Six years ago, when I initially installed my house battery, it allowed me an entirely new sense of calm when I was in camp at night. No longer did I need to worry about my fridge - or the other small electronics I might turn on or charge - draining my starting battery overnight, thus leaving me stranded.
Plus, the whole system of linking the two Northstar AGM 24F using a Blue Sea Systems ML-ACR (automatic charging relay) meant that I could easily - either manually or automatically - link my two batteries for charging or more power, and unlink them to protect the starting battery in camp.
It was fantastic. Mostly. For the vast majority of my trips - where I'm driving around most of the day - the whole situation worked perfectly. Only when I was camped in a warm place for longer than 24 hours did I still worry that I would completely drain the house battery, unless I fired up the Tacoma for a few hours of charging. And that only happened rarely, mostly when out camping with my Dad.
But batteries don't last forever, and several months ago, I noticed that - when I'd pick up the Tacoma from storage in Las Vegas - the starting battery was having trouble starting the Tacoma. Northstars are no longer sold as such, though they are still available from BatteriesPlus as X2 Power AGM 24F (their house brand), so that would have been the simple solution. However, I think we're all aware that battery technology has improved dramatically over the last six years. It would be crazy for me to ignore those improvements, especially in the Lithium - largely LiFePo4 for this sort of application - space.