Thanks- these links are helpful. A system without a battery sounds more viable than I had considered, but I'm not sure how well it'd work for my intended loads. Maybe I could rethink what I want to run on solar, but I think it's maybe not really an practical option in my setup where the only two loads I have in mind (probably?) require steady power and wouldn't do well with momentary dropouts caused by cloud cover. Good to keep in mind though.

When you say "switch to grid power after it runs out," this is something I was hoping the kit would do automatically for me so I don't have to flip a switch or change plugs from the solar outlet to the grid outlet. If the kit doesn't support that, I wondered if something like this ATS would get me what I want. I'd wonder how exactly it decides to switch back and forth though (it switches to the backup automatically, but will it switch back to primary on its own, and if so, under what conditions? Will it constantly switch back and forth or is there any sort of hysteresis? etc).

Yeah, the inconsistency and congestion are the main things I wonder about. I'm not that sensitive to latency, but if it's bad enough that video calls will get choppy regularly then maybe it's not worth it. I have also wondered how home internet plans get prioritized. I haven't noticed any significant performance or congestion issues on my phone on Mint/T-Mobile but I'm not pushing that connection as hard and as often as I would a home internet connection.

As far as I can tell, Starry is not available in my apartment building. They do love to send me junk mail anyway though. I think CenturyLink might be in my building, but I had an overwhelmingly negative experience with CenturyLink in Denver a while back and I'd really prefer to avoid them. Google Fiber does not look to be available in my building.

Looks like my options so far are:

• Comcast: Currently paying $60-70 (including fees) for I think 200Mbps, but I can probably call and haggle to get it down.
• CenturyLink fiber: $50 plus fees for 500Mbps. Probably plus equipment rental.
• T-Mobile: $60 flat plus a $150 cash card promo, but I can't tell if I have to buy or rent the equipment without going deeper into the process. This would be $10-20 cheaper if I also had mobile service directly from T-Mobile instead of Mint Mobile.
• Verizon: $50 probably plus fees plus a $50 Target promo card. Not sure if there are equipment fees.

I might see about trying T-Mobile since they have a trial period and I'm guessing it'd be pretty pain free since it's wireless and nobody needs to come do any installation or configuration like tends to happen with Comcast or CenturyLink. Maybe I can use that to haggle with Comcast.