Monthly Archives: August 2020

Unboxing the Baseus Super Energy Car Jump Starter

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I’ve recently just received my unit of the Baseus Super Energy Car Jump Starter. I ordered it from Shopee.sg and it was shipped from China. As it is essentially a power bank, it had to take the sea route, and it took a little over 3 weeks to arrive.

So what is this device, and why it got me interested?

For anyone who owns a car, every 18 months or so, the 12V battery will eventually fail. It tends to happen at the worst time, well there’s never a good time. When that happens, the car will not start and we’ll have to bring in the mechanic. That’s one of the reasons I maintain an AA Singapore membership. I can call for the mechanic at no further charge, and they can diagnose, confirm the battery is faulty and replace on the spot. Now, the new battery will be for a fee.

In my most recent experience, after a 2 weeks+ vacation, I returned home to a depleted battery. Thankfully, it was just depleted and not a failed battery. A jumpstart from the good AAS mechanic did the trick. While the service was good, I had to wait for over an hour.

To better react to such events, here comes the Baseus Super Energy Car Jump Starter. I essentially have a portable jumpstart kit in the car. Anytime there’s a need, I can use it. It is essentially a super charged power bank. It is not a replacement of the 12V car battery, but just to deliver some power to start a car. Once the car is started, you disconnect the unit.

In the box, we have the power bank that is larger than an iPhone 11 Pro Max. A special power adapter with crocodile clips is what connects between the power bank and the car battery. I like the care taken to make sure the black and red cables are of different lengths, to avoid accidental short circuit. A micro-usb cable is provided to charge the unit.

So, what is so special about this that regular power banks can’t do? It has additional circuitry and special battery that can deliver very high current. This device is rated to deliver a Start-up Current of 400A, and Peak current of 800A. As comparison, a high speed charger for your smart phone delivers up to 3A, hence a regular power bank will not work.

A typical family car should be good with 400A of current to start the engine. It is fine if your car needs less. Current is delivered based on need. So, if the source can deliver more, that is fine. In fact, you do not want the situation where your device is draining more than what the source can deliver. The worst case scenario is your source overheats and melts/burns.

One thing to be aware of about this device, is that it takes a long time to charge. I tried searching, and something on Amazon wrote 4 hours for a full charge. It was more like around 18hrs for me. A friend of mine also confirmed that he had to leave it overnight to charge, and it’s only ready the next afternoon.

Maintenance wise, the manufacturer does recommend to charge up the battery at least every 5 months, to keep it at optimum health. I will be following that. Last thing you want is this battery back to be out of juice and you need that jump start.

Wrapping up…

While I haven’t tested jump starting my car, the device does look solid. I own several Baseus products, my first being another power bank that I bought to support my Nintendo Switch on the go. I have developed good confidence in Baseus products, and do trust that it will deliver the punch when I need. When the day comes to use it, I’ll update the post to share the experience.

Switching Netflix subscription to be Billed via M1

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I’ve been on Netflix even before it arrived in Singapore and have been paying in USD. With the USD-SGD exchange rate going up in recent years, the resulting amount I’m paying for the standard plan ends up being the same price for Premium in Singapore. Not a hard decision to put in some time to switch that over.

I discovered that I can sign up for the subscription via M1, my home Internet service provider. So I thought, why not just consolidate the bills. For those who have credit card perks with M1, there’s potential to also gain from this process. Though I’m not sure, I had cancelled my M1 Citibank VISA card years ago.

The process to swing subscription over to M1 though, is a little less friendly than expected, but still not too bad.

First, I have to cancel the current subscription. As there is no refund, I have to wait till the current paid period ends. Remember, you have to wait till Netflix says your account is no longer active. Don’t worry, you won’t lose your play history. Netflix had a message says that it will maintain for 10 months. So, as long as I active my account within 10 months, my play history will still be there.

Don’t bother trying to start the M1 side of the process too soon. That registration with Netflix won’t work, until the account becomes inactive. If you try before then, nothing actually goes through.

So, just wait. Just so happen that my subscription ends on the 10th of the month, and I cancelled just a day before, coincidentally.

Wait until Netflix says your account is no longer active. If you can still watch a show, not yet.

Then, kick off the process from M1. Strangely, the website didn’t have the option, I could instead, kick it off from the M1 app on my iPhone.

Once you have initiated the process, M1 will send you an email within about 5 minutes. In there, there is the URL that will take you back to the M1 website, you’ll have to login with your M1 account, and then that’s where you’ll choose the subscription plan. Next, you’ll be re-directed to Netflix to either create a new account, or login with an existing. I did the latter.

If this works, you’ll be brought to the Netflix registration process. I had to re-confirm my mobile number, and that’s about it.

If you tried too soon, before the account is inactive. You’ll end up just logging into Netflix as normal. If you have already cancelled the subscription and waiting for it to expire, you’ll just get a nag/reminder to resume subscription. The other thing is that the specialised URL sent from M1 via email, is only valid for 24hrs. Hence, the other reason why don’t bother starting too soon.

When all is done, in the Account page within Netflix, you will see the billing method has changed.

That’s about it. Hopefully there’s no surprises after this. For now, I’m going to check out some 4K content.