Why your outdoorsy friend suddenly has a gummy bear power bank
48 comments
·September 21, 2025cenamus
Timshel
Capacity appears to be inline with others: https://old.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/comments/1li5rxw/20000ma...
heelix
I'll find out if this is true. Hiking buddy of mine pointed it out on Friday, so got one on the way. Was $18 when he called it out, $23 by the time I ordered. Apparently they have a bunch of random stuff like this. They must have some outdoorsy folks in marketing.
etempleton
Thru hikers just kind of find this stuff. They are obsessed with weight and recommendations spread quickly through word of mouth on the trail and on forums.
phito
Also I doubt that Haribo has special light battery technology. Seems more likely that they lied on the capacity... Article doesn't test the capacity
thegrim33
Man it drives me crazy when people/products use Ah instead of Wh to specify battery "capability". Without knowing the voltage it runs at, 20Ah means absolutely nothing to a reader. Even the official Amazon product page for it doesn't list a Wh figure. Could it run a given wattage load for an hour or 100 hours? By just saying "20Ah" there's no way to tell.
Ekaros
It is there somewhat for no-name brand. For product that is actually supposed to pay something for a brand it feels low. Unless these are promotional items that fall from back of the truck...
slipperybeluga
The picture on Amazon says 10Ah. Not interested until there is independent verification. The Haribo licensing lends some legitimacy, but way too many fly by night companies selling a fraction of what they advertise.
Kwpolska
Haribo specializes in making candy, not electronics. Branded swag tends to be bottom-of-the-barrel.
jasonsb
This is advertising done right. Wish more companies would do this. Instead of spamming me with your brand on every platform, sell a dirt cheap product with your branding. This way the middle man gets nothing, everyone else is happy.
Zanni
Why your [ultra-light hiker] friend suddenly has [the world's lightest] power bank.
I remember Colin Fletcher, years ago, writing in The Complete Walker about trimming the borders off his paper maps to save weight, which seemed like an insane over-optimization to me. But then, I'm not an ultralight hiker.
I am impressed folks are getting their loads down to 10 pounds though.
JohnFen
That insane over-optimization is how folks are getting down to (and below) 10 pounds.
I'm not even remotely an ultralight backpacker, but I do count ounces (no matter what your weight limit is, you can't escape making tradeoffs to stay within it). Your hiking load is a great example of how quickly apparently insignificant quantities can add up. Saving fractions of an ounce multiple times gets you large savings far more quickly than you'd think.
anonymars
The topic reminds me of the .NET core peanut butter improvements:
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvemen...
matwood
A guy I knew biked across part of Europe and borrowed a travel book of mine. He bought me a new one when he got back because he would tear out the pages of places he visited in order to lighten his load.
heelix
The trick to lighter packs for many was weighing everything. Not uncommon to break everything down by grams - which tells you what could be improved. No point in spending $50 on a .5oz spoon, if your pack is coming in at 4lbs. Does help optimize where things could be cut and where the faf is. Lets you focus on what you really want to bring in when you have a breakdown of everything you bring. I really like lighterpack.com for my trip planning.
Very easy to bring crap you don't need as well. Always surprised me how much an extra hoodie or something would add to what was on my back. Also there is a 'stupid' light, where shaving grams is silly. Was shrinking down my hammock tarp and discovered my setup was not great when the wind shifted direction.
When it comes to power bricks, smaller things like this is great for the normal laptop bag or purse. This is cheap enough that I'd send it off to be black holed with all the other bricks I lend my kid.
2OEH8eoCRo0
Ounces equal pounds and pounds equal pain.
NoiseBert69
You can learn a lot from the ultra light dudes.
I replaced all my travel electronics to be powerable from USB-C. This saved me from a lot cables and adapters.
Even re-soldered the cable of my electric shaver to use a USB-C PD adapter PCB. As long it's somehow close to the standardized voltages (5/9/12/18/etc.) there will be no problems.
