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:
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.
> and the misleading way it's being compared to a Powerwall, despite not being a comparable product
100% this. I had to read a whole wall of text to get to "it's a really fancy UPS". Definitely places that will be useful, but I think a lot of people here are far more excited by the possibilities of products like Powerwall which move us towards a greener future than by large, stylish batteries.
Solar & wind are variable, we need more storage on the grid to charge when these sources are abundant and discharge when they aren’t. Pila offers the same greener future that Powerwall does & makes it so everyone (home owner, renter, condo, or apartment dweller) can be part of this greener future.
> Solar & wind are variable, we need more storage on the grid to charge when these sources are abundant and discharge when they aren’t. Pila offers the same greener future that Powerwall does & makes it so everyone (home owner, renter, condo, or apartment dweller) can be part of this greener future.
This account's first comments started 4 days ago on another Pila thread. It says "This is awesome! The end of power outages for all of us!"
Conceptually, sure, but in practice: I can't run my aircon or heating off this; my stove, dishwasher, and washing machine are wired into special circuits so I can't plug them in; if I use this for what you're suggesting on my fridge, I lose all the UPS-functionality you're pushing so hard, because I am regularly discharging it.
Entering an existing market with nothing new but a sleek, Apple-like UI that makes it eady for the average user has proven to be a business success again and again. And it's had detractors who turned out to be wrong ever since "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." If not before.
> Entering an existing market with nothing new but a sleek, Apple-like UI that makes it eady for the average user has proven to be a business success again and again
The competing products also have apps with good UIs.
This is a marketing play. It appears to be working, given how many people are convinced it's a new idea.
> This is not a new product, though...Battery power inverters with AC and solar input are a popular class of products.
Often "totally new product" == bad (or more accurately, "first mover" == bad)
I think there is a misconception that totally new products make the money. But the second (or later) mover is often in a better position [1].
Dropbox was not new. File sharing existed prior. AirBnB was not new. Vrbo existed prior. Ethereum was definitely not the first crypto.
The iPod was not new. MP3 players were popular enough to be found at most electronics stores.
My rule of thumb is I want competitors. I want a product category to have some existing popularity (so I know there is money to be made), but not universal.
I think we're far from battery storage being universal in homes and world-wide.
So, if someone can become the iPod or Dropbox of battery storage, that might be a $100+ billion company.
I don't know if Pila is it. But the idea of a battery mesh, instead of the all-or-nothing powerwall sounds interesting.
I would love to be able to build up my home battery storage 1-kwh at a time instead of financing a giant battery all at once.
I can especially see that having value in middle-income countries.
Edit: Adjusted my 10-kwh statement to 1-kwh to make the example make more sense.
I really like this concept. Except I don’t know where / how to integrate it.
My kitchen is already built with a fridge integrated into cabinets. There’s no place to put the battery. And even if there were, it would be a $1k machine dedicated to the fridge. That somewhat makes sense in that food can spoil, and we still want to be able to use the fridge, but I wish more could be powered.
The next obvious thing is lights in the home. But this doesn’t allow me to do that outside of lamps; chandeliers and overheads do not apply.
I’d love this to power the garage door opener, but right now there’s power that goes to it on the ceiling. It’d be really difficult to find a way to mount this to also include the opener without being super janky or needing an electrician to totally rewire that circuit. At that point the price has gone considerably up.
I guess the last bit would be internet / networking gear, although I could get a cheaper UPS for that. I’m also not entirely certain I’d even have internet to connect to if the power was out given I have fiber.
If I were remodeling the house that feels like the right time to add such a thing.
If you are going as far as a remodeling, just get a powerwall added to the entire house's electricity supply and you avoid confusion/hassle at the outlet level.
Here we are, rightfully thrashing a product because of disinformation, while we have a president product doing this on a global scale. Not a peep. It's always the little guy (with the exception of Google at HN) who get gets the flack when they do something wrong.
Misdirection is the most powerful political weapon, and we currently have a criminal making sure only he can wield it, with a fan base that loves the exercise of power, loves to see destruction, all in the name of (power to) Christianity. Christianity was losing so it got on board with a loser. No more "by faith" and "Jesus is the Lord". Now they cheer on the hole the USA is digging for others, only to fall in it themselves. Then "Elon" can save it and establish himself as the emperor of the world. The USA is just a pawn being played right now.
All this while we get upset with a small competitor and by the same rules we can't put our eyes on the big players. Dang, because we can only talk about tech. Well, dang, just make a section where we can go to make X-rated, tangential, comments. Because we sure don't want to go to X.
A bog-standard Uninterruptible Power Supply. Available from multiple manufacturers (big names are e.g. Eaton, Schneider/APC, but there are lots of choices) in all sizes from "powers your desk light" to "powers your whole house/datacenter/emergency room".
Maybe there is value in marketing such a product to ordinary people that are not in IT or electrical engineering. Maybe you can improve on existing control interfaces and design. But don't be surprised when an established UPS vendor copies your product and crushes you with better numbers because of size.
Do I have to point to 1000 failed Show/Launch HNs with negativity? This kind of cliched meta commentary whenever a Show/Launch is criticized on HN is getting really old.
I’d be interested in 2 or 3 successful show HNs that had positivity, actually, if you want to go searching. I’m not aware of any, and it would be useful to be able to better understand what high volume commenters on HN are good at assessing as far as product goes.
Most (vocal) participants on HN that comment on product launches have almost no understanding of what will make a successful product / company.
I’ll put my money where my mouth is - check my comments on the ethereum launch thread.
Most of them are overall positive, a few are overwhelmingly positive (it's true even when you exclude silly fun ones and focus on actual products); "had positivity" is such a low bar, it's absurd you're "not aware of any". Even this one has your comment at the top, apparently that doesn't even count as "had positivity" to you.
Moreover, even if 100% of Show HNs get 100% negative commentary, there's still zero logic in the statement "judging by the negativity here you're going to be a massive success".
Edit: Okay you said "successful" Show HNs. Then we'll have to argue about what's successful, and I can't be bothered. But you can go to the all time results instead and I certainly spot a few what I would consider success stories.
So not to be mean, but EcoFlow's website for a similar (slightly higher capacity) product has much lower times for how long it can power. For example, it claims 14h for a refrigerator (you're claiming 32) and 97h for a router, while you're claiming 132 hours.
Now they might be conservative and you could maybe advertise a bit more liberal times but if you're competition claims their (almost identical) product has substantially lower times people might question that. Obviously EcoFlow is your real competition here and people are going to go check them out.
So by all means claim somewhat better times ;) but maybe not as much as you are.
Don't get me wrong though, you have a cool product and there's definitely room in that space for more options!
Those others couldn't burn down your house based on a faulty code push. Also, 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. If that improves, it seems simple
I was quite amazed to learn that creditcard debt is such a plague in US... I mean you (not the one I'm replying to) are using money you don't own and hoping you will not only own it tomorrow but pay back the debt?
Don't buy things you cannot afford and won't have to live paycheck to paycheck.
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.
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 more registrable than the English word itself. "[A] word taken from a well-known foreign modern language, which is, itself, descriptive of a product, will be so considered when it is attempted to be registered as a trade-mark in the United States for the same product."
Worse yet, it might happen that the USPTO does mistakenly approve the trademark, but then revokes it when it's challenged.
Because Spanish is the second most spoken language in every US state, 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. At least here in Argentina that's the term we normally use for single-cell batteries like a AA, while a car battery is a "batería".
> 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.
I think you misread the pull quote. There is definitely a store in Salt Lake (er, “greater Salt Lake area”) that primarily serves the Spanish-speaking population. There’s actually a chain called Rancho Markets.
(If you go to the deli section and say “costillas marinadas” to the right person, you will be given a bag of deliciously marinated short ribs.)
And Italian. It’s actually named after Alessandro Volta’s (the guy who named the Volt) name for the "Pila di Volta" - his stack of soaked rags that stored electricity, or what we'd nowadays call a battery stack. Pila is a Pile that stores electricity or a Battery - Pila :)
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 up electricity at night when it's cheap to use it during the day.
But this doesn't fit any of those categories. It's way too expensive to run a desktop computer, doesn't last anywhere near long enough for power outages from natural disasters, and isn't going to make a meaningful difference in your energy bill if a single device can only handle 5% of your home's daily energy needs.
And you don't even need it for a fridge/freezer -- it'll stay cold enough on its own for a day without power as long as you don't open it much.
I applaud the creativity, but I genuinely don't understand who the market is supposed to be?
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 your home.
A pull-sting generator (gas) is great - and a push-button one is around 1K also btw- but it doesn’t go on automatically if you’re out, and be noisy, can only be started after the hurricane, etc
Finally, local-first is super important to us for outage or otherwise - we integrate with Home Assistant and have public MQTT topics you can directly hook into no matter what happens to Pila the company, as long as your hardware lasts (predicted 10 years).
Idk - that’s where we feel like the position and gap in this market is? But we may be wrong :)
Apparently a company in San Francisco put together 110V electric stoves with induction cooktops and integrated batteries --- they then sold them to folks applying for tax rebates to replace gas stoves in kitchens which weren't wired for 220V.
One notable appliance you don't mention on your website is electric water pumps for wells in rural areas....
Similarly, are your devices able to provide sine wave power to run small electric tool motors? Folks with CNC machines might be interested, or perhaps they could run tools on jobsites? How many small tool batteries could be charged from one? Would it fit in a Systainer? Might make a nice fit for folks w/ Festools.
> One notable appliance you don't mention on your website is electric water pumps for wells in rural areas....
We had a well in one of the houses we lived in when I was a kid, and its pump was wired directly to our mains panel. So this sort of thing wouldn't work with a Plia, which assumes you're dealing with stuff that plugs into a normal electrical outlet.
Certainly this type of setup could be rewired to have an outlet and a plug in the middle, but for most people that would mean hiring an electrician.
Definitely! It’s primarily backup, and secondarily an arbitrage device :)
The average fridge loss is estimated at $300 per outage, and the average fridge outage insurance claim is $600 I just learned today from an insurance agent at SXSW at our booth (apparently a lot of lobster is bought the day of the outage :P).
> The average fridge loss is estimated at $300 per outage
Holy crap, I don't think our fridge fits 300 dollars' worth of food. We have trouble fitting a ~140€ grocery run into the fridge and probably at least half of that is non-refrigerated products. Hard to say how many days' food this is, probably close to a week, so a 36h+ outage (where the fridge actually got warm for a while) would have an average occupancy of much less than the initial 140€, maybe 60 or so? Idk. Not that I remember ever having a power outage longer than 8 hours in my life, neither the Netherlands nor Germany nor Belgium nor Finland (the countries I lived in)
Either Americans and their fridges are built different or this risk (chance & impact) is way overblown
Does this perhaps include opportunity cost where you can't work because you need to get new groceries? Generously, let's say you spend an hour in the store and an hour planning, going, and unpacking, so you'd be valuing those 2h at a consultancy rate of some 100$/hour
American fridges are generally much bigger than European ones. Mine is something like 27 cubic feet, which I understand is around double the size of an average European fridge.
I don’t think I’ve ever lost power for long enough that I lost anything in the fridge though, but there are parts of the country with a much less reliable grid (usually due to severe storms or other natural disasters).
It's pretty simple - europeans are more frequently going to shop. US/AU/NZ drive and do a bigger shop to last half a week or so.
Also most of Europeans live in apartments - your power cables are underground. In suburbs, putting cables are underground is too expensive and overhead wires are easily damaged during storms.
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 generator, a neighbor's etc).
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.
The portability of the unit also makes a great use case for off-grid, getaway or usage in a remote location, or perhaps just as an additional option for existing setups.
Being able to plug it into a NA standard plug into a more capable generator (or other outlet) to recharge is useful.
Without knowing the price point... van life folks have solar batteries and the published power specs seem to be competitive and useful for powering higher-draw appliances and devices.
The payback period to make arbitrage useful would be very specific to the user and how much electricity costs in their locale, but this calculation should take into account the delivery costs component of a utility bill that can be the same or higher than the cost of the actual electricity.
You should address that with exterior grading and diverting gutter run off so far away from the structure that it can’t seep back toward your basement.
If water can get in, it will. And it will do it when your sump is not operating.
If you’ve already addressed it externally and you’re still seeing water come in, then you didn’t address it completely. End state should a totally passive system where the sump never even fills.
And if that doesn’t work, sell the house and get one on top of a hill!
My dad put together a backup system- in spring time, they get weeks of water running at their house, so he's got two pumps on two separate batteries in case either pump or battery dies.
You can even get an all in one system for around $200 if you want to save up for something more robust:
We can start a Sump Pump with the 7,800W startup power (2,400W running).
I’d recommend DIY if you don’t want/need/can’t afford an integrated solution. I built my own with parts off Amazon but it doesn’t take a bit of knowledge and research. Fun project though.
This is definitely aimed at the other 99% that’s not gonna wire this up themselves though, of course :)
Bullshit on the fridge. A modern day french door uses almost 2 kWh per day at the mid range model level (which really isn't that different from older top freezers). Higher end fridges use even more. The 1.6 kWh capacity isn't enough for 2-3 days.
Sadly, a modern day french door is pretty inefficient. Consumers prefer them because of their looks but they are very far from being an efficient way to keep food cold.
Why are they any less efficient than a single-door fridge? Losses in between the two doors? I don't see why it should be much different. Both types of fridge causes the cold air to "fall out" when you open the door(s).
A top-loading chest fridge/freezer is of course most efficient, but don't think many people have those in their kitchens.
Check out this[0] and think about regional markets: half the capacity with 108kWh/yr consumption. I had theirs previous gen one and can attest that the number is correct.
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 independence very easily.
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.
EcoFlow, as best as I can tell from chats with Ukranian folks, has become a generic term for such battery backups. They are very common given the load shedding.
