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Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

pilaenergy.com

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Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#281

Post by o11c »

nikodunk wrote: post #190
Aurornis wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Great points - however this can keep your fridge running for 2-3 days (a pretty long outage). Your own marketing page claims 32 hours (a little over 1 day). It's the very first icon in the table. EDIT: And your other comment now says 3-4 days for a fridge ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43338397 ). Getting hard to believe all of these different numbers.

TLDR depends on the efficiency of the fridge. You’re right of course though - I edited linked comment to be more conservative at 2-3 days also. I can get my personal lab fridge to last 5 days though (110W power draw, once every hour for 5 minutes). :P If your outage is longer than expected, the battery will recharge in a little over an hour and be ready to go again (if the grid comes on for a bit, or from your genera…

Hmm ... "Stores power from your generator" might be a market with room here since generators are often inefficient (and produce weird power) and batteries have grown a lot lately. OTOH, in practice home generators are more limited by "how often do we need to (and given the state of the infrastructure, can we) go buy a new can of gas" than efficiency. And even if efficiency does matter, how long will it take to pay off?

Practical problems we had the one time we actually needed our generator were:

* (remember to turn off the main breaker)

* whoops, we blew the GFCI when we tried to back-feed power through an external outlet, so we had to run an extension cord through a door (with all that implies). This is the only thing that actually took us by surprise and took some debugging in the weeks following.

* the 120V generator only one half of the split phase, so every other circuit in the breaker box doesn't work. Pick your half carefully!

* the generator is strong enough to run normal appliances, but not the well pump (note: we had a completely different plan for heating). Here I suppose a battery could've been useful ... but then, the reason we didn't just buy a bigger generator in the first place was cost (for an extended-outage event that only happens once in multiple decades; for anything shorter you can just ... not open the fridge).

* (just a note that with the increasing electrification of cars, some variant of "plug your house into your car" is likely to become more of a thing)

While I've seen the grid flicker, this has only ever happened just at the start or just before it comes on permanently, so I'm not sure how useful it is to consider the "comes on for a bit" case either.

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#282

Post by ellisv »

kortilla wrote: post #276
kragen wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could actually be a bigger problem for the company, since it means that any competitor can label their competing product the merely descriptive term "Pila", and the company won't be able to register the trademark in the US, according to the Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure §1209.03(g): https://www.bitlaw.com/source/tmep/1209_03_g.html > The foreign equivalent of a merely descriptive English word is no mor…

> I'm pretty sure that in any city in the US there is a store where you can walk in today, ask for a "pila", and walk out with a battery. Being 2nd most common language does not mean this, by a long shot. It definitely won’t work in most of the Seattle, Portland, Denver, Salt lake, Minneapolis, stores for example.

If you’re in Minneapolis I could recommend a few stores where that’d work.

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#283

Post by hakfoo »

crazygringo wrote: post #144

It looks beautiful. But I honestly don't understand what the market is. OP answered in one of the comments that it will run a single fridge for 32 hours. I understand the benefits of a UPS that will run your desktop computer during a brief power outage of a couple of hours. And I understand a generator that will keep your house running for 10 days after a natural disaster. And I understand a Powerwall that can suck u…

A use case I can see is for people who are dependent on things like insulin or other temperature sensitive medications. If you have to get out a dose every few hours or even every day or two, you might not be able to rely on thermal mass, and if you have a month's prescription or more on hand, it could cost thousands to replace if it perishes during the power outage.

You could probably run a dorm-style mini-fridge for a lot longer than a 25-cubic-foot side-by-side, and it would be perfect for that case.

Hell, buy the guts of a $79 dorm fridge, bolt the Pila product inside the chassis, and sell it as a "medical supply" for 10 times its cost-of-goods.

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#284

Post by Aurornis »

vessenes wrote: post #220

Judging by the negativity here you're going to be a massive success -- search up the dropbox, airbnb, coinbase and ethereum launch threads if you want to feel good about where you're at. :) That said, I like this idea -- a modern coordinated UPS. I live in an area where people have 3-10 days a year of no power; being able to pick and choose what power they'd use during an outage would be a significant benefit to them…

> Judging by the negativity here you're going to be a massive success -- search up the dropbox, airbnb, coinbase and ethereum launch threads

This is not a new product, though. Battery power inverters with AC and solar input are a popular class of products.

You can buy similar products with higher capacity and better solar input at Costco or Best Buy.

I think people are confused by the "Show HN" tag and the misleading way it's being compared to a Powerwall, despite not being a comparable product.

