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Communication
Best Emergency & NOAA Weather Radios
Your lifeline to alerts when the internet and cell towers go quiet — hand-crank and solar.
Your lifeline to alerts when the internet and cell towers go quiet — hand-crank and solar.
Below are the options we would actually put in our own home — what to get, what to skip, and who each one is for. This is one every family should have squared away first.
Our picks
What we'd actually buy
Common questions
- Which weather radio should I buy?
- Choose one with NOAA bands, hand-crank or solar charging, and a USB output to charge a phone. Those three features cover the situations a radio actually needs to handle.
- Are hand-crank radios worth it?
- Yes. A crank means the radio never dies on you, which is the whole point when batteries and power are gone. A minute of cranking usually buys several minutes of listening.
- Does a weather radio need batteries?
- The best ones do not rely on them. Look for a model that runs on a crank or built-in solar, with batteries only as a backup.
Where it matters