Looking for opinions.
Was unaware UPSes even talked to the computers they power, thought they were just backup batteries
If the computer gets notified that the battery has been activated, then it can save files, gracefully exit programs, etc. before power loss
My cyberpower UPS works well. There’s a service you can run to shut your computer down or whatever when it goes to battery power (check arch wiki) but it also works with GNOME (its displayed how a laptop battery would be displayed, but its labeled as a UPS) and it works well with NUT too.
I was happy with my cyber powers for years, but then the batteries died (official replacement batteries, after 3 years - the originals lasted 5) and the ups just stopped even passing power through. This is someone’s old blog about this https://blog.networkprofile.org/cyberpower-ups-avoid/
I’ve used both APC (via apcupsd) and EATON (via nut), both work great.
Just get one that is supported by N.U.T and have N.U.T handle your shutdowns.
I have good expreience with APC and Legrand. Small chinese noname brands are a hit or miss, but mostly miss.
Check the nut compatibility list: https://networkupstools.org/stable-hcl.html