Your thoughts on portable battery oxygen units

Hi , and thanks for your post/comment and questions - they are good ones!
As a point of clarification - the equipment you are describing makes a lot of sense.
The oxygen canister (or oxygen cylinder/tank as they are more commonly referred to), can come equipped with a 'flowmeter' or a pulse flow delivery system. The standard flowmeter provides oxygen at a constant flow based on what is set (as you said, 2 lpm, 3 lpm, 4 lpm etc.).The 'pulse system' provides oxygen flow based on one's inhalation pattern. For many oxygen concentrators, the flow rates provided can be adjusted similarly, depending on the equipment being used.
I am hopeful others in the community will see your inquiry about portable oxygen concentrators, and respond by sharing their own personal experience with you here. However, one way of looking at this is, the portable unit can be used all the time at home or, whenever you feel you'd rather be moving around rather than stationary. That is up to you! However, in my experience, patients in the home setting enjoy using the larger concentrator on a regular basis and keep the portable unit for when they are going out. The choice will be yours to make!
I do hope my brief reply was helpful for your concerns.
Wishing you well,
Leon (site moderator COPD.net)

I'll be moving soon to another state and was wondering whether the portable units are durable enough to run 24/7. I will no longer have stairs to contend with.
I purchased a used Philips Respironics unit several years ago which needs servicing so I haven't been using it.
I'm aware that battery units can be plugged into a car or home to keep the battery charged but don't know whether I also need the at-home concentrator as well.
With regard to pulse vs. continuous flow, do the portables pulse only when you inhale or just keep pulsing at whatever setting we use?
And do people who've been using continuous flow units adjust to pulse flow or prefer continuous?

Inogenone I have one.the one that I have is very light weight only problem is you don't get constant oxygen it's intermittent when you breath you get oxygen it can be set 2 or 3 liters cost about 2000 dollars. It's called ion. They do have more portable that cost more and you can call them they will go over your options. I really like this portable oxygen because of the weight you wear it like a purse. Hope this helps

Thank you so much for helping me with the lingo associated with both portable & continuous flow oxygen systems.
I've been using Lincare and they can be rather difficult to deal with.
Their customer service is zero and it can take an entire day to simply reach a live voice.
I hope Medicare will cover something, but I'm frankly tired of trying to work with a company that cares little about customer service.
I surely hope this won't be the case with Inogen.
But I do look forward to a smaller unit to carry around than those bulky, clumsy tanks I use.