Circuits in the Silence: David Skwara’s Quest for Off-Grid Peace

When David Skwara was a boy, camping meant simplicity. A canvas tent, a propane lantern, and the sound of his parents’ voices under starlit trees. No solar panels. No portable fridges. No talk of battery chemistry. Just the quiet of a forest and a child’s first brush with independence.

Now in his late 30s, David still camps, but simplicity has evolved.

These days, he pulls a teardrop trailer behind his truck. He calculates amperage in his head, stores solar panels in the trunk, and powers his off-grid life with a compact, bright-orange device that hums softly with lithium-ion promise: the Jackery Explorer 500.

“Camping used to be about roughing it,” he says. “Now it’s about doing more, staying longer. And being smarter about power.”

Skwara is, by trade, an electrician. By disposition, he’s something more meticulous, part engineer, part wanderer, part minimalist technophile. He speaks in even, practical tones, but beneath the surface there’s a deep-seated reverence for both structure and solitude, an appreciation for how things work, and why they matter.

The Language of Power

Electricians don’t just use energy, they think in its language. Watts, resistance, load balancing — concepts most campers might ignore — are second nature to David.

“I’m kind of a nerd,” he admits, laughing. “I like the math of it. The idea that you can build a power profile for your life and test it against the real world.”

That tension between theoretical calculation and real-world need is what drew him to portable power stations. Not gas generators with their roar and stink. Not bulky inverters or elaborate wiring schemes. Something smaller. Cleaner.

“It started with a YouTube video,” he recalls. A channel called The Story Till Now, focused on overlanding adventures, introduced him to Jackery. “What stood out was pass-through charging. I thought, wait, I can generate power while using power? That’s smart.”

It was, in many ways, the beginning of a different kind of adventure.

Noise and the Absence of It

What Skwara craves, perhaps more than electricity, is silence.

“Noise is the enemy,” he says. “You spend your week in noise, traffic, machines, email pings. Then you get out into the wilderness and you don’t want to replace that with a generator.”

Jackery offered him a way to break the cycle. The Explorer 500 became his travel companion, not only to charge his satellite phone and portable fridge, but to anchor his philosophy of quiet power. He wakes to birds, not fuel engines. At night, his trailer glows softly from LED lights powered by a solar-charged unit that hums like memory.

This small orange box, he explains, has given him not just electricity, but presence. “You’re not thinking about noise or fuel or fumes. You’re in the moment. That’s rare.”

The Electrician's Grievances

But David is not a romantic. He is precise. He sees flaws.

“My outlet’s starting to go,” he says bluntly. “And I can’t replace it.”

This, for him, is where function meets frustration. In a world where phones get new batteries and campers modify solar rigs, Jackery’s all-in-one design feels sealed. Uncrackable. A little too perfect.

“If I could open it up and just swap out the outlet or the battery, that would be ideal. It’s not about hacking, it’s about sustainability. We should be able to repair the things we rely on.”

He also speaks candidly about battery life. His Explorer 500 doesn’t use LiFePO4 cells, a newer battery chemistry known for stability and longevity. After years of use, he feels the drop-off. “You notice it. It’s still good, but not as good. That’s just physics.”

What he wants isn’t flashy. It is a functional evolution: faster charging, more robust ports, maybe a waterproof chassis, app integration, modular design. “The hardware is close,” he says. “It just needs to grow with the users.”

In the time since he purchased his Explorer 500, that quiet wish for evolution has, in many ways, been answered. Recent models, like the Explorer 2000 Plus, now come equipped with long-lasting LiFePO4 battery cells, ultra-fast charging, and a modular expansion system that allows users to scale their power capacity. Ruggedized for outdoor & indoor use and compatible with solar panels, it reflects a natural step forward—one that speaks directly to users like David, who measure progress not by flash, but by function.

Oversizing the Dream

For all his critiques, David remains a quiet advocate. He doesn’t sell the product, he uses it. And he shares it the way tradesmen share tools, plainly, with precision.

“If you’re buying one, oversize it,” he says. “Take what you think you need, and double it.”

It’s the kind of advice that feels less like a sales pitch and more like survival logic. Skwara’s power needs have grown since he first bought the 500. He’s now eyeing the 1000 or 2000. 

Not just for camping, but for home power outages, which are not rare in his part of Canada.

“We had a blackout recently. No big deal, I just pulled out the Jackery. Ran what I needed. No stress.”

This is what appeals to him most: flexibility, quiet resilience, and the idea that with the right unit and the right planning, you can keep the lights on anywhere.

The Forest, Rewired

In David Skwara’s world, wilderness and wiring are not opposites. They complement each other.

His love for the outdoors is not rooted in escapism, but optimization. His gear doesn’t isolate him from nature, it connects him to it. And the more he refines his setup, the more time he can spend chasing that silence he first heard as a child under the stars.

When asked if there’s anything he wants to add, David pauses.

“I like the product. I think it’s great,” he says. “I just want to see where it goes next. I want to see what it can become.”

Then, quietly, he adds, “It’s a good feeling, knowing you’re prepared. That you’ve got your own little power plant with you, wherever you go.”

In the quiet circuits of off-grid life, that kind of security feels like more than electricity. It feels like freedom — the kind made possible by something as small, and as capable, as the Jackery Explorer 500.