TV, Wi-Fi & Lights Generator Calculator

Data reviewed 2026-07-05 ·how we calculate

Once the food is safe, this bundle is what turns a blackout back into an evening: the TV, the internet, and enough light to move around. It is also the easiest generator load on this site — all electronics and LEDs, no motors, no starting surge — totaling around 250W for a typical household setup. The itemized table below shows exactly what is counted, so you can add or subtract your own gear.

Size a generator for this load

Computed on typical values; ranges shown below. 25% headroom applied.

Generator safety — read every time

Never run a generator indoors, in a garage, or near windows, doors or vents.Carbon monoxide kills quickly and without warning — place the generator 20+ feet from the house with the exhaust pointed away, and use battery CO detectors inside.
Never backfeed your house through a wall outlet or dryer outlet. Backfeeding can electrocute utility line workers and destroy equipment when power returns.
Connecting a generator to home circuits requires a transfer switch or interlock installed by a licensed electrician. There is no safe DIY shortcut, and this site does not provide wiring instructions.
Use heavy, outdoor-rated extension cords (12-gauge or thicker), fully uncoiled, sized to the load and the distance.

How to size it step by step

Add up the electronics you actually want on: a typical evening set — TV (100W), router and modem (25W), six LED bulbs (55W), phone charging (30W) — comes to about 250W.
Skip the surge step: none of these are motor loads, so peak demand equals running demand. This is why electronics are the easy part of every outage plan.
Apply 25% headroom: 250W × 1.25 ≈ 313W. Any generator on the market covers this — the bundle matters only as an add-on to bigger loads.
Add this bundle’s 250W to whatever else the generator carries (fridge, furnace blower) rather than sizing for it alone.

Pro tips

Check your nameplate first — every figure on this page is a planning estimate, and the label on your specific unit beats any chart.
Put the router and modem on a small UPS anyway: it bridges the gap while you set up the generator, and many outages are short enough that the UPS alone covers them.
A generator running for the fridge is already carrying this bundle almost for free — 250W barely moves the needle on a 3,500W+ unit.

The data behind this calculator

What the 250W bundle figure is made of
Figure	Value	Source
LED/LCD TV (43–65 in)	60–150W, ~100W typical	DOE Energy.gov appliance estimates; Samsung/LG spec sheets
Wi-Fi router + cable/fiber modem	10–30W combined	Netgear/Arris power specifications
LED bulbs (6 × ~9W)	~55W	ENERGY STAR LED bulb specifications (9W ≈ 60W-equivalent)
Phone/tablet charging (2–4 devices)	10–40W	USB charger nameplate ratings (5–20W each)

TV, Wi-Fi & lights bundle generator questions, answered

How many watts do I need for TV, internet and lights in an outage?

About 250W covers a realistic evening: a 100W LED TV, 25W of router and modem, 55W of LED bulbs and 30W of phone charging. With 25% headroom that is 313W — trivially inside the 2,000W inverter class. The real use of this number is addition: it is what you tack onto the refrigerator or furnace-blower math to see whether your generator handles the whole evening at once.

Will a small inverter generator handle a TV safely?

Yes — inverter generators are the right kind for electronics. Their output is cleaner (low total harmonic distortion) than conventional open-frame generators, which matters for TVs, routers and laptop power supplies. If you only own a conventional generator, the electronics will usually still work, but a surge protector or line-interactive UPS between generator and TV is cheap insurance.

Does Wi-Fi work during a power outage if I power my router?

Often, yes: cable and fiber networks have their own backup power, so powering your modem and router (10–30W) frequently restores internet even when the neighborhood is dark. It is not guaranteed — extended outages can drain the provider’s node batteries — but at 25W the experiment costs almost nothing, and a powered router also keeps smart-home devices and Wi-Fi calling alive.

Should I count incandescent or CFL bulbs differently?

Yes, heavily. This bundle assumes LED bulbs at roughly 9W each; the same six sockets with 60W incandescents would draw 360W of lighting alone — more than this entire bundle. If any part of the house still runs incandescent bulbs, either count them at their printed wattage or, better, swap the outage-critical fixtures to LEDs before storm season and shrink the problem permanently.

Browse allHome Backup Essentials calculators, combine appliances in themulti-appliance builder, or start from anoutage scenario.

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