331–340 of 492 posts
I’m in the market for a solution like this but I have one concern. Will the software and schematics be made open if you go out of business or if your acquired and the product is cancelled or ceases being supported. If I invest in the product I want to know I can fix it if you can’t or won’t.
Similarly, I hope that Pila can crack localized Peak Shaving, with limited or no cooperation with utilities. I imagine the Pila ecosystem tracking critical dynamic pricing events and take action accordingly. I’m not sure how to get this done with so many North America residential utility companies but I’d love to see them try.
PS, a 100 Watt PV input seems silly. The 1100/1200 watt input via the expansion pack makes much more sense. I can’t help but to think these should be three different components: Pila Base, Pila Expansion, Pila PV
How does the device handled grid isolation from a single outlet?
Will these continue to work without support from your company, in the event you decide to release v2 or go out of business? Or are they dead at that point?
All of our software and hardware is local-first, and will work without our servers/cloud, without any connection to the outside world. We are a backup company after all :)
How this works is that we broadcast and listen to (pubsub) MQTT topics. You can pare it with Home Assistant in 10 years, we also support Alexa, Home Assistant, Google Assistant, whatever.
My goal is to make our apps and software so good you'll want to use them. But we don't have an ecosystem to lock you into, so we won't. Your hardware belongs to you!
Oh wait, that’s $99 to reserve. $999 to purchase! Ouch
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great points! This is meant as whole room backup - so it’ll keep your fridge (and a few other small devices like wifi, etc) running for 2-3 days - a pretty long outage. It’s basically a huge, 21st century UPS. It can also do arbitrage and charge when it’s cheap and deploy the power when it’s expensive. The main problem with a powerwall is it doesn’t work for renters, and costs 20,000+ (and permits, etc) if you do own…
> Great points - however this can keep your fridge running for 2-3 days (a pretty long outage). $1,000 buys a lot of groceries. It's cheaper to to have a small supply of shelf stable food for outages. > It can also do arbitrage and charge when it’s cheap and deploy the power when it’s expensive. This has the same problem. It takes a long time to make back the $1000.
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…
Great points! This is meant as whole room backup - so it’ll keep your fridge (and a few other small devices like wifi, etc) running for 2-3 days - a pretty long outage. It’s basically a huge, 21st century UPS. It can also do arbitrage and charge when it’s cheap and deploy the power when it’s expensive. The main problem with a powerwall is it doesn’t work for renters, and costs 20,000+ (and permits, etc) if you do own…
I really like the idea of a well designed, and open, scalable home power solution with grid integration. My thought for you; battery technology is going to keep changing, so design-in that variability for the long term. Ideally one should be to able to hook-up a mixed bag of various cells, lead-acids, fuel-cells, lithium... in varying capacities and conditions and have the management system look after them all.
I have two questions: How are you funded? Hardware products are capital intensive. The cost of inventory alone can be a killer. The problem with buying a product like this is that an underfunded company can go "poof" inside of a year by quickly getting over its skis and gasping for air (money). And, of course, warranties are only as good as the life of the company. How much/how was it tested? Managing power can be da…
100% agree, must be used and abused to ensure it’s ready for 10yrs. Pila extensively tests their units through multiple accelerated testing schemes.
Plug to plug efficiency is >80%
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…