Backup By BioLite: Where We Are and When It Ships
If you've reserved a Backup unit, thank you! We want to give you a clear picture of where things stand. Here it is.
The Short Version
Backup is real, it works, and it's on track to ship this summer. We know it's taken longer than originally planned, and we want to be upfront about why and what we've been doing in the meantime to make sure the product you receive is worth the wait.
Current Estimated Ship Date: Summer 2026. We expect to narrow this to a specific month by mid May.
Why the Delay
The recent turbulence of the tariff landscape had a direct impact on our production timelines, requiring the team to temporarily redirect their time and attention towards securing alternative supply chain options that would enable us to continue producing Backup a) with the utmost quality and b) maintaining our pricepoints. We are grateful to the manufacturing and operations teams for their agility in this unexpected pivot.
What We've Accomplished
While the ship date has moved, we haven't been standing still. Here are the milestones we've hit over the past year:
- UL1973 Battery Safety Certification: PASSED. Completed September 2025. This is the most rigorous safety gate for the battery system.
- Thousands of Hours of Endurance Testing: COMPLETE. Simulated years of daily use across fridges, sump pumps, and heavy loads.
- Design Validation Hardware: BUILT. Final-form units assembled and performing as designed.
- User Field Trials: IN PROGRESS. Real users testing Backup in their homes across the country right now.
- UL1778 Product Safety Certification: IN PROGRESS. Final product-level safety testing, expected to complete this spring.
- Production & Shipping: UP NEXT. Mass production begins once field trials and certification are complete.
It's in People's Homes Right Now
This is the part we're most excited to share. As of this month, Backup units are installed and running in real homes across multiple states. These aren't lab setups — they're kitchens, basements, and garages where people are living with Backup day-to-day, powering their fridges, testing the app, and running it through real outage scenarios.
Early feedback has been encouraging. Participants are getting set up in under 30 minutes without an electrician, the app pairing process is smooth, and the product is doing what it was designed to do: disappear into the background and keep things running when the power doesn't.
These field trials are the final gate before we lock in a production timeline. The data we're collecting on installation, real-world performance, connectivity, and long-term reliability, is what will give us the confidence to commit to a specific ship month.
What this means for you: Your reservation is secured and your place in line is locked. We expect to share a specific ship month in our next update this spring. Reservation holders will be among the first to receive units.
A Quick Refresher on What You're Getting
Backup is a slim, wall-mountable home battery that keeps your essentials running during a power outage — no electrician, no permits, no rewiring. Just plug it into a standard wall outlet, connect your fridge and other essentials, and you're covered.
The Core unit provides 1.5 kWh of LFP battery storage. Add an Extend unit to double that to 3 kWh. At just 2.8 inches deep, it's designed to tuck behind a fridge, under a desk, or against a wall in any room. The companion app gives you real-time monitoring, push notifications during outages, and scheduling for time-of-use energy savings.
We know waiting is hard, and we appreciate your patience. We're in the home stretch now and we'll be back with another update soon, including a more specific ship date.
— The BioLite Team