So when you have the pack of cheese on the table at 19°C for 45 minutes for perhaps a week before it's used up... you should drive to the hospital? Most of the continent does this as far as I know (having lived in and visited friends around northwestern Europe) and I have yet to hear someone tell a horror story of getting food poisoned after leaving the cheese/salami at room temperature for a cumulative 2 hours
This is not realistic, this is perhaps an "absolutely 100% guaranteed still safe for your baby while it is sick" value, which I guess makes sense for a government agency but they could communicate whom this advice is for
Edit: scrolling further down the table, also cooked pasta, rice, potatoes, vegetables, and sauce should be discarded. These products cooked, so they cooled down through optimal breeding temperatures while you had dinner for an hour, before they even started their journey from room down to fridge temperature. They should be discarded according to this table and never consumed in the first place (explicitly: don't even taste to see if it's still good). Not to mention what spoiled while it was on your plate
In the US our store bought eggs are washed and are not safe to store unrefrigerated. If you get your eggs from the back of a hen it's a different story.
That is absolute BS - food is considered unsafe after the food itself spends 4 hours above 40*f, so the website you’re linking to assumes a fridge and everything in it immediately warms to 41+* upon losing power? Physics doesn’t work that way….
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, while Powerwall 3 will run you $731.41/kWh. So it does seem the Plia is price-competitive, assuming my paragraph above is correct. And Powerwall will cost you even more than that per kWh since Plia is a self-install, while Powerwall is not.
Granted, there are cheaper options than Powerwall.
Plia certainly has its downsides: if you want it to power everything in your home, you have to put one (or more) in each room and plug everything into it (that's 8 or 9 Plias per Powerwall-equivalent). Presumably a whole-home battery can charge faster than a Plia, since you're probably plugging it into a 15A outlet where it'll be pulling less than 1800W.
> 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).
I live in an area where we get a handful of outages every year. From a few hours to a few days.
My current setup is a 2.8Kv generator I haul our of the shed, run a few extension cords to core things like fridge/freezer, internet, office etc.
This is a nice fit between a generator and a Powerwall. Generator is a pain if you have to setup + if not home the fridge stays off or my wife will leave to me unless its urgent. A Powerwall (or similar) is a significant investment.
This product covers people like me with occasional outages but it doesn't have the setup or out of home hassle, and its a more financially accessible solution than a Powerwall. I could def see people interested in this.
I looked through the material, but I'm still at a loss how this is different than any recent battery/inverter combination like Ecoflow/Jackery/etc or a UPS with an app. I'm an electrician, and very in to new electrical products but this one just makes me wonder how it's different.
My recently installed Powerwall 3 will only power my home for a few hours. If I don't stop HVAC and car charging, I may be out of power before I even wake up in the morning.
What I really want is my milk not to spoil (keep my family fed, not opening the fridge is defeating the purpose) and to charge devices if the outage will last more than half a day. Pila is WAY cheaper and more targeted.
I considered buying a Jackery Explorer 1000 and pushing my refrigerator out to plug it in during and outage but that seemed ridiculous.
EDIT: Other people are mentioning arbitrage, which is also pointless for me. My Powerwall 3 will save me a few hundred dollars a year if I set it send power to the grid AND during that time I lose backup protection.
if your concern is keeping your family fed, consider the last time you had an extended outage. then run the numbers
if it was recent, such as living in certain parts of texas, you should be keeping large amounts of stable water for each person for at least a week (gallon jugs + water filter pens), fuel/burner/pot, rice/beans/etc in a water sealed emergency kit
if it was a long time ago, you should be keeping enough water, vitamins, and high density calorie bricks for 96 hours
it'd be nice to have fresh food, but it's way more practical and reliable to have sustenance stored in a closet somewhere
for a family of four, premade emergency kits for 7 days will run you about $150, and youll need about 25 gallons of water - <$25
$175 or a $1000 battery + $25 for water. idk choice is easy
>It looks beautiful. But I honestly don't understand what the market is.
People who are willing to buy several individual UPS devices for appliances but aren't willing to pay an electrician to install a grid cut off switch so they can power their whole house with a slightly bigger UPS.
Honestly, I could see someone buying one or two of these for their fridge and another for their home office or similar, but they are competing with existing companies that sell a similar product without the UPS feature, like you see nearly every youtuber advertise.
I agree that this doesn't seem useful for time of use arbitrage.
I think it depends on what your electric outages look like. Short outages, a desktop ups probably makes sense. But if you regularly get 12-36 hour outages, this might be a reasonable product for you. Personally, I expect two nines of utility power, so something like this could possibly work (but I already have a 35kW propane fired standby generator)
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.
Backup can be extended to 62 hours through an expansion pack. A foldable solar array can be plugged in as well to extend backup indefinitely for long outages.
Indefinitely? The device has 2.4kW output and allows plugging in 1.2kW of solar which will work for a part of the day. That's not how "extend indefinitely" works.
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).
But a lead acid battery might last 5 years where the pila battery is designed for 10+ years, so you're looking at $400 total on batteries. That quickly gets close to the $1000 for one pila battery.
I want to believe $100 is all you need, but to me the math with the numbers that I've seen suggests $1000 is not unreasonable for something like this.
You buy lithium battery (lifepo4) not agm, much longer life time. I have exactly the same Vevor inverter + lithium battery total cost was 400$. But I regret doing this setup, I should have just gotten Ecoflow power station, it's a bit more expensive but more versatile.. You can take it with you anywhere
If you can put a backup battery into an outlet and have it work well like an appliance there is a lot of utility there. Pumps and fans for gas hvac systems as well as sump pumps are more critical and less power hungry than a fridge. I would much rather have a web page on wifi to monitor it than another blu tooth app, but whatever.
That being said 1.6 kw/h for $1000 is WAY overpriced. Lithium Iron Phosphate battery prices are dropping like a stone. This should be a third of the price and eventually that's exactly what someone will sell it for.
Thanks for bringing more details to the thread - We've just launched, and for folks who like what they see and want to be first to get Pila the (refundable, cancel anytime) $99 deposit will lock in $999. Once we start shipping and fulfilling through other distribution channels, price will increase to $1299
Also, spot on that the average home draws about 30kWh, and with an EV driven average daily ranges that'll jump to about 60kWh.
This is an interesting idea and I wish you a good luck building a profitable business around it.
Before starting to apply voltage to a home electric gird, I guess you need to disconnect it from the central grid - how do you do that? Or do you detect when the grid goes down and comes back up?
The point IMO is not to backup your whole home though. That already exists with Generac (20-50K if you need to dig a new gas line) or Powerwall (10-20K depending on electrician and needs). All need permits.
This is meant as a more precise, room-by-room backup solution!
Given these stats and the price in the sister comment, this costs $24,400 for a day of backup.
This makes the LCD displays on the front page of the website listing "5 days 6 h ours" and similar on a single unit very misleading. That amount of backup would cost $128,000.
For folks that are looking for true whole-home backup, with every load protected, investing in something like a Powerwall would be the way to go. I don't see Pila trying to compete with whole-home systems. We were inspired to build Pila because many folks I've spoken with over the years are most concerned just about backing up a few key loads (fridge, wifi, charging phones, some lights). For them a $10-30k whole home system is a lot of extra spend, and if they rent those systems may be off the table to begin with.
I assume it least has enough smarts to only show the battery capacity for whats in it. It can't run a whole house, so comparing it against an entire household's average load might be unrealistic.
Right. There are dozens of those things on Amazon, usually called a "power station". 1.1KWh costs about US$700. 2KWh costs about US$1000. This thing is 1.2KWh for $1000.
"Reserve now ... Orders are expected start shipping by the end of 2025."
Can't get funding? Or just testing demand without a real product? Nobody does Kickstarters for a me-too product.
It has an "app" user interface, requiring both a cellular connection and the service remaining in business. Plus it wants WiFi so it can receive "software updates". What could possibly go wrong?
It's a battery/power bank/station that can be remotely controlled and aggregated into a so-called "virtual power plant", which the manufacturer can then sell power source/sink capacity to grid operators. That's why the cellular connectivity is there.
That is the true purpose of the entire operation - all other functionality is a distraction (and can be taken away at any time by a software update despite any promises).
> As balcony solar and plug-and-power products gain momentum, we welcome collaboration with AHJs and utilities to help responsibly shape the future of home energy. If you're interested in partnering with Pila, reach out!
The plan is to find enough people to buy these so they have enough aggregate storage capacity to solicit "collaboration" and "partnerships" (https://pilaenergy.com/press) with utilities and make profit (I'm fairly confident the device is currently sold at a loss), with the buyers getting scraps in the best case scenario, and nothing in the worst/expected case.
I guess the buyers of the batteries will at least be satisfied with the knowledge that they have paid to "responsibly shape the future of home energy".
> It has an "app" user interface, requiring both a cellular connection and the service remaining in business. Plus it wants WiFi so it can receive "software updates". What could possibly go wrong?
Do not be so dismissive so fast without reading. The FAQs and the website says that they have a local interface and requires no internet for controlling it. E.g from https://pilaenergy.com/tech-specs
"While we think you’ll love the Pila App, you’re welcome to connect your own monitoring platform with our free local APIs. We embrace and actively support open standards like Home Assistant, Matter, and Thread for local data streaming from Pila Batteries — Because your data should always stay yours. Local API documentation coming soon. "
"Pila does not require internet to provide backup power, monitoring, or smart energy management features. The Pila Battery Mesh Network keeps all batteries working together, even when your home Internet goes out. The Pila App includes a Local Connection Mode for reliable battery control and monitoring without internet.
For reliable Remote Monitoring, all Pila batteries are equipped with a cellular 4G LTE radio for backup communication when home Wi-Fi fails.
However, we highly recommend keeping Pila batteries connected to Wi-Fi to receive the latest software updates and unlock new features, enhancements, and performance improvements—ensuring your system gets smarter and more capable over time."
Great that they are local first. Far too many IOT products getting bricked these days. Plus my parents can use this without having to explain how to use the app. Just show them the touch screen.
This audience is definitely more up on tech - I've been surprised how often folks I talk to have never heard of UPS's!
We know we're not the first people to think of automatic plug in backup :) Aspirationally, we aim to do to the UPS what the Powerwall did to the lead acid battery bank -- Bring it into the 21st century, level up to better technology, add software intelligence so it's not sitting idle 99% of the time, and improve the design and usability to make it a more exciting and valuable product for more homes
Good clarification! Smarter backup batteries like Pila or Powerwall can be configured to dynamically charge and discharge, giving the benefit of outage protection and energy management. For example, charge up from the solar power you produce at home, and use that stored solar power to offset energy usage at night or when utility power is expensive. They they have a "backup reserve" setting which allows you to set a minimum charge to always be stored for an unexpected outage. Smart features like "Storm Mode" can use severe weather alerts to automatically charge up to 100% ahead of an outage to ensure you're prepared for possible outages
It can charge when energy is cheap & discharge when energy is expensive. If you have solar it can charge when solar is producing and discharge at night.
At first I thought it was some kind of UPS that would automatically "inject" AC to the house when it detected that there was no current in the mains (hence the connection to mains). But it seems it is just a glorified UPS... is that what the tesla "Wall" is?
A "no Electrician required" device that plugs into your wall and back-feeds power is a HUGE safety issue, and a HUGE no-no.
Half the problem with home-generation is a cutoff/sync device that synchronizes the frequency of your local generation with the grid, and kills power going back into the grid from your home generator when there is an outage, so line workers can do their jobs safely. And unless there is a more expensive/complicated device that can 'smear' the frequencys between the two systems slowly so they match after a disconnect/reconnect, most of these systems will shutdown local generation if there is no reference frequency from the main power feed.
Why is this a safety issue? Home batteries are capable of detecting outages and ensuring that they don’t back-feed after an outage. Pila is no different.
If you backfeed during an outage, and then the grid reconnects, you're fighting the grid. If you backfeed during an outage and an electrician is trying to fix lines near you, you can hurt them.
Why does the OP say it "disconnects in 20 ms of detecting an outage"? If it's a UPS, it doesn't need to disconnect - It's just no longer fed by the grid. If it's back-feeding, the point would be to _start_ the connection when you detect an outage. But backfeeding is an extremely bad idea.
I don't understand this. It's a tiny backup battery with an expensive enclosure, with only 100W of solar input? How are you expected to run solar wiring with this in your living room?
The places that can afford this rarely have power outages, so having an dedicated appliance sitting in your living room or kitchen for those 1-2 times a year doesn't make sense. The capacity is barely enough to run your fridge for a day, I'd rather have a higher capacity unit that just sits in my garage that I can actually charge on solar (that costs the same price).
For the places that really need backup power, this is way too expensive.
Recently I had a power outage due to a storm, and the first thing I did the next morning was go to the store and get several bags of ice, which I put into the fridge and freezer. The fridge was still cold enough several days later when power was finally restored.
This could still have been useful if we weren't home, but as you said these things happen so rarely here that I cannot see myself getting something like this, especially for the fridge since ice just works.
To be fair though, it did mean we could not open the fridge willy-nilly, maybe that helped me lose some weight...
100%! This is a great solution, many people also freeze a glass of ice and put a coin on top so if there is an outage when they’re out, the coin will be frozen at the bottom when they get back (and they know their meat won’t be any good).
Pila is meant more as a set-and-forget solution if you want something seamless and connected.
Great question. It’s 1.8kwh and 2.4kw out (7.8kw surge) can run a fridge for 2-3 days, and is meant as room for room backup. For sure you can build something yourself for cheaper - I have - but most Americans don’t. Only 0.03% of the US has home battery storage like Powerwall or a bank of LiFePo batteries, and the 99% uses diesel generators or waits it out.
That’s the part of the market we’re trying to simplify things for :)
In places like Germany it's supposedly becoming more common to have a solar panel on the balcony and use a similar plugin device. I think the legal situation in the US is more tricky unfortunately
Not only in Germany, as per Commission Regulation EU 2016/631 systems under 800W are not regulated as power generating facilities - you just need a two-way meter installed on request by your power company and you're good to go.
Does the two-way meter have a way to prevent back feeding the grid in the event of a power outage? Having an unregulated device even under 800W seems like it could be dangerous to anybody working on the power lines.
> prevent back feeding the grid in the event of a power outage?
Yes - such devices need a constant grid output to sync to. When the grid drops, their output drops. Furthermore, at 800W, it wouldn't be able to put any voltage onto the grid even if it tried to as it would get overloaded (it'll be trying to power up the entire neighborhood).
