seems legit for the outages we have
Not even close. As Harlow correctly suggested, surge and spike protectors are little more than expensive and fancy extension cords. And that one in particular should, IMO, be investigated for false advertising because a surge and spike protector is NOT a mains "conditioner". It is a basic surge and spike protector.
A "true" power conditioner is an "active" device that regulates the waveform. As seen here, they are not cheap. Budget models are still around $250. And all are useless during a full outage. Power line conditioners are often used in high-end audio systems to prevent "noise" in the audio.
They won't do anything for power dips or brown outs (if you experience them)
This is misleading. EVERYONE EVERYWHERE has dips (opposite of spikes), sags (opposite of surges) and brownouts (long duration sags). We mere humans may not "see" or perceive them, but they are there. If your lights ever "flicker", that is a long sag (or short brownout). Most dips and sags happen so quickly, we don't see them but our electronics can sure feel them. And if severe enough they WILL cause systems to suddenly crash.
Surge and spike protectors do absolutely nothing for dips, sags, or brownouts and simply clamp (chop off the tops of the sinewaves) of high-voltage anomalies. That is NOT conditioning. And with extreme high-voltage events, a surge and spike protector will stop or "break" power output.
Most power fluctuations are like a swinging pendulum. The initial "event" may be a "dip" with the pendulum swinging towards a drop in voltage. Then the grid attempts to compensate and the pendulum swings back,
through normal and results in a "surge" or increase in voltage. Then the pendulum swings back again until the swinging stops and the system becomes stable, and waits for the next dip or sag or surge or spike.
Note a simple "clean" outage will not damage our electronics. It may wreck havoc on our data and files, but it will not hard the electronics. HOWEVER, when power is restored, that is when damage may occur - especially with large grid outages when, upon restoral, EVERY SINGLE refrigerator, freezer, air conditioner and other power hungry devices in the neighborhood try to start up at the same moment.
Note too the ATX Form Factor standard requires all ATX PC PSUs to maintain output ("hold up") power for 12ms at 100% of full load, and recommends a minimum of 17ms with an 80% load. Our eyes cannot see a drop in power that only lasts 17ms. Yet if any longer, the PSU will stop outputting power.
Sadly, many otherwise highly rated PSUs do NOT meet those hold-up requirements.
A good UPS with AVR, however, will detect and react by either regulating the power in less than 4ms and in extreme cases, kick over to battery power in less than 10ms.
dont care for ups.
I
D-O-N-T
C-A-R-E
F-O-R
A U-P-S
Then you are wasting your time and ours. The ONLY way to deal with outages is with a "good" UPS with AVR (automatic voltage regulation).
HAVING SAID THAT, backup power during a complete power outage is
only a minor bonus feature of a "good" UPS with AVR. By far, the greatest feature is the AVR.
A surge and spike protector is better than nothing, but not by much.
