Author: Bill Murrell

If you own a boat under about 20 feet, the best marine GPS chartplotters for small boats come down to a very short list: a bright 7-inch or 9-inch screen, a real chart onboard, and a transducer that speaks the same language as the display. I have spent the last two boating seasons swapping units…

The Garmin DriveSmart 76 is the best GPS navigator for cars in for most drivers: a bright 6.95-inch capacitive touchscreen at 480 x 272, North America mapping, hands-free Bluetooth calling, Garmin voice assist, and live traffic delivered through a paired phone app. I spent weeks driving these seven dedicated navigators on daily commutes, highway runs…

Choosing the best solar panels for portable power stations is harder than it looks, because the panel that flattens out fastest in a spec sheet is often the wrong one for the station sitting in your car. I spent six weeks pairing different panels with different capacity stations, watching real output rather than nameplate numbers,…

If you have ever pulled into a boondocking site at dusk and started doing mental arithmetic about whether the 12V fridge will still be cold at 4am, you already understand the problem this roundup solves. The best portable power stations for RV trips are not about running everything on board. They are about quietly running…

If you want one answer, take the Jackery Explorer 300. It holds 292Wh, pushes 300W of continuous AC with 600W of surge, weighs about seven pounds, and has more than 11,000 owner reviews behind it. For most people shopping the best power stations under 500 dollars, that is the balance of capacity, output and portability…

Yes, a portable power station will run a CPAP machine overnight, and most of the models in this roundup will run it for more than one night on a single charge. The catch is that a CPAP pulls far more power with the heated humidifier attached than most buyers expect, so the difference between a…

The best solar generators for home backup are the battery-and-panel units that keep a refrigerator, medical device, internet connection and a handful of lights alive for days without a single drop of fuel. I spent six weeks reading through thousands of owner reviews of eight current models, comparing nameplate watt-hours against measured runtime, checking surge…

The best battery powered cameras for garages are the ones that survive three things most product pages never mention: a dark interior, sawdust hanging in the air, and a winter garage that drops below freezing. I spent six weeks comparing ten wire-free outdoor cameras in a two-car attached garage and a detached workshop, mounting them…

The best security camera systems for large properties are wired PoE NVR bundles with 8 to 16 channels, at least 4TB of local storage, and no monthly subscription attached. Our team compared 12 systems side by side, weighing channel count, sensor resolution, night-vision throw, storage headroom, weather rating, and the install realities of running cable…

Finding the best solar security cameras for barns is harder than it looks, because a barn breaks almost every assumption a camera listing makes. There is no power outlet, the nearest router is often 800 to 1,200 feet away, and the metal roof and siding that keep the weather off your livestock will eat your…