I think the idea was maintenance, so the connection to the neighbors would've been interrupted, thus the only connection would be through the person doing the maintenance.
Yeah, in some parts. California suffers from rolling blackouts during wildfire season. It's going to get worse before it gets better because of climate change, a bankrupt utility, and the time it takes to properly bury all the power cables.
I wouldn't call 1.6kWh tiny, running your fridge and charging phones for a day will have a big market in places that might get outages during the winter that last a day or two. How about apartment dwellers in cities? Not everyone needs something gigantic or permanent.
They support up to 1200W of solar with the expansion pack. Running a cable out a window during a prolonged outage doesn't seem like a huge deal, but I'd guess most of the use case is shorter outages < 48 hours.
The solution is far cheaper than something like the Tesla powerwall (which I have and adore, but it's definitely a bigger investment).
I'm not a fan of these devices in general as I'm more of a DIY, but...
A Ecoflow Delta 2 Max is $1100, gives you 2kWh capacity and 1000W of solar input. if you have a power outage, you can actually keep it topped off w/ solar while keeping your fridge, gas furnace, etc running.
If you're gonna hang a wire out the window, why pay the premium for the pretty enclosure and screen?
Not to hard pivot but any DIY links you’d recommend? I’ve been getting into this field and would like to DIY something around this scale. Keep a fridge running, maybe have a little dc circuit for a home lab.
They also have vastly different failure modes than pumping a bunch of DC voltage into battery cells
There was also recently a post about flow batteries <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41235789> which are also very interesting to me, but I haven't gotten far enough into that learning curve to know if they're a good fit
I agree, 1.6kWh is a good bit of energy during an outage. Get the expansion pack & you get 3.2kWh. My house, most of my consumption is large loads. If I just needed essentials backed up, this would be perfect. Fridge, Starlink, and phone.
It would be quite smart if this battery only runs on a single power group. You could get like 2 or 3 of these and put them on your most important power groups. But you disable the power groups of nonessential but heavily consuming devices such as your car charger, heating, washing machine, or drying machine.
That way, three small batteries that only power part of your house would be cheaper than powering your entire house.
That video's conclusion is misleading - he's only shifting his fridge's energy consumption. That's not actually much in the grand scheme of things - it's a well-insulated box that is already a thermal battery. In fact, he only discharged his power bank to 64% at the end of the day, so he didn't even use up his full capacity (that he paid for and is factored in his spreadsheet).
Batteries can provide significant savings but for that you need to actually use them fully, either by load-shifting significant loads (if you have enough to fully consume the battery capacity), or just charging/discharging the battery directly into the grid (essentially acting like a grid storage system - charging the battery to full when energy is the cheapest, and dumping it back when it's the most profitable). Even better when you have solar - instead of selling that energy at low feed-in prices, save it in batteries and use it once the sun goes down so (if you have enough battery capacity) you never ever need to actually "buy" any energy from the grid.
I believe the Pila can technically do the above, although its battery capacity is probably too small to ever recoup its purchase price on this type of arbitrage. However, the underlying concept is absolutely workable and profitable with the right equipment.
> I believe the Pila can technically do the above, although its battery capacity is probably too small to ever recoup its purchase price on this type of arbitrage.
That's my point, thank you for putting it so succinctly. The front page opens showing the Pila being used for a refrigerator — presumably doing load shifting, given the front page marketing copy I quoted — so I think asking for data showing that this is a legitimate use case is fair.
It definitely does load shifting and utility rate arbitrage (and solar power charging) as a side benefit, but it’s not built to be an arbitrage machine. Its primary use case is backup, for now.
I've used gas and portable "solar/battery" backup generators and UPS systems.
The win for me is the form factor. It can slot right next to any appliance or utility room shelf. The cost is not bad by comparison to portable battery systems, but portable battery systems fall into two form factors:
1. Garage / basement stacks that have to connect to a generator hook-up: which itself costs kilo-dollars. And what if my garage / utility panel isn't heated? Extreme temp swings can degrade these I'd imagine.
2) carry or roll-away. Which is great for camping or pulling out of the closet during an outage, but that's not convenient and not what I'm looking for
And finally, the UPS-like standby power beats both options as well. The solar generator types don't do passthrough power well (they warn against it) and the garage/basement stacks have to be connected to a cutover switch anyway.
Correct me if I'm wrong nowadays but this product beats both those for these reasons.
Absolutely true, yes. I mentioned UPSs to represent the low-end of the UPS/power station/generator spectrum, with the Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus at the higher-end (which costs only 2.6 Pikas). The video I linked to does a solid job of evaluating the pointlessness of using a more comparable $500 1.8kW Anker SOLIX C1000 for the same use case Pika is pushing, which is what prompted my skepticism.
That conclusion all depends on how much extra power the UPS uses while acting as a pass-through. I think the SOLIX doesn't directly pass through the power so it's having the inefficiencies of conversion to and from AC-DC-AC, maybe this version has a more efficient pass-through system?
I bought lights-out manageable 400 lbs (lots of kWh) of rack mounted sealed lead acid batteries in the form of UPSes with expansions for less than $600.
The other thing is that rewiring a main panel for generator and/or solar to provide emergency power to a subset of circuits is preferred to simply trying to power everything with a tiny battery pack. This usually means adding a subpanel and an automatic transfer switch, which is a heck of a lot simpler than running extension cords through the house and much more fine-grained than powering everything with backfeed.
> What's been your experience with home batteries? What recent power outages have you had, and how were you affected?
I love my Powerwall, but it's not powerful enough to power my HVAC. (Heat pump in a northern climate.) I wish I spent more money on a more powerful one.
The payout I got last year for the virtual power plant was phenomenal. If they continue for a decade or so, the Powerwall will come close to paying for itself.
That being said, when I was a renter, I once went looking for a UPS for my CPAP. I never experienced long outages. (Just the one where the Tesla exec flew into a powerline and died.) I don't think I'd spend $1000 on one of these. Even if I hacked together a solar panel onto one, apartments are so small that it seems like it's overkill.
I definitely like it. I experience regular outages and have a whole home generator because of it. But that takes time and isn't cleat. So this is basically how I already have everything set up, with ~6 UPSs scattered around. And I have looked at the whole home systems to get away from that. But the mesh with smart features is definitely interesting.
Does it have any power cleaning functionality? I have occasional issues with voltage drop and it and confuses some of my stuff. The input V is out of range and it cannot get it back up to 120V so it ends up just turning off to avoid passing through to the equipment.
And how about any automatic load shedding? I have some which will start turning off outlets based on percent battery left, to power the most important stuff longer.
You also mention moving past the basic lead acid UPS. I can't seem to find it anywhere, are you not using lead acid batteries? Or what are you using? Will I be able to buy a replacement battery up the street at the battery store like I can my current UPSs? Or will I be locked in to buying replacements from you?
Also looks like you have Smart Outlet Strips mentioned, which are only 3 outlets. Any plans for something more substantial? Like 12s? Most places I have UPSs there are many things plugged in and a single 12 would be preferable over multiple.
It does have power cleaning functionality when it's off-grid, let me check in with hardware if it does that in pass-through mode. Voltage drops it should detect and cover though.
Automatic load shedding will be configured by appliance priority we were thinking, but open to feedback. The fridge should go out last, the wifi first.
We're using a 1.6kWh LiFePo! Replacement is something we're working hard on, I unfortunately can't speak to that until we're closer to shipping (Q3/Q4).
There are 4 outlets btw - 2 on the front, 2 on the back. Plus 4 USB-C outlets that output 100W DC. 100% we are planning something more substantial (240V is also requested a lot), but we're only launching with 1 SKU that fits a lot of use cases for now.
Probably only passing power through when it's still on-grid, because it's more efficient is our current plan for now. Surge protection we will cover though, just voltage drops are not planned to be covered for above reasons.
As soon as the power's going through our inverter, it'll be the clean sine wave you are talking about.
1. Have you considered building a “microgrid interconnection device” to go with this to allow the batteries to backfeed a house in the event of an outage? (This would require native 240V split-phase capability and/or an auto-transformer.)
2. Have you considered removing the fade-in-when-scrolling abomination on your website?
1) Can't be automated without a failover switch to disconnect the house from the grid so it doesn't back feed into the actual power lines outside the house and either break or risk injuring linemen who think a line has been disconnected and isolated.
In addition to that you're feeding energy back in through a much smaller wire so you're limited to the capability of the circuit it's connected to and the devices have to be smart enough to actually limit their output to what the wall can handle. Otherwise imagine you have 2 of these each on 1000W circuits (not a normal circuit but for convenience lets pretend) and you have 1500W of load running elsewhere in the house. One runs out of power because it had a lower charge state when power failed, now unless the remaining UPS limits it's output and browns out everything you're pulling 150% the rated power of your circuit, potentially damaging the wires or the loads you're powering.
This is potentially what's causing fires on nVidia's high power connectors, one connection wears out or is simply loose so more power flows through the remaining pins and it's too much for those wires causing fires/melting the wires.
Feed power in through one circuit back to the main board, on a different circuit cause a short, main breaker trips, main board is now isolated from the grid.
Technically possible, irresponsible, bad advice, and probably won’t work in most scenarios.
First the smaller circuits will trip first, that's where the current is actually flowing, there wouldn't be any actually flowing through the whole house breaker in your idea. The main circuit to your house is 100+ Amps (this would be a tiny old circuit most houses have larger main feeds these days) at least. You'd have to feed at that much through the main disconnect for it to trip.
Second even if you could push that many amps through the main breaker somehow to trip it you'd be feeding it through wires designed for 15-20 amp nominal loads which would cook them.
> Second even if you could push that many amps through the main breaker somehow to trip it you'd be feeding it through wires designed for 15-20 amp nominal loads which would cook them.
Well, you'd end up tripping the 15-20 amp breaker protecting those wires first.
It's no more of a pulse than any other dead short that would trip the breaker instantly rather than on a delay.
The fault current that a breaker is required to be able to interrupt is two orders of magnitude larger than we're talking about feeding into the wire, and a 15 amp breaker is designed to _not_ interrupt a 150 amp load until a second has passed (there's a rating curve for this): some loads might require that much current briefly, and the wire in the wall is not going to overheat in that time (that's why the breaker has the curve that it does: to model and therefore protect the allowable heating of the wiring).
1. I'm actually hopeful we see a generic MID standard emerge with folks like ConnectDER well positioned to support that, so more homes can benefit and households can gain the ability to flexibly try different batteries without ripping out their panels every time. If not, we could definitely build our own (helped build 2 generations of Tesla's MID as well as 3 generations of SPAN Panels with MID functionality). Happy to nerd out on the topic anytime :)
Huh, I hadn’t seen ConnectDER before. That’s cute. It’s not entirely clear to me how it interacts with power sources in the house, and it’s also not clear to me whether it’s standardized enough so that a different MID could be used in its place with the same inverters/batteries/whatever. I would love to see the industry standardize on a MID protocol well enough for applications like V2H/V2G to work without absurd levels of vendor lock-in.
I suppose another potential issue would be exceeding the capacity of a panel bus. Balcony solar has the same problem, and I guess no one os likely to connect enough balcony solar units to cause a real problem.
I agree we need a universal option for both home batteries & V2H. ConnectDER is working to be that standard. Tesla’s Backup Switch was supposed to be open, but unfortunately hasn’t been opened for others to integrate with.
Whatever design wins should also be available as a standalone device (maybe even something that can be installed inside an existing enclosure if there’s room and maybe even in a circuit breaker format) and not just a meter ring adapter. There are users who, for various reasons, cannot use meter ring adapters as switches. For example:
- Some services cannot be switched at the meter ring. This includes services that use a current transformer separate from the meter. (As far as I know, this includes all services over “Class 320”.)
- Some apartments aren’t separately metered. Fortunately, this is rare.
- Some users will want to back up only part of a service.
Pila team designed the Powerwall & SPAN microgrid interconnect device (MID) / relay that disconnect the home from the grid. So we could, but we believe the value to be the 0 install cost. Installing an MID can cost anywhere from $2500-15,000 depending on complexity.
Yep, and to clarify Pila includes an MID onboard so while Intentionally Islanded there is no backfeed. But in terms of a whole-home disconnect, I believe we'll see more generic options appear that are somewhat DER-agnostic.
The Tesla MID is in the Tesla Gateway or Backup Switch meter socket adapter. The Pila MID is onboard inside the battery. Pila can push power back through the plug.
When utility power drops, Pila & Powerwall react exactly the same. They both detect the outage, open the MID, and power load downstream of the MID. In the case of Pila it powers loads downstream / plugged into Pila.
Given the founder’s background, Pila seems well positioned to create a new Virtual Power Plant. I’d welcome an opportunity to participate in a VPP at a smaller scale than a traditional power wall.
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
I like the idea and would probably reserve some if I still lived in the US.
But I don't think you should be setting yourself up against Powerwalls so directly. You're not really competing for the same market. The power storage solution for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls is in fact Powerwalls (or similar) if you have solar panels/want a serious amount of backup power storage.
Your offering is not that. In fact, I can imagine some people with Powerwalls might want to add your product to their house as well, so no point in immediately turning off that 0.3% in your messaging.
I don’t know where the 800W is coming from. It is quite common to have 16A breakers on a circuit. That is 3,8kW. My regular apartment has 3x20A breakers and for example my induction hob is 7,2kW two phase.
Internet's not required, and we're aiming to pack as much offline functionality in as possible. This includes an MQTT based local API (WiFi) and ability to directly tether the phone app to the device over WiFi. Certain app features like historical usage and utility data integrations may not be available if the device isn't internet connected though, just to be transparent.
This is almost exactly my question but I'll be a little more specific. I want to guarantee that no data about my usage leaves my network. You mention local integrations, is there a formal commitment to opening up the platform to opensource local servers? Similarly, what about always providing functionality without sending usage data?
I love the design, but I wonder about the "selling feature".
How many people regularly experience power outages (ok, if you're American relying on Canadian electricity, you might have a right to be concerned).
I'm surprised you're not touting the "save on your power bill" benefits. Could this not store power when rates are low, and use the battery when rates are higher, while maintaining a balanced minimum storage amount to ensure power is available should the power go out?
