APC 1500VA Compact UPS Battery Backup & Surge Protector, Back-UPS Pro (BX1500M)

Overall good UPS. I have purchased several of the same models. I use them for my computers and also my home theater system (amp, TV, PS5, subwoofer), and other electronics. However, all my APC units have the same defect in the self-testing mode or during a power outage at the house. Although, the defect during self-test is infrequent. Sometimes during self-test, unexpectedly the unit's alarm starts making a racket. I look at the display panel icon which indicates the battery is completely depleted. The first time this happened, I turned off everything connected to the UPS because I thought it would suddenly cut the power to them because the UPS thinks the battery was dead. The same issue could happen if there is a power outage at my house and the UPS switches to the battery power. After, I unplugged the UPS from the wall and cycled the power button off and on, the mysterious "problem" with the "failed" battery was self-corrected. The battery icon then showed it was fully charged: it had gone from full discharge to fully charged in an instant! Now that I know about this defect, when the alarm goes off and the panel indicates the battery is dead: I mute the alarm and leave my equipment on that is connected to the UPS. (There is no a power outage at my house.) It is a false alarm. In about 24 hours, the UPS mysteriously corrects itself and behaves normally. I can disconnect it from the wall socket and my stuff works fine and the battery level shows that it is fully charged but of course starts to show the remaining time left to depletion. UPDATE: June 2026 All of my APC UPS units have stopped functioning properly after about five years of use. I tested each one by swapping batteries, and the results showed either weak batteries or failure in the UPS hardware itself. For the APC units that still appear to operate, I chose not to purchase new OEM batteries. Instead, I invested in the GOLDENMATE 1000VA/800W Lithium UPS Battery Backup and Surge Protector, and it has proven to be a clear improvement over the older sealed lead‑acid APC models. When I pull the power plug from the wall mains to simulate a power outage, the GOLDENMATE provides noticeably longer runtime and keeps my equipment powered flawlessly. The APC units—when they were still functioning correctly—could do the same, but for a shorter period. The GOLDENMATE is also roughly half the weight of the APC SLA‑based units, which makes handling and placement easier. I hope this modern Lithium Iron Phosphate battery pack UPS will last longer and be less trouble‑prone than the APC brand.

UPDATE: After talking more with customer support, they sent a replacement unit which has none of the problems my first one did. I still need a bit of gaffer tape to cover up the lights from the buttons, but other than that, it's perfect. APC customer support was helpful and communicated clearly. The original review follows: I STRONGLY recommend you get the gift wrapping instead of going with standard shipping in the original box that shows what is inside. The unit is about half the size of a PC tower and is it ever heavy. I'm impressed with the packaging being minimal, recyclable, and yet sturdy. The battery was easy to take out and turn around the right way to get the unit working. The sockets on the back are pretty close together and I'm only able to fit three plugs in the five sockets (computer equipment tends to have big plugs). When the unit is on, the screen turns off with inactivity, but the three buttons remain illuminated. When the power went out, I couldn't figure out how to turn off the screen and it remained on using up a small amount of battery. I had some issues with the unit, but the manufacturer is quick to respond (4 min from my first question) and worked me through some troubleshooting. I've been using this brand for years and I'm always impressed with their service. But this brings us to the parts I don't like about it. I live in a semi-rual part of Canada, and our island has more trees per km of electrical line than anywhere else in North America - or so the power company tells us every storm season. 6 months of the year is storm season and I felt it would be nice to have something to protect my PC better than a regular surge protector. I had hoped the battery backup would even out the electrical current but it doesn't. Even at high sensitivity, the light plugged into the battery backup still flickers when the neighbour is welding or using heavy equipment. It also makes some noise that most people probably wouldn't hear but are obvious if I'm trying to sleep in the same room as the machine. If I turn the unit off at night, it thunks when clicking back and forth to the battery backup due to inconsistent power from the mains... even though it is turned off, my computer is getting a flash of power when the unit makes this switch. I've given up keeping it off and used some black gaffer tape on the glowing buttons. On the whole, I feel this isn't what I expected. I got it with the idea that it would even out the issues with my local power supply quality - but these same issues seem to bother the UPS just as much as they bother the computer and lights. What it does best is to be a battery backup and I'm glad I got the larger size because if the storm is strong enough to knock the power out for more than a few days, it's too cloudy to use my solar panel to charge my gadgets. This will do the trick nicely.

I've used this ups for around 2 1/2 - 3 years and once I moved cross state I had to leave it behind due to the weight of it and being not as cost effective to ship across the us and ended up purchasing another one since it worked amazingly compared to the other ups's I've tried, gives you a buffer period between power flickers to not have your desktop pc completely shut off or a 5-15 minute window depending on your pc specs to power everything off safely in a full outage, I have a fairly beefy power hungry pc with a rtx 3080 and other high end parts and this is one of the few I've seen that can handle the wattage usage of my pc at this price point while still managing to keep my pc on during power flickers, also nice it has a side that's purely for surge protection and Ethernet surge protection, It's super important to have a solid Ethernet surge protector on your modem, had my previous 300$ 5 gigabit modem die to lightning hitting a tree in our front yard and having lightning travel up the copper coax line and frying it so make sure you're getting usage out of all of the features of this ups and save yourself money down the line with dead/fried components!

La batterie de secours fonctionne parfaitement. J'ai un serveur avec ses deux alimentation branché dessus (avec une consommation moyenne de 450w) j'ai régulièrement des micro coupures de courant, et cette batterie Tiens très bien. Je n'ai eu aucun problème avec. Actuellement il est affiché sur la batterie que la charge utilisé est en moyenne, et une autonomie de 16minutes.

Took a little time to setup as I'm using a smaller one for my Home Lab Network and this one for my daily Computer. Using NUT (Linux), I got both securely on the network and running smoothly with full readouts on both. Came already fully charged and ready to go immediately. Works great, no problem with the beeps, solved plug spacing by using small extension connectors. Really great value for the money and solid security against power outages and fluctuations. Smaller in size than you would think too but plenty powerful! Update: In my area storm outages are a pretty common occurrence, hence this became a true necessity not merely a convenience. Since purchasing it, setting it up and running live, we've had two outages for a short period of time (each) and last night quite a few blips (power fluctuations that didn't cut anything off). My network stayed up throughout it all perfectly (I run it 24/7/365), I was actually on my computer (only run as needed) when the second incident happened and it performed to 100% satisfaction. Lights went out, my computer and network both stayed running through it and I remained connected to internet also. That was the real-world test I needed. I'm a simple home user with a pretty good setup because I rely on it for daily use and learning. As a 40+ year computer user and enthusiast I stayed with APC because of their reputation, quality and reliability as well as my experience with their products. I bought my first APC back in mid 1990's and it was equally as functional and reliable even back then. For me it's tried and true. This (recently) was my first journey into building and running a full Home Lab setup so I chose to spend a little extra money to insure it's reliability and it's already paid off. It's very satisfying that I know when I walk out the door I can come home to a guaranteed working complete system everyday. I know when I push the computer's power button I WILL be on the net!