Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

pilaenergy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 492 posts

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

#391

Post by nikodunk »

doodlebugging wrote: post #298

>What's been your experience with home batteries? I have set up a solar array to charge a couple of LiFePO4 batteries that I use to power a 12V water pump inside a rainwater tank that serves part of our garden. It's similar to a home built NAS using JBoD since I just bought things from different vendors instead of buying a prebuilt system to manage the tasks. I'm building it out to supply lights, heat and cooling so…

Thanks so much for taking the time to write such an in-depth, thoughtful set of questions and feedback!

Thanks for sharing your experience re: the Feb 2021 freeze, and cool that you got your kid a big battery for their apartment!

Which color would you like to see next? Sorry none of our current 4 match your palette! Unfortunately, as a capital constrained startup going super broad on colorways/SKUs is not very financially prudent for us, but still curious :)

If you want to hack your way around Shopify's UI for color selection, you can technically hit "checkout" with 1 color, hit back and it'll still be in your cart, then repeat with as many color options as you like until you have all colors/options you're interested in. Sorry for the trouble - we're launching with an off-the-shelf e-commerce solution so as to spend our time on the product itself.

Our temperature, dust and water ratings need to be finalized once we're closer to final shipping product, but we're definitely planning for constrained indoor use, even in a hot summer garage for example. Sorry to not be more specific!

As to the powerstrip, pre-orders are only to signal intent to purchase, and we'll be reaching out to all pre-orders to see who wants solar, expansion and powerstrip before we actually ship! Great question - thank you!

There will be Pila sensors and third party sensors - we integrate directly with them. So more than illustrative! Once the data is in your Home Assistant for example, you can do as you please, of course. Hope that answers your question?

Great point on more app-specific details. We'll showcase more soon!

Thank you for your inputs on showing more of the product angles and the spacial situation - great feedback.

Thanks again, and let me know if I missed anything.

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

#392

Post by nikau »

ryukoposting wrote: post #386
nikau wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case I don't get the mesh network commentary and self healing talk - comes across as a total con job. Wtf would I care about managing the real time draw from the grid for a tarted up UPS

I think(?) the idea is that you would charge the battery at night when energy costs are lower, then discharge during the day when costs are higher. In that case, the brains are providing value that a dumb UPS can't. If I'm right, the copy on the website seems to assume the reader already knows about the whole "charge at night, discharge during the day" thing. Could use some reframing if the target demo is "the 99.7%"

If that's the case i would be interested to see the savings when you consider loses from batteries vs direct consumption at the time.

I'm not trying to poo poo the product, just some honest analysis of what it can do and the cost or savings.

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

#393

Post by chadconway »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #357

Not a bad product, terrible pitch/focus. - Literally nobody but you (founder) cares about this "mission" to create a battery-backed distributed grid. Regular people don't live in silicon valley talking to VCs and software developers, they don't care about mission statements. If it's a consumer product, please drop the bullshit. (Is your website built this way because VCs told you to? If so, for god's sake please stop…

Thank you for the feedback! We’ll try to simplify the wording and streamline the website.

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

#394

Post by chadconway »

jillyboel wrote: post #115
coleashman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah great question. The hardware is capable of bidirectional power, and electrical codes and standards in the U.S. are now catching up with Europe. “Balcony Solar” has taken off there, especially in Germany. Utah just passed H.B. 340 which allows up to 1200W of plug-in solar backfeed. It wasn’t so long ago that grid-tied batteries like Powerwall were working through the same kind of standards updating process to par…

So this is supported in the EU?

Yes & in Utah.

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

#395

Post by ac29 »

kelnos wrote: post #379
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…

I think it can charge when power is cheap (or off solar if you have it), and then power a device (like a fridge) when power is expensive, even if you aren't in the midst of a power outage. So it's a bit more than a UPS, and isn't just for handling outages. Regarding cost, looks like this is $1k for a 1.6kWh battery. The Powerwall 3 is $9874 (plus installation costs) for a 13.5kWh battery. So Plia costs $625/kWh, whil…

> I think it can charge when power is cheap (or off solar if you have it), and then power a device (like a fridge) when power is expensive

Yeah that is a cool feature, but at least where I live there is only a few cents / kwh difference between peak and non-peak, which means this 1.6kwh battery system would save at most a nickel a day (~$20/year).

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

#396

Post by chadconway »

Nextgrid wrote: post #84
coleashman wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No monthly fees -- You buy it, you own it.

Every software-based appliance built in the last decade starts out with this promise but then inevitably rug-pulls with mandatory updates that introduce subscriptions, degraded functionality, etc. This thing is way too "nice" and polished for its relatively low price tag, meaning it's likely being significantly subsidized by investors, who will eventually want a return on their investment and all these promises will…

Challenge accepted

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

#397

Post by chadconway »

jdprgm wrote: post #376

I'm very interested in this. I spent awhile a year or so ago researching and speccing out a similar project. I was thinking potentially you could offer a product like this for free or very cheap in a deal where the home owner pays their normal current utility rates but you switch them to time of use rates and offload enough of their usage during peak to make a profit. I was also thinking potentially utilities would p…

I think offering financing & working with utilities to further reduce the price will be a key unlock for more affordability.

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

#398

Post by chadconway »

analog31 wrote: post #109

Nice idea. Something I'm confused by is how the battery powers both sides of typical 240 V "two phase" power. It seems like whether any particular thing in your house is protected depends on which phase it's plugged into.

This only backs up appliances plugged into it.

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

#399

Post by chadconway »

JonChesterfield wrote: post #243

What stops this discharging through whoever is trying to repair the power outage?

There is a MID (Microgrid Interconnect Device) built into the battery which opens when there is a grid outage. During an outage power is only supplied to devices plugged into Pila.

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

#400

Post by dzhiurgis »

vasco wrote: post #96

Pila means cock (as in dick) in Portuguese and this whole post and website are hilarious. Dick energy. I'm holding off tears. Definitely wouldn't recommend plugging in your pila into any outlet.

I always thought it's karailius (karalius means king in Lithuanian)
Post reply on HN