I'd think it could be quite smart about this if you looked at weather patterns and other factors to calculate a likelihood of an outage, and ensured more back-up was available.
From a selling stand-point, isn't saving money every day a better feature than "just in case the electricity goes out"?
Offsetting power usage to the cheaper time is also the only possible utility I see here. Unfortunately, last time I ran the numbers (against a $10k battery) it would be incredibly difficult to recoup your investment over a reasonable timeframe. Having to limit this to a single room (fridge, AC, whatever) makes it seem even more difficult as the consumption you can push is limited.
I haven’t run the numbers but I believe you. I’m hopeful that a couple years from now we see second or third generations of the same product, at a significantly lower cost.
> How many people regularly experience power outages
Anecdotally in a major city it was rare I would not have a power outage several times a year. In a more rural location now, it's rare I have a month without a power outage, some very extended.
We have a backup generator and it has saved our frozen foods at least a dozen times over the last few years. Installing a backup generator costs about $10k for a whole house permanently installed unit, so it's not a small cost, and the running and maintenance costs are not zero ($5 an hour when running, $100+ a year for parts and consumables)
> I'm surprised you're not touting the "save on your power bill" benefits.
At ~$600/kWh for capacity, the ROI isn't great. I have a pretty big differential on my rates because I have an EV, and even then I'd need over a decade to make the $1,000 back assuming I fully discharged it every day.
It’s definitely an important feature & will help reduce the purchase price. Especially charging from home solar since it most solar in the US gets installed without a battery.
> ok, if you're American relying on Canadian electricity, you might have a right to be concerned
You don't have to go that far. Puerto Rico is a United States territory with a third-world tier power grid. Most Puerto Ricans rely on electric generators and battery backup systems to survive their day-to-day.
This is bordering a humanitarian crisis and I'm surprised it gets little attention in the mainland. These outages have a real human cost: the elderly struggle with maintaining their generators. Hospitals rely on generators. Roads and sidewalks are in the dark. The haves get diesel delivered; the have-nots struggle. Some, especially the elderly, die in fires or asphyxia due to their constant operation.
A woman died on New Year's Eve due to a fire in her residence while trying to operate a transfer switch. The power was out all night across the island.
Apologies for derailing, but it bothers me how little attention this gets. The privatized power company has successfully externalized its costs--thousands of Puerto Ricans are going into debt to install solar panels. Half of the island lives under the poverty line.
People are desperate. A year ago, the Dept of Energy established federal incentives for solar panel installations in the island. These were the kilometric lines to get a voucher:
Adding another comment because I can no longer edit my original.
- Power instability causes serious economic damage to individuals, families and small businesses. Imagine establishing a business in an island where you don't know if you'll have power today.
- In PR, you don't buy groceries for an entire month. The power goes out once and all your food is ruined. Families bear the brunt of these reliability failures.
- Outages damage your appliances. This is even more economic damage to families and the poor. A couple years ago, in jest, protesters from across the island took their damaged appliances to the power company headquarters and dropped them off there.
- Diabetics have to use generators or special machines to keep their insulin refrigerated.
I could keep going. It's a shame that this absurdity is happening in the wealthiest country in the world.
I support Puerto Rican statehood and representation in US federal elections†.
Until then, I don't see any hope of meaningful federal support in times of Puerto Rican crisis. Too many Americans are not sure whether Hawaii is a state, or if Rhode Island is an island. The amount of time that PR occupies anyone's thoughts in Real America™ is basically nil. Just like Trinidad, or Turks and Caicos. "Oh, I know someone who took a cruise there. They don't speak English do they?" That's it.
† I also support Puerto Rican self-determination and independence. :) But that path will not bring FEMA, or infrastructure investment.
What range of sensitivity does this offer? My US apartment complex has fluctuating levels of neutral sag 24/7/365 and it’s unclear how that would interact with your hardware.
The off-grid detection is based on a combination of voltage and frequency measurement over different time windows, so I'm sorry that I won't be able to give you an exact answer on your situation. I've lived in apartments with bad high impedance neutral connections and it did all kinds of weird things to the loads... Hopefully something your apartment complex can look into!
This whole discussion is very confusing to me - is this just a UPS you have to plug all your items into, or does it somehow back feed into the plug to power the circuit?
If it's the former it's nothing new and inconvenient, if it's the latter how do you avoid backfeeding the grid?
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%"
> no bidirectional power, no integration with solar or smart home systems, and no ability to manage home energy dynamically. They tend to be boxy, ruggedized, meant to be moved around, not seamlessly integrated into your living space. On top of that, many use e-mobility battery chemistries, which are great for delivering high power on demand but wear out faster when cycled daily for home energy use.
I already use an Ecoflow as quasi-UPS in my networking closet and one for a chest freezer and its worked great for that. They advertise a ~25ms switch over. I think (could be wrong) they also have features like scheduled tasks to managed recharge/discharge schedules.
Is the main difference between an Ecoflow and this basically the form factor?
> Is the main difference between an Ecoflow and this basically the form factor?
The form factor and the potential rugpull in the future when this turns into a subscription and/or a "virtual power plant" where you get the homeowners to pay for the device while the manufacturers sells the aggregated capacity to source/sink power to the highest bidder and keeps the profits. There's a reason these have built-in cellular; you don't put that in (and pay the ongoing data charges) without one.
This thing is too "nice" and polished for its price point, so profits will have to come from somewhere down the line (because they're definitely not making any on the actual device sales).
I'm not sure how that's different from numerous similar products. And the issue is always the same, price.
One 5kWh Pylontech module would cost around 1K too, but that's 5kWh. Plus 500 for an inverter. That would require a couple of wires to be connected, but 5x more power for nearly the same money?
And yes, you can run a heat pump and/or a washing machine on pylontech. I doubt that's possible with these modules.
Definitely a product I've been thinking about... Lead-acid based UPC products have lingered on way too long into the lithium battery age.
I had a lead-acid based UPS which I plugged one DSL modem and my cordless telephone base station into the wall which would give me 3 days of modern communications into a power outage, which happens quite frequently in my location. Once my DSL got upgraded to fiber-to-the-node (with a 10x speed increase) my DSL would quit working when the power went out at the node so the UPS wasn't quite worth using anymore.
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.
So what is the coordination between batteries doing? Is it moving electricity through the walls to balance things when the grid is down? How is it different than a typical UPS like for servers or other electronics? Just bigger/longer lasting battery? What integration need is their with typical home systems? (Beyond things like turning them off when battery gets low?)
I kind of don't really get what having an app for a battery does that just sticking UPSs everywhere doesn't, other than maybe having a better battery.
Appreciate the question! The coordination is similar to what a whole-home battery might be doing for you, depending on how you configure it: Timing charging to follow real-time solar production, energy arbitrage to shift home usage to times of day when electricity is cheaper (e.g. TOU rates, big in my neck of the woods in California), "storm mode" to charge up automatically when severe weather alerts are issued, and eventually things like Demand Response for grid services which you can get paid from if you opt into. Beyond the battery control stuff, locally sharing energy data across the batteries across your home can help build a model of energy usage to help make sense of your usage, look out for anomalies in your home wiring, and more -- And doing this with a local connection just means it can be a more reliable, more resilient system, even providing this sort of value when internet drops out
The simple case I can think of is priority charging, with total load limiting. Since solar supply is variable you want to avoid drawing from the grid if possible, and you want batteries attached to things that will draw the most expensive power (by typical usage time) to fill first.
I bought and am using a "Lion Energy Safari Solar Generator" to use as a heavy-duty UPS, and it almost but doesn't quite meet my needs. It works fine, except about every 15 minutes a quite loud cooling fan turns on, to cool the inverters I suspect. This is bothersome since my intent to to keep my WiFi and computer and TV functional with this particular setup. Does the Pila have a similar cooling fan, and if so, is it audible?
Also, FWIW, it appears your web page pricing is slightly cheaper per kWh than the Lion, so good on you.
> ... connect your own monitoring platform with our free local APIs. We embrace and actively support open standards like Home Assistant, Matter, and Thread for local data streaming from Pila Batteries
Love this! I am tentatively interested. I might put down a deposit after a bit more research.
Thank you! This is super important to me (one of the software guys) personally. We want to make the software as open as possible, and will publish our MQTT topics and spec publicly so you can hook Home Assistant, whatever into it.
My personal goal is that the software outlives the hardware (and the batteries, inverter should last around 10 years with normal use).
We have no ecosystem or cloud to lock you into yet, because we're new :D
This is essentially a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) with an app. The UPS basically passes power from the wall to your fridge until there's a power outage. At that point it flips to using the battery to send power to your fridge.
>But with the added benefit that it charges during the day on solar and then powers device during the night.
As an important caveat on solar: if I'm reading correctly, it appears that the main unit only has support for a small amount of solar input directly connected to it (100 W, which makes me suspect it may be using USB PD for input), while larger amounts need the expansion pack, or a separately installed system.
Pila plugs into a normal wall outlet. The fridge plugs into the outlet on the back of Pila. Pila detects an outage in 20ms and automatically begins backing up the appliances that are plugged into it.
Brisbane Australia just went through a cyclone last weekend. We had 300,000 homes without power for days. Please sell these in Australia, we need them for both Cyclones and also to curb our very high electricity prices.
I hear you, and I'm also sorry to hear that! Here at SXSW we've heard from a bunch of Aussies, plus Brazil and Puerto Rico (where we actually ship) are some of the most requested beyond mainland US.
So this is a per-room/per appliance battery system? Not sure how this would work for my oil burning boiler, which requires power but has no "plug". Maybe this is better for households that run 100% electric for HVAC?
To add more: To backup big 240V appliances that are hard-wired (EV charger, large HVAC, for example) you need to connect the backup system in the same hard-wired way to the electrical panel. For folks who are keen to make the big investment in whole-home backup, it’s a great solution. Our goal is to give folks more onramps to get started with smart battery backup, focusing on no-rewiring solutions. But I’ll say, Pila can be a compliment to whole home backup systems to add a bit more backup capacity where it matters most
It doesn't need to be hardwired. Devices like the Generlink provide an outlet to plugin in a fossil-fuel based generator or a battery backup unit, and take care of islanding. They sit somewhere between the utility company meter and the main service panel. Power goes out ... plug into the Generlink and if your generator/backup can handle it, your entire system is running again. Not cheap though - around $1k without installation (which can vary from insanely easy to complex, depending on your situation).
Assuming your boiler is 120v, you can have an electrician install a "generator switch" that lets you plug in a generator directly to the boiler; or you can just rewire the boiler to a standard, 3-prong 120v plug.
The bigger issue is how many amps the heating system draws. Assuming it's really a furnace that pumps hot water, (as opposed to a boiler that sends steam to radiators) those pumps really do draw a lot of current.
Get an electrician to put your oil burning boiler on a plug, then you can plug it into whatever source (UPS, generator, UPS with fancy marketing) you want.
Understood. My boiler/furnace is the single most important "appliance" in my house. I guess I still need an electrician and/or use the traditional gas generator/panel switch approach.
Some furnaces are still 120 volt (same as an outlet) so depending on how the furnace is connected, Pila could be an option or at least could work with some minimal electrical work. But definitely recommend chatting with a good local electrician to pick the right path
In California, you can purchase a 14.3 kWh battery for $3,500, which qualifies for a $2,500 SGIP rebate from the state plus a 30% federal rebate. I find this concept interesting, but the cost is quite high considering it’s literally hundreds of dollars less money to just get a 14.3 kWh battery.
You will still need a (hybrid) inverter to use it so add at least $500 on top of that. And that money doesn't really get you a unit which is capable enough to really make use of a battery of this size.
For what it’s worth, Biolite is trying to do something similar https://www.bioliteenergy.com/pages/backup. I personally love the idea, not needing a permit is already a great feature.
Agree, it's a great idea! I think this is quite a lot more affordable than biolite, and also has smart features that biolite lacks. Will be interesting when both products are in market and we can see some reviews.
Very cool. You mention powering connected devices - is it feasible to push power back through the outlet to power parts of the home? Euro solar panels are doing this I believe.
Yeah great question. The hardware is capable of bidirectional power, and electrical codes and standards in the U.S. are now catching up with Europe. “Balcony Solar” has taken off there, especially in Germany. Utah just passed H.B. 340 which allows up to 1200W of plug-in solar backfeed. It wasn’t so long ago that grid-tied batteries like Powerwall were working through the same kind of standards updating process to participate on the grid, so I’m encouraged
Are the grid isolation and backfeed capabilities mutually exclusive? Isolation would have to happen at the panel if you are backfeeding into an outlet, right?
But 'when the grid is up' isn't the time you'd want to feed power from one outlet into the others. It's when the grid is down you'd want to do this, no?
I guess you could flip the trip switch to isolate the circuit?
Can't wait to buy one of these for my homelab! I've been waiting for someone to basically make an eco-flow that's meant to be on constantly and has decent cooling that's quiet and intended to run continuously!
Traditional UPSs don't tend to advertise capacities, so I may have an incorrect perception of what a good Wh/$ is, but isn't 1.6kWh really damn good for a $1k UPS? How'd you guys manage to pack that much capacity in at that price point?
Might be suitable for a rack assuming all the cloud bullshit can be turned off.
Great idea. I am considering buying one for my refrigerator and furnace.
Are you planning to charge a monthly fee? I’d be open to that, but it would be nice to not pay for more than the hardware. I.e. build the operating costs into the cost of the initial purchase
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 go out the window.
I’m curious what’s the rank sort of items a typical apartment dweller would want to keep on backup - for me it would be WiFi router, phone charger, microwave, kettle and a couple kitchen lights. Any power restrictions that would preclude running microwave or kettle?
TLDR it's so that we can seamlessly synchronize settings and events between them. When to charge from solar, cheap utility rates, or when a storm is incoming.
Consumers (incl me) will not update their 2nd Pila to their new Wifi password when they change it, or not even pare it properly with their first to start with. Also, in an offline situation like a power outage where the internet goes down, you won't be able to communicate over the cloud and synchronize them there. If our servers ever go down (they won't) then you want to be able to rely on local communication.
The local mesh is going to set up new follower devices over an open MQTT api and talk to each other over it - but yes it's more of an enable than a feature in and of itself.