My problem with this post is that it's a "Show HN" from an account that registered 2 months ago. Their only activity is this post. It's pushing a product with misleading marketing comparisons (It's not comparable to a Powerwall) instead of similar products on the market. The poster is also making claims in this thread that contradict their own marketing on the website. Their website says it will run a fridge for 1.3 days, but one of their employees is in this thread making claims of 2-3 days in some places and 3-4 days in other places.

The negativity is because this is a misleading marketing piece and a lot of people are getting tricked into thinking this is a new type of product.

Some examples of competing products with better specs and lower prices:

https://www.bluettipower.com/collections/power-stations

https://us.ecoflow.com/collections/delta-series

EDIT: This thread is being astroturfed. Someone affiliated with Pila is alternating between talking about developing Pila and pretending to ask questions about Pila. See this comment pretending to ask if it qualifies for the Investment Tax Credit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43339416 . It took me 10 seconds to find his LinkedIn page where he's clearly associated with Pila: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chadconway_pila-energy-is-8-o...

EDIT 2: Here's another comment where 'chadconway' pretends to ask a question and 'coleashman' answers it: https://archive.is/ws9bp . Both accounts are associated with Pila. This is a clear attempt at astroturfing.

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#286

Post by zackify »

I guess what makes this different than EG4’s all in one inverter plus a 5kwh server rack battery, is the integration of software and hardware.

I think you have a great shot at being successful. Because the cheaper options, software isn’t great or fully integrated with the hardware.

These systems are a fraction of the cost of powerwall though.

I learned a lot about the DIY side of this from Will Prose on YouTube. It’s amazing how much markup Tesla has on top of LFP batteries.

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#287

Post by Aurornis »

lancewiggs wrote: post #179
crazygringo wrote: post #144

It looks beautiful. But I honestly don't understand what the market is. OP answered in one of the comments that it will run a single fridge for 32 hours. I understand the benefits of a UPS that will run your desktop computer during a brief power outage of a couple of hours. And I understand a generator that will keep your house running for 10 days after a natural disaster. And I understand a Powerwall that can suck u…

The market exists - I have a product from another company - Bluetti - (1). The Pila is a beautiful device, but that beauty comes at a price - it's a lot more expensive than, say, Bluetti's range of portable power stations and others too. They are also expandable, connect to solar panels and so on, and apparently the German market has embraced batteries like this with solar panels to give your home a degree of indepen…

The DELTA EcoFlow is another line of similar products: https://us.ecoflow.com/collections/delta-series

These are everywhere. You can even pick them up at Costco, Best Buy, and other retail electronics distributors. They're a lot cheaper than the linked product, too.

I think people are getting misled by the Powerwall comparison. This isn't a powerwall competitor. It competes with all of the other battery power stations on the market, of which there are many.

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#288

Post by ellisv »

I want to like this product but it’s far too limited for me.

I really wish someone would make something like this for my AC though because that’s the biggest energy draw by far (aside from the EV). A cost effective battery system for the AC system during peak use hours would be very interesting for me.

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#289

Post by [deleted] »

Aurornis wrote: post #284
vessenes wrote: post #220

Judging by the negativity here you're going to be a massive success -- search up the dropbox, airbnb, coinbase and ethereum launch threads if you want to feel good about where you're at. :) That said, I like this idea -- a modern coordinated UPS. I live in an area where people have 3-10 days a year of no power; being able to pick and choose what power they'd use during an outage would be a significant benefit to them…

> Judging by the negativity here you're going to be a massive success -- search up the dropbox, airbnb, coinbase and ethereum launch threads This is not a new product, though. Battery power inverters with AC and solar input are a popular class of products. You can buy similar products with higher capacity and better solar input at Costco or Best Buy. I think people are confused by the "Show HN" tag and the misleading…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#290

Post by Aurornis »

jodoherty wrote: post #187
quesera wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A suitable UPS for that application costs less than $100.

Do you have any examples? I haven't seen what you're describing despite shopping UPSes, but something less than $100 that could last 10+ hours would be amazing. My $200 1500VA/1000W CyperPower UPS could handle a short one or two hour storm, but storms can last for 10+ hours here during the wet season. One long power outage could cost me a lot more than $1000 in basement damages (my basement is finished). A comparable…

> A comparable all-in-one product to this pila battery would also be around $1000

That unit is more powerful, higher capacity, and has more solar features than the Pila product. The Pila is also $1300 after pre-orders are over.

I'd pick the Delta unit, personally. They go on sale and you can even grab them from local places like Costco with good return policies.

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