This post has been sitting here and since I don’t have another post ready, I will just publish it.

I occasionally live stream. My Nikon Z 50 allows me to turn off sleep mode, but changing batteries is a pain when live streaming. Unfortunately, Nikon decided that the Z 50’s USB port can only charge the battery, not power the camera. Unlike the Z 6/7 (which uses the D850 battery), there is no battery adapter to power the camera via external power, such as a wall outlet.

I needed something to deal with this, albeit minor, issue. So back in February, I ordered and received a Glorich Z50 AC power dummy battery adaptor from Amazon.

This is my review. TL;DR I sent it back.

It didn’t come with a manual. I connected it to my Z 50 and closed the battery door. I then plugged it into an outlet, and turned on the camera. The camera did not turn on.

I tried to unplug it from my surge protector. It didn’t want to unplug. It was stuck part way in. After some work, I was finally able to wrestle it out. I repeated the same process with a different outlet. Still did not turn on. Getting it out of the socket was still difficult. Inspecting the plugs showed scratches in them. Have never seen this behavior with a plug before, but it is likely due to the circular holes in the plugs catching on something in the power strip socket.

Tried plugging it into a wall outlet and inspected it for a secret “on” switch. Didn’t find one. The power box has a green light on it that seemed to have a faint glow, but the product still didn’t power my camera.

Getting the dummy battery out was a bit of an ordeal, but once I placed the Nikon battery back in and turned on the camera and it worked just fine.

I filed for my refund that day and returned it the next. I did not bother getting another one to try. If the first unit refuses to work, then it must be of such poor quality that a working unit would likely fail just after I can no longer return it.

At least it didn’t kill my camera.

I won’t bother with the other two models since I doubt their return policy will protect me if the product fails. Also, my guess is that the AliExpress product is the same as the Glorich product, based on the photos they show. The F1TP version is also likely the same as the Glorich product.

I ended choosing another solution I am satisfied with, but not happy with, but that is for another post.