APC Smart-UPS 1500VA UPS Battery Backup with Pure Sine Wave Output (SMC1500)(Not Sold in Vermont)

Disappointed – I had much higher expectations from APC
Overall I found APC (including this unit) to be very disappointing. I’ve had good luck with APC in the past, but more recently I’ve noticed their quality is plunging. The APC UPS I bought about 5 years ago recently failed and thus a replacement was needed. This will be my last APC purchase if it too fails to hold up. Just to be clear I am referring to the quality of the actual APC unit and not the batteries which have a shorter lifespan. This isn’t rocket science and there are other less expense UPS systems out there. I chose another APC primarily because they used to manufacture quality products and I was hoping my last experience was an exception and not the trend. Nowadays it seems like everyone is outsourcing to the cheapest bidder.This unit advertises some useful features – to bad they come up a little short. Hence my disappointment. If you’re interested the details follow. Otherwise consider purchasing a less expensive unit – you’ll be just as happy and save some money. Regardless of which one you buy make sure you test it (by unplugging the main power) when you get it (after the battery has had sufficient time to charge (although the unit should arrive with the batteries mostly charged)). If the test passes relax and enjoy your purchase.Feature number 1: email notification, grossly over-engineered. Email client software is simple with many free and open source examples readily available. So imagine my surprise when I learn that not one, not two, but three applications needed installing. Their software is a good example of bloatware – heavy footprint with little functionality. The GUI is simple, albeit extremely limited in it’s choice of options. During the email setup you will quickly notice it isn’t prompting for all the standard SMTP options, like port number, encryption level, and login/password. The documentation talks about using this feature with a “local” mail server. Not a local email client mind you. Instead of being able to send email like 100 other email applications can easily do, the folks at APC decided it was much better if their email was sent directly to an email server which had to reside on the same computer. Perhaps a business server or web server (especially Linux based ones) already have an email server, but my personal computer doesn’t. I’m also not interested in installing (and configuring) still more software – the 3 applications I was forced to install were more than enough to steer me away from this feature.Feature number 2: Green appliance. The unit has a “green” mode which activates automatically after an hour if the primary power was stable. The idea is to shut off the circuits used to supply alternative power when they are not being used and thus save a bit of energy. Hence the “green” label. It’s not clear and the manual didn’t say exactly how much energy this would actually save but I doubt you would even notice. This strikes me as more of a gimmick feature where the cost to design and manufacture the feature increase the cost for the unit. The higher cost will likely exceed any energy savings over the life of the product. More complication means more points of failure and ultimately less reliability.After I put the unit to work it began switching to battery 2-3 times per day (maybe more). Each incident only lasted a few seconds and then it switched back (an hour later activating the “green” feature if there wasn’t another hiccup). Each switch was smooth and didn’t result in the computer or any of it’s peripherals experiencing problems. At first I was thinking now there’s no need to test the unit every 3 months or so, but after a couple weeks the clicking from switching to and from the battery and the clicking to activate the “green” mode became annoying.Feature number 3: Front panel display. Extremely useful to keep track of what the unit is doing and the status of the batteries. The display will indicate the current level of load with respect to the unit’s capacity, the charge level of the battery, the current primary voltage coming in, and other icons to indicate status. I’m guessing they designed the LCD display to favor viewing from above at the expense of viewing from the side or below. I wanted to place the unit higher up (on a shelf and out of the way) but I couldn’t view the display very easily from there. Instead the unit ended up on the floor in a less convenient location but I no longer have to stand directly in front of it to read the display. This was never an issue with the older LED displays.Feature number 4: Auto computer shutdown. You can adjust the number of minutes to wait before shutting down the computer when using the battery’s power. Most computers prefer not to abruptly power down so this can be a useful feature. Once you determine how much time the UPS can provide before cutting power you can configure an auto shutdown 5 minutes earlier.Aside from the unit randomly switching to battery for a few seconds several times per day I had no other issues – for about a month. Suddenly and without warning the open applications on my PC started disappearing. The next thing I know my PC is rebooting. Or so I thought. Microsoft updates have a tendency to sometimes force a reboot so I waited. Instead my PC just sat there until I hit the power button (on the PC). During the next week my computer shut down five times for no apparent reason. The UPS never switched to battery during any of these incidents. This behavior began after installing the APC software so I was hoping that removing this software will resolve the problem. The USB cable connecting the PC with the APC was also removed. I’m happy to report that my computer has been running non-stop for several weeks now so I’m pretty sure the problem was APC’s high quality software. Now I’m not saying you will have the same experience, just don’t be too surprised if your computer becomes unstable.If you are seeking an uninterruptable power supply to backup a sump pump, computer, refrigerator, etc. this unit will do the job. So will other less expensive units. If you were looking for more features you definitely want to keep looking.

It’s not Lithium as per Amazon listing, it’s sealed lead.
It was listed on Amazon as being a lithium battery. That is not correct. When it arrived, I could barely lift it up. It’s sealed lead battery and I’m in my 70s and can’t bring up upstairs to where it needs to go. I want to return it, but I have to pay for their mistake and pay for shipping it back, Over $100. Disgusting. I will be calling DeluxeDeals on Monday.

Unit was shipped with UPS and arrived in surprisingly good condition. Nearly silent except when operating on batteries (as expected).It’s fairly recent stock (November 2017 for an order placed on February 2018) and comes with firmware 10. The update to version 12 was easily performed using the wizard available on APC site.

Well made commercial product.