JohnFen
If you're taking a shaving device of any sort on your backpacking trip, you've missed a core lesson of the ultra light dudes.
giantg2
Should be one safety razor - just the blade. Just need a steady hand...
Lio
You're budgeting for the weight of a safety razor?
Surely the hunting knife you use to kill your dinner when combined with the mirror you use for starting your forraged twig fires, that would be the ultimate solution.
...or just not shave for a few days. I guess you could do that too.
Ekaros
Wouldn't it be logical that ultra light people have no body hair left? And want to keep it so? After all that is lot of grams...
usrusr
And if soldering is beyond your optimization ambition, there's aliexpress where you can find small USB-PD adapters for most electric shavers. It's little niche innovations like this that drive my ordering flow, not saving a few cents.
rattlesnakedave
Is the manufacturer of these things trustworthy? I am especially skeptical of any battery pack manufacturers because of the inherent risk of these things.
tedggh
I traveled ultralight until I got into landscape photography. Those tele zooms are heavy AF. I got bigger quads and biceps.
pier25
Are you shooting full frame?
Retr0id
Has anyone actually measured the true capacity?
Mistletoe
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/comments/1li5rxw/20000ma...
Looks like a guy there measured it and it is 14.7 which is more than I thought it would be.
> So at a nominal 3.7 volts that’s around 14700mAh, which is around 73-74% efficiency. That’s fairly standard. If you perform the same tests with other batteries rated at 20k mAh, you’ll generally see a similar usable capacity.
I was thinking of getting the Haribo one because I like to camp and climb mountains, but I found an old Ravpower battery bank (RP-P819) my Mom got all of us maybe a decade ago and it is 16,750 mAh on the label and weighs 308.5g. I'm not worried about ultralight enough to make that into e-waste and get the Haribo. I guess technology hasn't changed that much with regard to battery packs. The age of the plateau continues.
jauntywundrkind
Nitecore is somewhat accepted as the best lightweight battery, but they aren't cheap.
10Ah battery is $60, 5.9oz. the 20Ah is 10.2oz and $100. Unlike the Hasbro, it comes close to its rated specification.
My backpacking trips have definitely not needed 20Ah. For two or three nights I can usually get by with a 5000mah, if I shutdown at night and frequently use airplane mode. And my phones are usually getting on, don't have Greta battery life.
XiphiasX
Better question - why do you keep linking to websites that block visitor from reading the article?
AdmiralAsshat
Are these actually designed by Haribo? Or is it just a branding on top of a Chinese generic?
nickthegreek
I feel comfortable in stating that they are not designed by Haribo, a candy company.
tshaddox
Indeed, but it is odd that it’s apparently only these Haribo batteries with this design. I’d expect them to be white-label products that many companies resell with their own branding.
AdmiralAsshat
Well, yes, that was my thought. I mean my own employer had some company branded power banks that they gave out to employees. They're crap! But they were requested by the Sales team to hand out as swag at trade shows and whatnot, so they probably didn't put much more thought into it than "Find supplier that can create small power banks, slap company logo on them. Do it cheaply."
I have to think the Haribo power banks were on the same lines, although it's a bit strange that they're actually being sold on the company's Amazon storefront.
codedokode
Sorry for being off-topic, but why with all the advanced technology today I have to manually copy ounces and pounds into Google to learn how much it is? Instead of adding dark themes and material design, it would be better to add a unit converter.
Also do you really need a power bank for a 2-day trip? In airplane mode a phone can live like 2 weeks.
happytoexplain
Under normal usage, even in airplane mode, some phones last only 12-48 hours after just three to five years.
jdblair
1 oz =~ 28 grams is a really useful conversion to remember
(signed, an American living in Europe)
null
dylan604
28.4 grams. The rounding adds up quickly, and there’s comments here about people trimming borders off of paper maps. That .4 matters. Also, 16oz to 1lb.
Also matters when your buying things for recreational purposes. Especially when only buying points.
20Ah for 23 bucks? Seems like it's almost too good to be true. Wouldn't surprise me if it was just half that, would explain the price and weight.