don't exist; in fact, they accounted for 0.9% of new-vehicle loans in Q2 2025. This was the lowest share Edmunds recorded since 2004, down from 1% in Q1 2025 and 2.9% in Q2 2024. However, while it is commonly known that a sizable down payment is required to achieve manageable monthly payments, in addition to accepting longer loan terms, Edmunds found that buyers are putting less money down on their new car loans than ever before. According to their data, the average down payment that buyers put down on their new-car loans was $6,433 in Q2 2025, which is down from $6,511 during the previous quarter and $6,579 during the same time last year. At the same time, Edmunds found that new car buyers are financing increasingly expensive vehicles. They found that the average amount financed for new cars climbed to an all-time high of $42,388 in Q2 2025, up from $41,473 during the last quarter and $40,873 during the same time last year. In a statement, Ivan Drury, Edmunds' director of insights, noted that while it would be easy to assume and point fingers at the Trump administration's tariffs, car prices remain steady at a level that car buyers still can't afford. "It's clear that buyers are pulling the few levers they can control to manage affordability, whether that's by taking on longer loans, financing more, or putting less money down - even if some of those decisions increase their total costs," Drury said. "Consumers are continuously stretching to afford new vehicles in this market, and while tariffs haven't directly driven these Q2 numbers, they're certainly not going to make things any easier for shoppers moving forward." We are seeing automakers react to the reality of extended loan payments, too. In fact, the Stellantis-backed Ram Trucks began to offer a best-in-class 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty, which gives Ford and Chevy something to think about. However, in its press release, Ram acknowledges that the warranty comes as "more buyers opt for extended loan terms." "Everything is more expensive, and trucks are certainly no exception. Truck buyers are financing purchases for longer periods of time, with nearly 80% of new truck loans exceeding five years," Ram Trucks CEO Tim Kuniskis said in a statement. It is one thing for automakers to recognize this reality, but it is another to enable it. This data comes at the same time when auto loan delinquency is at its highest, as 1.4% of auto borrowers were at least 60 days behind on their auto loan payments during the first quarter of 2025, per TransUnion. Copyright 2025 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