That all makes sense. A few more questions, if you'll humor me:
Why not leverage an existing smart home mesh networking technology? I know the industry has made a hash of the whole Matter/Thread thing, so if the answer is "we didn't like the existing solutions" that's understandable to some extent.
That said, Zigbee seems like an obvious fit here. Adding resilient links to a vendor-agnostic smart home network seems like a selling point to me.
What features will and won't be available in the MQTT interface? Given this product's narrative revolves around resilience in the face of infrastructure failures, I'd hope that the app can use MQTT to provide a complete user experience even when the mothership can't be reached.
This is fantastic to see - I've been thinking about the need for something like this for a while.
I think there are two markets for this and I feel like you are already addressing the homeowners. Have you reached out to utilities who are looking to shave peak loads with DER?
Would you be able to avoid leaking back into the grid?
During a recent major weather event outage, a neighbor up the street was running a generator, that I think was not properly islanded. I experienced it by having some devices making weird sounds because they were receiving some low level voltage. They were probably leaking to tens of neighbors and losing generator output in the process.
This doesn't put power back through the home. It acts more like a UPS. You plug in the stuff you need up during an outage to the back of it like a power strip.
Yikes! I’ve heard so many similar sounding examples of misuse of generators and sketchy generator setups. Pila has the grid disconnect built in so there’s no risk of un-intended backfeed when islanded
Right! Unintentionally back-feeding is a huge safety risk, and I hope that smarter safer solutions will prevail over the all-too-common hacky unsafe approaches. But also, I get it. I’ve wired generators back into panels - safely - in situations where it’s that or no power for days, you start taking matters into your own hands
I’d love for something like this to be great, but the economics just don’t make any sense. This is a 1.6kwh battery for $999. You’ll never save what it cost to buy the unit before the battery is worn out. It’d be hard to save more than $1-$2 per day.
Is there any reason this won't eventually be commoditized?
The retail cost (low end) for lifepo4 batteries is $125/kWh, and for hybrid inverters it's $175/KW, thanks to decades of Wright's Law.
Currently Pila is $625/kWh, but what is stopping it (or clones) from being $200-400/kWh eventually? Their high prices are probably temporary artefacts of (1) lack of current scale, (2) premium due to UI/brand/lack of competition. But markets will catch up.
If the price does drop to that level then it's a big deal because you don't have to pay labor installation costs, which is a large proportion of total costs for end consumers.
The main question I'd have at that point is about electrical and fire safety relative to the standard setup.
Energy arbitrage value depends a lot on your utility, agreed. For most home battery systems it's a 5-7 year payback, even with solar. In my experience most folks investing in these systems are also putting a lot of value on the backup power, and from the data/insights. The average fridge in the US has $300-500 of groceries inside, and some insurance providers offer as much as $600 per outage to pay for spoiled food. So for folks contending with frequent outages, we're excited to offer more peace of mind value while delivering some additional smart energy management value on top
This is great for devices plugged in to the same circuit. Can it provide power to separate circuits? Such as fixed lights, which are typically on a separate circuit from power outlets.
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.
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.
I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. The power goes out every couple of days.
These products are a lifesaver in places where the electric grid is unreliable. Most Puerto Ricans rely on generators and battery backup devices to power their day-to-day life.
1) At the price point, lower-income countries with unreliable grids are not the target audience. If not that, then who? Off-grid wealthy individuals?
2) This app-controlled system MUST work offline. In wide-scale power outages, diesel generators in cell towers die out or get looted fairly quickly. Cable coax repeaters for home internet stop working almost immediately.
This latter scenario must be first in mind. Telecommunications will be gone in give or take 5 days after a large disaster or outage.
As for positive notes: loving the industrial design and battery mesh idea.
I'd love to see the price continue to come down, so more and more folks can get these products. Compared to the expensive install of a large battery systems, I'd call it a step in the right direction but I agree we need to make these even more accessible. Features like energy management and demand response can improve the economics in some markets, but low upfront cost is the ultimate goal. Most of my family in Louisiana are similarly not considering smarter backup systems seriously because of the cost and either "do nothing" in outages, rely on neighbors' generators, or have unreliable pull-start generators in their garage.
Yes, yes, and yes on offline performance! We're on it!
- 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 listening to them, they are not normal people)
- What exactly is the purpose of this battery? To provide power to a single 15/20A circuit, to power a fridge, tv and microwave for a day? So it's not going to help a multi-day outage. If I buy a dinky solar panel it's going to take forever to charge, assuming there's good weather on the day of the emergency. So really if I wanted to survive multi-day outage, I need a bigger battery. Which Jackery already sells, with solar panels, for cheaper than your unit, in a more portable, easier to move form.
- Why aren't the expansion pack and solar panel listed on the front page?? It's under tech specs?!?!? Is this a VC-focused B2B SaaS pitch panel, or a consumer product? If it's a consumer product, get rid of all these stupid I-have-to-scroll-for-a-week-to-find-information pages, and just show me what you want me to buy, right there at the top of the page, with pictures of happy people using the product in real life. That sells product to consumers. This silicon valley design dreck doesn't. (I just counted... there are 20 pages with virtually no information on the front page. Jesus christ.)
- Now if you had pitched this as a "save on your energy bill" solution, I can totally see buying one or more of these with a solar panel, if you have software that'll pull power from solar alone when the battery is full. Even if it didn't actually save me much money, I'm still stupid enough that I would buy it anyway. But you didn't pitch this... so I'm not buying it.
- What it actually seems most useful for in its current form is people in developing countries with inconsistent power and short brown-outs, but I don't see wide adoption there at this price point.
What a noble mission to make energy independence more accessible like this, even to renters!
I read your site, watched the video, but I still don't understand why you implemented a mesh network? Why multiple batteries need it to synchronize? Aren't they completely independent? Why would the fridge battery need to communicate with the other battery powering your lights?
Also, as an angel investor, I'm curious to know how much capital you have raised or invested so far?
To give more functionality around energy management, we wanted all of the batteries to be able to work in concert. We could have gone with "any old wireless" network to coordinate the batteries. One thing that's really stuck with me from building products at Span and Tesla is how important reliable connection is over years of operation. Depending on consumer wifi is a huge pain for reliability (changed passwords, inhomogeneous equipment, etc), using cellular is OK but has latency limitations and can be expensive. Existing stacks like Zigbee just had other limitations we wanted to avoid, so we realized borrowing from the world of the mesh wifi systems could offer a lot of what's needed. If we do our job right, the result will be a reliable connection over the years, that also facilitates easy addition of new battery nodes as you go, as your needs evolve.
re: funding, We've not yet made our detailed financing info public, but you can check out crunchbase for some insights on our investors to date!
By "more functionality around energy management" you mean what? For example if a battery powering a fridge detects a loss of power, it could inform a battery powering less essential things to shut down, so that the user would have the ability to swap batteries once the fridge one runs out? Is this the type of use case you have in mind?
I'm curious about the Zigbee limitations you're alluding to. Bandwidth is limited for sure, but I would expect a sub-GHz mesh network to be even more limited. The only issue I could potentially see is that a Zigbee mesh might work great when the power is all on, but might suddenly partition once power is cut and some intermediate nodes suddenly go offline. That would be a surprising thing to happen in the middle of a power outage.
Zigbee is on the same frequency as WiFi and therefore suffers from all the same issues that WiFi has interference and limited range. SolarCity used Zigbee for communication with solar inverters. It was very unreliable. Tesla moved to WiFi after acquiring SolarCity.
Did you consider using homeplug, IEEE 1901, or some other network over powerline standard? I imagine it being more reliable if they're all behind the same breaker.
Unfortunately, AC powerlines are extremely noisy. Powerline comms are used by SolarEdge to communicate with their optimizers. Because it’s a small closed loop there is far less noise than the home grid.
Yep! Pila qualifies for the 30% Federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) under the Residential Clean Energy Credit if your Pila system exceeds a total of 3 kWh capacity through either:
Two or more Pila batteries (1.6 + 1.6 = 3.2 kWh)
One Pila battery plus a Pila Expansion Pack (1.6 + 1.6 = 3.2 kWh)
Off-grid capable, yes. In my experience having redundant systems is a great approach for off-gridding. Pila will happily work alongside a whole-home battery system to add extra capacity wherever you need it most.
When you say it is bidirectional, what does that mean? It sounds like it means backfeeding into the wall outlet, but I dont think that can be right.
I am also missing how this is different from other inline device battery backups that have been around for decades and cost 20% the price. Is it that it has a built in DC charge controller for an optional solar panel?
Overall, This seems like a tough space to carve out a niche. It seems like the product is trying to position between whole house batteries ( powerwall), multi-purpose power stations (ecoflow), and generic outlet battery backups. As an outside observer reading your website, it wasnt immediately obvious how this solution is better than any of those in their respective domain, or how its own domain is different.
Edit: Maybe I misunderstand the solar charging? How does this work? Does it charge from AC outlet during solar production? Is this managed with a timer, or other smart connections to the solar inverter, ect?
Yeah thanks I appreciate the questions. I'll do my best to answer them, but let me know if I can clarify anything here!
On bidirectionality: Yep this would involve backfeeding an outlet - It's new here in the U.S. but not unprecedented. Plug-in "Balcony Solar" systems have taken Germany by storm in recent years, and Utah just passed the first bill in the US (HB340) to allow plug-in solar panels to export to the grid. Pretty cool to see new these options emerge for renters. There's still work to do to take this to mainstream and get all jurisdictions, utilities, and equipment manufacturers aligned on final standards but I'm optimistic.
On solar: You've got 2 options -- Timed charging with a rooftop system just like how "AC-coupled" batteries like Powerwall work. Or, "DC-coupling" by connecting solar PV panels directly to Pila. If Pila is in your kitchen, running a DC-coupled panel wire may only be practical in a multi-day outage, but for a fridge in the garage it's a relatively easy option.
On differentiation: We're up for the challenge :) - With Powerwall and SPAN (or other home devices like Nest) my take is it's the software and integration value that sets them out ahead. That's where we're really excited to create value and carve our niche. But zooming out, it's a big market, and our goal is to give folks more options to fit their needs, and it's totally going to be the case that simpler portable camping batteries are right for some, and big Powerwall-like batteries are right for others.
Portable camping batteries, generally: More options come out every year, but on the hardware side they're not optimal since most use e-mobility battery chemistries, which are great for delivering high power on demand but wear out fast when cycled daily for home energy use. And since they’re meant to be manually deployed, they’re not always charged and ready when you actually need them—unlike a system that’s always on, managing power in the background without you having to think about it.
It’s bidirectional in that it can push power back into the home through the outlet. This is popular in Germany & was recently allowed by Utah legislators. It can charge from the wall or a temporary solar.
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.
Great question! The 1.6kWh pack will run your fridge for about 32 hours. We designed an “Expansion Pack” that doubles the battery to 3.2kWh and gives 2x 60V MPPT solar inputs (for up to 1200W of direct PV charging). But of course “your mileage will vary” depending on your fridge’s size. That’s where the real-time backup time remaining forecast comes in handy!
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 dangerous. I get that your experience telegraphs that you are more than qualified for the task. However, established companies invest a non trivial amount of money into products in order to, among other things, ensure they are safe when manufactured and deployed at scale. Heavy abuse with environmental chambers, EMC emissions and susceptibility, as well as corner cases (fridge compressor over-current event, SMPS on a computer exceeding startup currents, etc.) are examples of this. This kind of testing isn't trivial, can take a long time and cost a lot of money. BTW, just going through UL, CE, TUV, etc. testing isn't equivalent to a solid testing program.
EDIT:
Sorry, one more question.
What's the power-in/power-out efficiency?
Not through the inverter, but in the power-in -> charge-battery -> battery-power-out cycle.
This alone could negate savings. If each side is ~80%, the plug-to-plug (through the battery) efficiency is only 64%, which means you consume much more energy to deliver the same outcome.
The real business model here is to sell these at a loss and build up an install base to aggregate them into a "virtual power plant" that can provide large-scale distributed power source/sink capability and sell access to that to utilities. That's why it's got cellular connectivity for which they are preemptively footing the bill (you wouldn't do that without good reason).
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?
Yes, great question! As the software person, this is very close to my heart.
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!
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 pay to use devices like these for demand response if you were able to get decent scale which could also be part of the model to offering them for free/cheap.
Some random thoughts:
- I really like the industrial design on your device. The form factor for right above the fridge is exactly what I was envisioning.
- I would love a lower than 20 ms switching time. This is right on the border of might keep your machine on or not. I don't understand why battery backups for hardware have been so stuck and mediocre for so long. Last i checked there was only really one company selling LiFePO for this target. A Pila mini 200-300 Wh with a faster switching time would be amazing and would sell a lot i think if under $300.
- I was hopeful when I first saw this that you had sorted out some way to easily have this run on mains or at least a single circuit. Which i understand would require some level of electrical work but i don't understand why that has to be such a big barrier and why it can't be simplified and standardized enough to the same level as like installing a smart thermostat so even if you are renting it is just a minor inconvenience/cost thing.
- There are significant diminishing returns to the amount of battery backup in my opinion. There is a huge advantage to having any system at all even just a few hundred Wh just to run some lights and charge devices or fridge for a bit. I don't have the data but anecdotally most outages are in the hours range not days range. Still for some reason a HUGE percent of people have absolutely no battery backup at all. And then on the other end full sized power your whole home with no lifestyle adjustments for days systems that costs tens of thousands are equally ridiculous. The sweet spot is a couple kWh in terms of giving you still a lot of flexibility but reasonable prices, oddly to me this seems the most underserved segment.
On my original idea I was thinking of a device similar to your form factor but target squarely at running fridges for ~8-12 hours. Fridge alone won't work for time of use but if you could manufacture this as cheap as possible and make a deal with utilities from the demand response angle and some sort of special time of use deal I think there could be a sweet business. You would have to target specific utilities/regions at a time but if you could get 50k plus units in a region and at under $200 to the consumer I think utilities would be interested.
TL;DR: $999 pre-order price, $1299 retail for UPS.
It does not compare to or replace Powerwall and similar backup solutions. It's a UPS with 4 x 120V outlets and some USB ports. It has inputs for a single 100W solar panel.
Looks polished, but I think the marketing department really got carried away with everything on this one.
I keep having multi-hour power outages a few times a year, so I decided to build a battery system a few months ago. I was happy with it during a recent four hour high-wind winter outage, powering my 120V furnace, fridge, desktop PC, some lights and chargers. Here's what I ended up with:
- Bluetti Elite 200 V2 portable power station: $999, 2073 Wh LiFePO4, 2600 W inverter output (120 V only), 1000 W DC input at 60 V max, Bluetooth & Wi-Fi connectivity to app, 53 lbs [1]
- LiTime 51.2V 100 Ah battery: $999 (includes charger), 5120 Wh LiFePO4, local Bluetooth connectivity to app, 82 lbs [2]
TOTAL: $1,998 for 7.2 kWh = $278 / kWh (before 30% tax credit). Plus tax and a few hundred more for the random bits and bobs.
Here's a video that talks about using the big bulk LiFePO4 battery to extend the power station: [3] This setup can supply 2600 W for about an hour (limited by the Bluetti's inverter and internal battery capacity), or 1000 W average for 7 hours (limited by the Bluetti's DC input). Limited to 120 V loads only, of course.
For me, this made the recent outage smooth sailing, running a few hundred watts average load for furnace / fridge / small conveniences. A friend nearby had pipes freeze and burst ($$$ repair and highly inconvenient) during a 20-hour winter power outage. It was nice to have a longer buffer to get a good night's sleep and know that everything would be fine even if utility power didn't come back quickly!
I think the original poster here is latching on to a basic issue that the consumer-grade UPS companies (APC, CyberPower) are being slow to adopt LiFePO4 batteries. At the same time, the "portable power station" companies (Bluetti, Anker Solix, Ecoflow, etc) have been recklessly marketing that they have UPS functionality, without delivering on that until recently. Be careful if you buy one: many of these portable power stations will not turn back on their AC output unattended if they fully discharge before the utility power comes back on! Just recently, they are starting to roll this out on some models: Bluetti calls this option "System Switch Recovery", and Ecoflow calls it "AC Always On" -- and neither are enabled by default!
And I 100% recognize that I'm in the tiny minority willing to combine these products together to get a lower overall $ / kWh. But maybe you are too :)
I love DIY solar and have built a few of my own systems too, long before Pila. I posted something called $200 solar self sufficiency to HN many years ago in 2017 and it got me onto this train. Will Prouse is the best, agreed!
Looks pretty neat, but at 1.6KWh it's not enough for "any" outage, so it's not really comparable to a PowerWall, which has a capacity of 13.5KWh. That said, the price is also much lower. If I didn't already have a 2KWh battery and a 3KW inverter generator, I'd buy one.
We have Ecoflows and they're great for keeping the internet on when the power goes out, I have one I can actually boil a kettle of water with! So I kind of know what the size vs output ratio is and my concern is these units seem too small. Unless you've solved the heating problem you need some ventilation and a fan?
They look cool, but it would need to be a bit bigger I think to realistically power an appliance like a refrigerator. And also, can you boil a kettle with it?
I’ve got several Jackery batteries at this point and my wife complained that they were a waste of money right up until our breaker panel gave up the ghost and we were without power for several days. Your product is more expensive but not significantly so, and has some nice features the Jackery does not. For homeowners like me though, all of this becomes unnecessary once I can power the house from my car.
$999 for early access! We just launched at SXSW, and will begin shipping later this year. Via our website we’re offering the $999 early access pricing for a refundable $99 deposit today. Once we enter distribution we’re expecting to increase pricing to $1299
As far as I know, backfeeding is illegal and not allowed by the NEC because of how dangerous it is to linepeople without a disconnect switch. A local transformer when energized by backfeed creates high voltage on lines that should be deenergized.
Pila can only back feed on-grid. Pila has a built in Microgrid Interconnect Device (MID). When an outage is detected, like Powerwall Pila opened the MID and continues to power downstream loads that are plugged into Pila.
My guess is the battery will come with some sort of remotely controlled switch that disconnects the house from the grid, before the battery starts supplying power.
Odd choice of name. “Pila” means “battery” in a couple of languages, but refers to small disposable types (AA, AAA etc.), not something you’d associate with a UPS.
From the Pila website: “In 1880, Italian physicist Alessandro Volta built the world’s first electrochemical battery — the Pila di Volta, or voltaic pile.
Inspired by nature’s own electrical engineers, he stacked metal plates to mimic the organs inside electric eels, transforming a wild phenomenon into a scientific breakthrough.
Like Volta, we’re reimagining energy storage with nature as our guide — building a smarter, more adaptable battery system designed to bring peace of mind, control, and energy savings to every home.”
Local first, MQTT API is open from the beginning. No cloud or app needed. If we go under, we’ll open source the schematics to ensure they can be repaired.
A friend recently had a house fire from a handheld battery bank catching fire in a cupboard. She was ok but there was a lot of smoke damage in the house.
This UPS has LFP cells so that is a huge improvement on safety of LiPo but I am still not sure about a large capacity indoor UPS.
Edit: I am not sure why I am attracting so many downvotes.
I’d like to be able to use a 240V hot water kettle to boil water for tea (or for sanitization during an outage). I live in the US and 120V is slow and inefficient, especially at family-scale.
> Do you have frequent enough power outages that waiting an extra minute for tea is a concern?
I’ve had ten power outages in the past six months, one mile from an international airport. I’ve lived through hundreds hours of power outages due to PG&E’s fucking incompetence in the past ten years. You’ll have to judge for yourself whether that justifies my comment - but, if you were a startup considering a 240V outlet on your home battery solution, I’m pointing out an entire category of uses that they may not have considered:
US kitchen countertop equipment that runs at higher power draw when a 240 outlet is available.
As an apartment renter, I have no reasonable solution today for a battery that can cope with my kitchen at all, prior to this one — and if they go 240V, I can upgrade my kitchen appliances, take them with me when I move, and be more resilient to power outages. And if that puts more weight behind the 240V purpose so they eventually offer a model for people’s furnaces, cool beans. I may not be able to convince my landlord to install a Charlie range, but I already have battery backups in every room except my kitchen, so there’s an unmet need that this startup’s a very close fit for already.
Being dismissive about someone’s questions will cause you to overlook potential market niches that have no viable solutions today. Your competitors thank you for your service :)
On a personal note, I'll also be really stoked when we're shipping to Australia. Lots of friends down there, and have been lucky to work on some past home energy products for the Australian market.
Parts of Pila's power electronics are already 230~240V capable. We've just launched in the US, and are doing our best to stay focused on excellent support for our home market before expanding. That said, I could see 2026 being the right time for expansion... stay tuned mate!
I have well water and the pump is 1.5 HP on 230 volts. In a power outage situation I doubt it would run for more than a minute at a time, maybe 4 or 5 times a day.
Often well pumps and sump pumps can be wired for either 230 or 120V, so Pila could be an option with some added effort and a conversation with an electrician. But in any case, looking forward to building the 230/240V version!
My well pump is 120V, but I don't keep it in my house. It's in a shed out back built over the well and tank. The shed is not insulated, but does have a 400W space heater plugged into one of these [1] that tries to keep it above freezing in there. I think most of the time it succeeds but it is possible that for a few days a year it might get below freezing for a while.
I have no idea what the humidity is like, or how hot it can get in the summer.
Would the current Pila be OK in that kind of environment?
I parted a 2.56 kWh secondary-battery system at $773.66 for my business' self-driving computer product, but it's not one complete unit or as sophisticated as this product. It seems like a decent price for what you're getting. Especially in terms of space consumed.
This device is quite dense and priced accordingly. Other dumb UPSs or "solar batteries" with this level of battery capacity are all around $1000.
Great work on the local API first approach. I can't remember the last SmartAppTM device that was local API first and not wholely dependent on some fly-by-night SaaS that requires you to sign-up. Hope we see more of this in the industry. Span is infamous for removing local API control of their panels.
Our team's really excited about the local-first approach. Both because it's going to make the system more reliable overall (essential for devices aimed at resilience), and because we're also excited to build integrations and see what the community develops as well. You're right, so few do it even though there's so much to gain. Happy to take any thoughts or requests on local monitoring/control/data features that you'd like to see!
I hear you - while I'm privately a static-site afficionado, this is squarespace so that the whole founder, business _and_ engineering team can edit it easily :P
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 I will be expanding over the summer.
I also bought an EcoFlow Delta 3 Pro or something like that for one of my kids who lives in an apartment in an old building in a large city in tornado alley. They have experienced power outages during storms and since they're working on their PhD right now and teaching classes I figured that backup battery power sufficient to power a refrigerator and a bunch of devices and that functions like a UPS would be handy. I don't have any performance data right now since they just got it this past weekend. It looks like a solid unit and has good specs.
I am in the market for a similar product to use here at our home. I like the whole house systems that are reasonably portable and can be charged from multiple sources. The Pila is interesting. I had considered the Jackery and the EcoFlow product lines but would like to work out how the Pila compares. Do you plan to add comparison graphics to your site so that interested parties can see where you shine and make accurate cost comparisons?
>What recent power outages have you had, and how were you affected?
Here in N Texas we had the Feb 2021 freeze and grid breakdown that lasted several days. I won't dig into the details about how part of it may have been intentionally manipulated to take advantage of knowledge about supply constraints to capture as much money from consumers as possible. Nothing surprises me about the corruption of these grifters running this state any more.
During this period, we did great because I'm kinda data-driven and was able to take notes about outage timing and duration and use that to our advantage so that we never lacked for hot food, water (we're on a private water well), heat (we have a wood-burning fireplace), or light.
I bought a big diesel monster, a 20kW generator/light tower, after all that but haven't done anything to connect it to my house panel yet. It is handy as pockets on a shirt for doing things out on the property though. I can pull it out to wherever I need power and run all kinds of stuff with it. I may keep it or just set it up to power my shop in emergencies or sell it to one of my dumbass relatives or some local redneck.
The power it produces is not conditioned so I need a way to clean the power if I am to run my workstation or network devices and a simple battery solution like the Pila looks great for this compared to that generator.
Many questions that I had have been answered on this thread or by reading your FAQ or the pages on your site.
I am interested in reserving more than one Pila. I see that they are available in four colors, none of which match the earth-tone palette that I use in my house. Are there plans to add colors or should I invest in rattle-cans and painter tape to help these units blend in?
From your order page where I took an order to checkout I didn't see a way to make a single order that would get me multiple Pilas, all different colors. If you are interested in buying multiple Pilas but don't want all of them to be the same color can you do that in a single reservation order or do you need to make separate orders for each color?
The first photo on your home page shows a Pila on top of a fridge. It looks large and I know the placement is done to illustrate some of the features of the unit and not to show how it would look in real life on my fridge since I can't imagine having that large unit hanging out to the outside door edge. My fridge has a decorative arch in the center that would cover part of the display.
Anyway, that photo started me thinking about the placement of the Pila. A fridge needs air circulation in order to function normally and there are minimum air gap requirements for the sides and top so that it can pull enough air over the cooling coils to be efficient. In the configuration shown in the photo I think that fridge will be struggling since the Pila will be exhausting some heated air as it runs and that won't help the fridge chill things efficiently. The side gaps are too small and the top gap is consumed by the Pila. Mounting it behind the fridge will subject it to all the things that appliance techs love to see - dusty cooling coils, tight spaces with insufficient clearance for airflow, opportunities for water problems, etc.
I think it could be hard to place a big unit like the Pila near a fridge especially if your kitchen has a built=in fridge cabinet since they usually are designed with minimal clearances and all models won't fit. What is the length of the power cord for the Pila?
What is the operating temperature range, and dust and water intrusion rating? I don't see this information in the tech specs. For something that may need to be installed inside a cabinet with limited air flow or behind an appliance like a fridge where you will see significant dust issues and share a cavity with an icemaker line these are useful things to know.
I see a powerstrip in your product line but don't see a way to order one. I like that it appears to use the same app as the Pila battery. It's possible that the unit pictured is renderware though.
Is this available or when will it be available? If someone buys the powerstrip will they need to pair it with a Pila for it to be useful or can they use the app with it to help them monitor power usage by things attached to it? What sets it apart from the plethora of other power strip options that offer more outlets, more connection types, but with a dumber interface?
I use temperature sensors around my property and other places. I noticed that the Pila will work with Home Assistant and in the app photo on your site I see the fridge using temp measurements from a sensor. Will you be producing sensors or is that intended to show that Home Assistant sensors can be used to drive part of the battery backup power usage? My sensors are from SensorPush and they are great. Maybe a partnership could be developed to bundle third party items with a Pila so that the buyer could build a system in one purchase.
In that app example there is power backup information given for multiple rooms. For that example are we seeing how the app looks with multiple Pilas in different rooms or are we seeing how a single Pila can distribute power in the event of a power loss?
Perhaps more info about the app could appear on your site. I know it is probably in a state of flux while you get all this ready but we all know what fluxed up things look like before they get polished for delivery.
One other thing that I did not see on the site is a view of the back of the Pila that would show the outlets, the power cord input, etc. Maybe adding a 360 view would clear that up.
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.
off grid here for many years
self built systems
can do the math for solar powered,off grid sytems with battery banks, in my head.
The numbers posted with battery back up system are
so wildly inflated as to be absurd, laughable , 32hrs for a fridge, it wont run a big fridge for
1 hr, tiny fridge for 5 hrs.
bar fridge, laptop, phone and one light might make
24hrs, might, when its new, hot weather, fergetit.
the way it's presented is totaly disceptive.
This is as best, a nice ,very expensive camping accessory or a slightly upsized ups.
Puget Sound Electric here in Western WA has a very nice feature showing usage by hour by day (using their smart meters). We live in a relatively small home, and do not use electric heat. Yesterday our "vampire draw" was about 0.5 kwh per hour (12am to 5am -- nothing really active). Once we got up, fired up the coffee pot, and lights, etc. we used 1.3 kwh from 6am to 7am. Pia looks like a good UPS for standard appliances, but as a whole house solution... Folks really need to understand how their home would work using a combinations of Pias. For us, we spent about $1k for a Westinghouse 9,000 kwh generator which runs on propane, and I put in the fairly inexpensive breaker and lock-out in our service panel. Costs were well below $2K. When our power goes out (which it does A LOT), simply fire up the gen, shut down all the high amp circuits in the house panel, and switch service panel input to the gen. Takes less than 5 minutes, and everything works apart from some high amp devices which we can easily live without short term. Having a good backup is important -- moreso with the power system strained and more "once a century" events.
Hey there - First I will concede it's always hard to give an "average" number for something like a fridge, since all fridges consume differently based on usage, ambient temperature, ice makers, overall capacity. But I'd stand behind our numbers - we're not looking to deceive and transparently provide the remaining backup time on the device screen and app. For whatever it's worth, I've gotten familiar with lots of appliance usage data during my time at SPAN, and our average wattage heuristics for appliances are in line with what you'll see from other batteries' materials. Still, always open to hearing ideas for how to help average people put energy usage in context. Would you find a calculator module useful on the website, so you can enter your own usage data if you know it?
Fridges and freezers are pretty power efficient, on the whole, because they're big insulated boxes and the power that leaks through isn't very much. An average of 50W power consumption is not ludicrous for a fairly large, properly functioning fridge (the peak will be larger, since they cycle on and off). It will depend on ambient temperature, of course, but even a pretty beefy fridge running at 100% (which will probably fail in short order since the mechanics are not generally designed for such) is not going to be drawing the 1.6kW you are suggesting.
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.
Good luck!
> 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.
> and the misleading way it's being compared to a Powerwall, despite not being a comparable product
100% this. I had to read a whole wall of text to get to "it's a really fancy UPS". Definitely places that will be useful, but I think a lot of people here are far more excited by the possibilities of products like Powerwall which move us towards a greener future than by large, stylish batteries.
Solar & wind are variable, we need more storage on the grid to charge when these sources are abundant and discharge when they aren’t. Pila offers the same greener future that Powerwall does & makes it so everyone (home owner, renter, condo, or apartment dweller) can be part of this greener future.
> Solar & wind are variable, we need more storage on the grid to charge when these sources are abundant and discharge when they aren’t. Pila offers the same greener future that Powerwall does & makes it so everyone (home owner, renter, condo, or apartment dweller) can be part of this greener future.
This account's first comments started 4 days ago on another Pila thread. It says "This is awesome! The end of power outages for all of us!"
I'm going to guess this is another Pila employee.
Conceptually, sure, but in practice: I can't run my aircon or heating off this; my stove, dishwasher, and washing machine are wired into special circuits so I can't plug them in; if I use this for what you're suggesting on my fridge, I lose all the UPS-functionality you're pushing so hard, because I am regularly discharging it.
Entering an existing market with nothing new but a sleek, Apple-like UI that makes it eady for the average user has proven to be a business success again and again. And it's had detractors who turned out to be wrong ever since "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." If not before.
> Entering an existing market with nothing new but a sleek, Apple-like UI that makes it eady for the average user has proven to be a business success again and again
The competing products also have apps with good UIs.
This is a marketing play. It appears to be working, given how many people are convinced it's a new idea.
> This is not a new product, though...Battery power inverters with AC and solar input are a popular class of products.
Often "totally new product" == bad (or more accurately, "first mover" == bad)
I think there is a misconception that totally new products make the money. But the second (or later) mover is often in a better position [1].
Dropbox was not new. File sharing existed prior. AirBnB was not new. Vrbo existed prior. Ethereum was definitely not the first crypto.
The iPod was not new. MP3 players were popular enough to be found at most electronics stores.
My rule of thumb is I want competitors. I want a product category to have some existing popularity (so I know there is money to be made), but not universal.
I think we're far from battery storage being universal in homes and world-wide.
So, if someone can become the iPod or Dropbox of battery storage, that might be a $100+ billion company.
I don't know if Pila is it. But the idea of a battery mesh, instead of the all-or-nothing powerwall sounds interesting.
I would love to be able to build up my home battery storage 1-kwh at a time instead of financing a giant battery all at once.
I can especially see that having value in middle-income countries.
Edit: Adjusted my 10-kwh statement to 1-kwh to make the example make more sense.
[1]: https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/the_second_...
I really like this concept. Except I don’t know where / how to integrate it.
My kitchen is already built with a fridge integrated into cabinets. There’s no place to put the battery. And even if there were, it would be a $1k machine dedicated to the fridge. That somewhat makes sense in that food can spoil, and we still want to be able to use the fridge, but I wish more could be powered.
The next obvious thing is lights in the home. But this doesn’t allow me to do that outside of lamps; chandeliers and overheads do not apply.
I’d love this to power the garage door opener, but right now there’s power that goes to it on the ceiling. It’d be really difficult to find a way to mount this to also include the opener without being super janky or needing an electrician to totally rewire that circuit. At that point the price has gone considerably up.
I guess the last bit would be internet / networking gear, although I could get a cheaper UPS for that. I’m also not entirely certain I’d even have internet to connect to if the power was out given I have fiber.
If I were remodeling the house that feels like the right time to add such a thing.
If you are going as far as a remodeling, just get a powerwall added to the entire house's electricity supply and you avoid confusion/hassle at the outlet level.
Tangential here.
Here we are, rightfully thrashing a product because of disinformation, while we have a president product doing this on a global scale. Not a peep. It's always the little guy (with the exception of Google at HN) who get gets the flack when they do something wrong.
Misdirection is the most powerful political weapon, and we currently have a criminal making sure only he can wield it, with a fan base that loves the exercise of power, loves to see destruction, all in the name of (power to) Christianity. Christianity was losing so it got on board with a loser. No more "by faith" and "Jesus is the Lord". Now they cheer on the hole the USA is digging for others, only to fall in it themselves. Then "Elon" can save it and establish himself as the emperor of the world. The USA is just a pawn being played right now.
All this while we get upset with a small competitor and by the same rules we can't put our eyes on the big players. Dang, because we can only talk about tech. Well, dang, just make a section where we can go to make X-rated, tangential, comments. Because we sure don't want to go to X.
I personally remember sh*tting on doordash...what a stupid idea.
The zune will do everything the ipod does at the same price.
But this product isn't actually a new concept. Competing products have been out for years with better specs and prices, even.
Which ones?
A bog-standard Uninterruptible Power Supply. Available from multiple manufacturers (big names are e.g. Eaton, Schneider/APC, but there are lots of choices) in all sizes from "powers your desk light" to "powers your whole house/datacenter/emergency room".
Maybe there is value in marketing such a product to ordinary people that are not in IT or electrical engineering. Maybe you can improve on existing control interfaces and design. But don't be surprised when an established UPS vendor copies your product and crushes you with better numbers because of size.
Do I have to point to 1000 failed Show/Launch HNs with negativity? This kind of cliched meta commentary whenever a Show/Launch is criticized on HN is getting really old.
I’d be interested in 2 or 3 successful show HNs that had positivity, actually, if you want to go searching. I’m not aware of any, and it would be useful to be able to better understand what high volume commenters on HN are good at assessing as far as product goes.
Most (vocal) participants on HN that comment on product launches have almost no understanding of what will make a successful product / company.
I’ll put my money where my mouth is - check my comments on the ethereum launch thread.
Search for top Show HN threads within a month and click on each one: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=tr...
Most of them are overall positive, a few are overwhelmingly positive (it's true even when you exclude silly fun ones and focus on actual products); "had positivity" is such a low bar, it's absurd you're "not aware of any". Even this one has your comment at the top, apparently that doesn't even count as "had positivity" to you.
Moreover, even if 100% of Show HNs get 100% negative commentary, there's still zero logic in the statement "judging by the negativity here you're going to be a massive success".
Edit: Okay you said "successful" Show HNs. Then we'll have to argue about what's successful, and I can't be bothered. But you can go to the all time results instead and I certainly spot a few what I would consider success stories.
What does “coordinated” mean to you? It’s not distributing power it’s just reporting on usage.
Thanks so much! We'll address as much feedback as we can of course, but I hear you :D
How many watts max output? Couldn't see it on the site. Thanks!
It's 2.4kW continuous, 7.8kW surge (ie to start up a sump pump, etc).
Thanks for considering!
So not to be mean, but EcoFlow's website for a similar (slightly higher capacity) product has much lower times for how long it can power. For example, it claims 14h for a refrigerator (you're claiming 32) and 97h for a router, while you're claiming 132 hours.
Now they might be conservative and you could maybe advertise a bit more liberal times but if you're competition claims their (almost identical) product has substantially lower times people might question that. Obviously EcoFlow is your real competition here and people are going to go check them out.
So by all means claim somewhat better times ;) but maybe not as much as you are.
Don't get me wrong though, you have a cool product and there's definitely room in that space for more options!
https://us.ecoflow.com/products/delta-2-max-portable-power-s...
This is my favorite comment!
Those others couldn't burn down your house based on a faulty code push. Also, 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. If that improves, it seems simple
I was quite amazed to learn that creditcard debt is such a plague in US... I mean you (not the one I'm replying to) are using money you don't own and hoping you will not only own it tomorrow but pay back the debt?
Don't buy things you cannot afford and won't have to live paycheck to paycheck.
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.
It also means battery in Spanish.
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 more registrable than the English word itself. "[A] word taken from a well-known foreign modern language, which is, itself, descriptive of a product, will be so considered when it is attempted to be registered as a trade-mark in the United States for the same product."
Worse yet, it might happen that the USPTO does mistakenly approve the trademark, but then revokes it when it's challenged.
Because Spanish is the second most spoken language in every US state, 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. At least here in Argentina that's the term we normally use for single-cell batteries like a AA, while a car battery is a "batería".
> 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.
I think you misread the pull quote. There is definitely a store in Salt Lake (er, “greater Salt Lake area”) that primarily serves the Spanish-speaking population. There’s actually a chain called Rancho Markets.
(If you go to the deli section and say “costillas marinadas” to the right person, you will be given a bag of deliciously marinated short ribs.)
The GP said that in any city there is a store. Not that all or most stores will understand that request, but that there is at least one.
∃∧¬∀. You may want to review De Morgan's laws.
If you’re in Minneapolis I could recommend a few stores where that’d work.
And Italian. It’s actually named after Alessandro Volta’s (the guy who named the Volt) name for the "Pila di Volta" - his stack of soaked rags that stored electricity, or what we'd nowadays call a battery stack. Pila is a Pile that stores electricity or a Battery - Pila :)
Huh. I always sorta associated the word with a voltaic pile ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaic_pile ), which... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pila gives an etymology of coming from Latin's "pīla" = "pillar", which feels close? Or maybe it's just a coincidence.
That’s 100% it! It was named after the Voltaic Pile or Pile/Stack of Volts.
I always thought it's karailius (karalius means king in Lithuanian)
One time set-up: 1- Plug Pila in :D
The results are shocking!
Big Pila Energy?
lol not the same in Brazilian, but interesting :)
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 up electricity at night when it's cheap to use it during the day.
But this doesn't fit any of those categories. It's way too expensive to run a desktop computer, doesn't last anywhere near long enough for power outages from natural disasters, and isn't going to make a meaningful difference in your energy bill if a single device can only handle 5% of your home's daily energy needs.
And you don't even need it for a fridge/freezer -- it'll stay cold enough on its own for a day without power as long as you don't open it much.
I applaud the creativity, but I genuinely don't understand who the market is supposed to be?
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 your home.
A pull-sting generator (gas) is great - and a push-button one is around 1K also btw- but it doesn’t go on automatically if you’re out, and be noisy, can only be started after the hurricane, etc
Finally, local-first is super important to us for outage or otherwise - we integrate with Home Assistant and have public MQTT topics you can directly hook into no matter what happens to Pila the company, as long as your hardware lasts (predicted 10 years).
Idk - that’s where we feel like the position and gap in this market is? But we may be wrong :)
Have you looked at any of the integrated options?
Apparently a company in San Francisco put together 110V electric stoves with induction cooktops and integrated batteries --- they then sold them to folks applying for tax rebates to replace gas stoves in kitchens which weren't wired for 220V.
One notable appliance you don't mention on your website is electric water pumps for wells in rural areas....
Similarly, are your devices able to provide sine wave power to run small electric tool motors? Folks with CNC machines might be interested, or perhaps they could run tools on jobsites? How many small tool batteries could be charged from one? Would it fit in a Systainer? Might make a nice fit for folks w/ Festools.
> One notable appliance you don't mention on your website is electric water pumps for wells in rural areas....
We had a well in one of the houses we lived in when I was a kid, and its pump was wired directly to our mains panel. So this sort of thing wouldn't work with a Plia, which assumes you're dealing with stuff that plugs into a normal electrical outlet.
Certainly this type of setup could be rewired to have an outlet and a plug in the middle, but for most people that would mean hiring an electrician.
> 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.
Definitely! It’s primarily backup, and secondarily an arbitrage device :)
The average fridge loss is estimated at $300 per outage, and the average fridge outage insurance claim is $600 I just learned today from an insurance agent at SXSW at our booth (apparently a lot of lobster is bought the day of the outage :P).
> The average fridge loss is estimated at $300 per outage
Holy crap, I don't think our fridge fits 300 dollars' worth of food. We have trouble fitting a ~140€ grocery run into the fridge and probably at least half of that is non-refrigerated products. Hard to say how many days' food this is, probably close to a week, so a 36h+ outage (where the fridge actually got warm for a while) would have an average occupancy of much less than the initial 140€, maybe 60 or so? Idk. Not that I remember ever having a power outage longer than 8 hours in my life, neither the Netherlands nor Germany nor Belgium nor Finland (the countries I lived in)
Either Americans and their fridges are built different or this risk (chance & impact) is way overblown
Does this perhaps include opportunity cost where you can't work because you need to get new groceries? Generously, let's say you spend an hour in the store and an hour planning, going, and unpacking, so you'd be valuing those 2h at a consultancy rate of some 100$/hour
American fridges are generally much bigger than European ones. Mine is something like 27 cubic feet, which I understand is around double the size of an average European fridge.
I don’t think I’ve ever lost power for long enough that I lost anything in the fridge though, but there are parts of the country with a much less reliable grid (usually due to severe storms or other natural disasters).
It's pretty simple - europeans are more frequently going to shop. US/AU/NZ drive and do a bigger shop to last half a week or so.
Also most of Europeans live in apartments - your power cables are underground. In suburbs, putting cables are underground is too expensive and overhead wires are easily damaged during storms.
I lost $1000 in groceries in the Bay Area in 2023. Four multi-day outages on the peninsula.
I’m on the Peninsula. Don’t remember an outage longer than few hours in my lifetime.
> 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 generator, a neighbor's etc).
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.
The portability of the unit also makes a great use case for off-grid, getaway or usage in a remote location, or perhaps just as an additional option for existing setups.
Being able to plug it into a NA standard plug into a more capable generator (or other outlet) to recharge is useful.
Without knowing the price point... van life folks have solar batteries and the published power specs seem to be competitive and useful for powering higher-draw appliances and devices.
The payback period to make arbitrage useful would be very specific to the user and how much electricity costs in their locale, but this calculation should take into account the delivery costs component of a utility bill that can be the same or higher than the cost of the actual electricity.
Price is $999 for people who pay $99 for pre-order. Normal price is $1299
I struggle with the math on how this is running your typical fridge for even 16 hours
I can’t afford something like this but I would absolutely get something similar to this if I could.
My sump pumps are literally one of my biggest home ownership worries.
> My sump pumps are literally one of my biggest home ownership worries.
There are a lot of sump pump backup solutions on the market at around half the price of this unit.
There are also a lot of similar lithium battery + solar devices at less than half the price: https://us.ecoflow.com/products/delta-2-portable-power-stati...
You should address that with exterior grading and diverting gutter run off so far away from the structure that it can’t seep back toward your basement.
If water can get in, it will. And it will do it when your sump is not operating.
If you’ve already addressed it externally and you’re still seeing water come in, then you didn’t address it completely. End state should a totally passive system where the sump never even fills.
And if that doesn’t work, sell the house and get one on top of a hill!
My dad put together a backup system- in spring time, they get weeks of water running at their house, so he's got two pumps on two separate batteries in case either pump or battery dies.
You can even get an all in one system for around $200 if you want to save up for something more robust:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Basement-Watchdog-Emergency-Batt...
We can start a Sump Pump with the 7,800W startup power (2,400W running).
I’d recommend DIY if you don’t want/need/can’t afford an integrated solution. I built my own with parts off Amazon but it doesn’t take a bit of knowledge and research. Fun project though.
This is definitely aimed at the other 99% that’s not gonna wire this up themselves though, of course :)
Are the batteries COTS units? In 10 years when they fail, can I get new ones from Grainger or Amazon or wherever and replace them?
Bullshit on the fridge. A modern day french door uses almost 2 kWh per day at the mid range model level (which really isn't that different from older top freezers). Higher end fridges use even more. The 1.6 kWh capacity isn't enough for 2-3 days.
Sadly, a modern day french door is pretty inefficient. Consumers prefer them because of their looks but they are very far from being an efficient way to keep food cold.
Why are they any less efficient than a single-door fridge? Losses in between the two doors? I don't see why it should be much different. Both types of fridge causes the cold air to "fall out" when you open the door(s).
A top-loading chest fridge/freezer is of course most efficient, but don't think many people have those in their kitchens.
> 2kWh per day.
That’s a lot of energy! What fridge do you have?
Wow, I was surprised by this claim too, and found the specs for my fridge[0]. 755 kWh/yr, which works out to just over 2 kWh/day. Damn, that's a lot!
[0] https://www.samsung.com/us/home-appliances/refrigerators/4-d... (my fridge is probably around 15 years old, so it might even be less efficient if this one is a newer model)
Check out this[0] and think about regional markets: half the capacity with 108kWh/yr consumption. I had theirs previous gen one and can attest that the number is correct.
[0] https://www.samsung.com/uk/refrigerators/bottom-mount-freeze...
According to this, it really is not:
https://www.energysage.com/electricity/house-watts/how-many-...
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 independence very easily.
(1) https://www.bluettipower.com/collections/power-stations
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.
EcoFlow, as best as I can tell from chats with Ukranian folks, has become a generic term for such battery backups. They are very common given the load shedding.
> it'll stay cold enough on its own for a day without power as long as you don't open it much.
Food in an unpowered fridge will be unsafe within 4 hours: https://www.foodsafety.gov/food-safety-charts/food-safety-du...
So when you have the pack of cheese on the table at 19°C for 45 minutes for perhaps a week before it's used up... you should drive to the hospital? Most of the continent does this as far as I know (having lived in and visited friends around northwestern Europe) and I have yet to hear someone tell a horror story of getting food poisoned after leaving the cheese/salami at room temperature for a cumulative 2 hours
This is not realistic, this is perhaps an "absolutely 100% guaranteed still safe for your baby while it is sick" value, which I guess makes sense for a government agency but they could communicate whom this advice is for
Edit: scrolling further down the table, also cooked pasta, rice, potatoes, vegetables, and sauce should be discarded. These products cooked, so they cooled down through optimal breeding temperatures while you had dinner for an hour, before they even started their journey from room down to fridge temperature. They should be discarded according to this table and never consumed in the first place (explicitly: don't even taste to see if it's still good). Not to mention what spoiled while it was on your plate
That’s much too conservative in opinion, at least around eggs, cheese and dairy.
In the US our store bought eggs are washed and are not safe to store unrefrigerated. If you get your eggs from the back of a hen it's a different story.
> will be unsafe
That is absolute BS - food is considered unsafe after the food itself spends 4 hours above 40*f, so the website you’re linking to assumes a fridge and everything in it immediately warms to 41+* upon losing power? Physics doesn’t work that way….
You've misread the table. 40F for 2 hours is the guideline. A typical fridge is around 35-38F.
Anecdotally my parents had a fridge fail recently and the food heated up alarmingly quickly.
Sounds like your parents fridge was poorly insulated, and thus consumed way more electricity than a modern fridge needs to.
I tried to warn them about french doors...
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, while Powerwall 3 will run you $731.41/kWh. So it does seem the Plia is price-competitive, assuming my paragraph above is correct. And Powerwall will cost you even more than that per kWh since Plia is a self-install, while Powerwall is not.
Granted, there are cheaper options than Powerwall.
Plia certainly has its downsides: if you want it to power everything in your home, you have to put one (or more) in each room and plug everything into it (that's 8 or 9 Plias per Powerwall-equivalent). Presumably a whole-home battery can charge faster than a Plia, since you're probably plugging it into a 15A outlet where it'll be pulling less than 1800W.
powerwall load capacity is significantly higher. pila could never come close to the sort of load that pw3 can sustain
meanwhile, i can find battery solutions that output 120v on aliexpress, for $700 for a 1.8kwh battery
anyways this show hn post is clearly an ad for a not particularly novel product. sorry plia!
> 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).
I live in an area where we get a handful of outages every year. From a few hours to a few days.
My current setup is a 2.8Kv generator I haul our of the shed, run a few extension cords to core things like fridge/freezer, internet, office etc.
This is a nice fit between a generator and a Powerwall. Generator is a pain if you have to setup + if not home the fridge stays off or my wife will leave to me unless its urgent. A Powerwall (or similar) is a significant investment.
This product covers people like me with occasional outages but it doesn't have the setup or out of home hassle, and its a more financially accessible solution than a Powerwall. I could def see people interested in this.
I looked through the material, but I'm still at a loss how this is different than any recent battery/inverter combination like Ecoflow/Jackery/etc or a UPS with an app. I'm an electrician, and very in to new electrical products but this one just makes me wonder how it's different.
My recently installed Powerwall 3 will only power my home for a few hours. If I don't stop HVAC and car charging, I may be out of power before I even wake up in the morning.
What I really want is my milk not to spoil (keep my family fed, not opening the fridge is defeating the purpose) and to charge devices if the outage will last more than half a day. Pila is WAY cheaper and more targeted.
I considered buying a Jackery Explorer 1000 and pushing my refrigerator out to plug it in during and outage but that seemed ridiculous.
https://www.jackery.com/products/explorer-1000-portable-powe...
EDIT: Other people are mentioning arbitrage, which is also pointless for me. My Powerwall 3 will save me a few hundred dollars a year if I set it send power to the grid AND during that time I lose backup protection.
if your concern is keeping your family fed, consider the last time you had an extended outage. then run the numbers
if it was recent, such as living in certain parts of texas, you should be keeping large amounts of stable water for each person for at least a week (gallon jugs + water filter pens), fuel/burner/pot, rice/beans/etc in a water sealed emergency kit
if it was a long time ago, you should be keeping enough water, vitamins, and high density calorie bricks for 96 hours
it'd be nice to have fresh food, but it's way more practical and reliable to have sustenance stored in a closet somewhere
for a family of four, premade emergency kits for 7 days will run you about $150, and youll need about 25 gallons of water - <$25
$175 or a $1000 battery + $25 for water. idk choice is easy
>It looks beautiful. But I honestly don't understand what the market is.
People who are willing to buy several individual UPS devices for appliances but aren't willing to pay an electrician to install a grid cut off switch so they can power their whole house with a slightly bigger UPS.
Honestly, I could see someone buying one or two of these for their fridge and another for their home office or similar, but they are competing with existing companies that sell a similar product without the UPS feature, like you see nearly every youtuber advertise.
I agree that this doesn't seem useful for time of use arbitrage.
I think it depends on what your electric outages look like. Short outages, a desktop ups probably makes sense. But if you regularly get 12-36 hour outages, this might be a reasonable product for you. Personally, I expect two nines of utility power, so something like this could possibly work (but I already have a 35kW propane fired standby generator)
Yeah, this sounds perfect for the suburb I grew up in - a couple outages a year, but they only lasted about half a day.
"Don't open the fridge so everything stays cold" is a lot more difficult with three teenagers.
Pila has temp sensors that can monitor fridge & freezer temp to give you piece of mind.
So hard to keep the fridge closed & how do you know whether the food is still safe?
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.
Backup can be extended to 62 hours through an expansion pack. A foldable solar array can be plugged in as well to extend backup indefinitely for long outages.
"foldable solar array" lmao how much do you think those generate. please, respond before you look it up
Indefinitely? The device has 2.4kW output and allows plugging in 1.2kW of solar which will work for a part of the day. That's not how "extend indefinitely" works.
I might get this for my basement sump pump in case the power goes out during a storm.
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 all-in-one product to this pila battery would also be around $1000: https://us.ecoflow.com/products/delta-2-max-portable-power-s...
You can easily cut that in half shopping for an inverter and battery separately:
$240 for an inverter: https://www.homedepot.com/p/VEVOR-2500-Watt-3-4-HP-Sump-Pump...
$200 for a battery: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Basement-Watchdog-Maintenance-Fr...
But a lead acid battery might last 5 years where the pila battery is designed for 10+ years, so you're looking at $400 total on batteries. That quickly gets close to the $1000 for one pila battery.
I want to believe $100 is all you need, but to me the math with the numbers that I've seen suggests $1000 is not unreasonable for something like this.
> 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.
It depends on the wattage and duty cycle of your sump pump.
My experience with sump pumps is low wattage and intermittent use. Sounds like this does not correspond to yours.
Exactly, traditional lead-acid UPS cannot power much for long and often last less than 3 years.
Pila is great value.
You buy lithium battery (lifepo4) not agm, much longer life time. I have exactly the same Vevor inverter + lithium battery total cost was 400$. But I regret doing this setup, I should have just gotten Ecoflow power station, it's a bit more expensive but more versatile.. You can take it with you anywhere
Thanks for the suggestion. It looks like 100Ah LiFePo4 batteries are pretty easy to find too.
This can start up a Sump Pump with a 7.8kW surge (2.4kw running output)
If you can put a backup battery into an outlet and have it work well like an appliance there is a lot of utility there. Pumps and fans for gas hvac systems as well as sump pumps are more critical and less power hungry than a fridge. I would much rather have a web page on wifi to monitor it than another blu tooth app, but whatever.
That being said 1.6 kw/h for $1000 is WAY overpriced. Lithium Iron Phosphate battery prices are dropping like a stone. This should be a third of the price and eventually that's exactly what someone will sell it for.
1.6 KWh capacity with 2.4 KW output [0].
I couldn't find a price on the website (the $99 is just for a reservation) but from this thread it looks like it's priced at $1k [1].
For context, in the USA, 30 KWh is a rough estimate for average daily home usage [2].
[0] https://pilaenergy.com/tech-specs#faq
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43333996
[2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/electricit...
Thanks for bringing more details to the thread - We've just launched, and for folks who like what they see and want to be first to get Pila the (refundable, cancel anytime) $99 deposit will lock in $999. Once we start shipping and fulfilling through other distribution channels, price will increase to $1299
Also, spot on that the average home draws about 30kWh, and with an EV driven average daily ranges that'll jump to about 60kWh.
This is an interesting idea and I wish you a good luck building a profitable business around it.
Before starting to apply voltage to a home electric gird, I guess you need to disconnect it from the central grid - how do you do that? Or do you detect when the grid goes down and comes back up?
Pila detects when the grid goes down & when it returns. This is done by all home batteries & Pila is no different.
The point IMO is not to backup your whole home though. That already exists with Generac (20-50K if you need to dig a new gas line) or Powerwall (10-20K depending on electrician and needs). All need permits.
This is meant as a more precise, room-by-room backup solution!
Maybe I’m wrong though, just wanted to position.
> I couldn't find a price on the website (the $99 is just for a reservation) but from this thread it looks like it's priced at $1k [1].
The pre-order page says it will be $1300 after the pre-order period.
Given these stats and the price in the sister comment, this costs $24,400 for a day of backup.
This makes the LCD displays on the front page of the website listing "5 days 6 h ours" and similar on a single unit very misleading. That amount of backup would cost $128,000.
For folks that are looking for true whole-home backup, with every load protected, investing in something like a Powerwall would be the way to go. I don't see Pila trying to compete with whole-home systems. We were inspired to build Pila because many folks I've spoken with over the years are most concerned just about backing up a few key loads (fridge, wifi, charging phones, some lights). For them a $10-30k whole home system is a lot of extra spend, and if they rent those systems may be off the table to begin with.
I assume it least has enough smarts to only show the battery capacity for whats in it. It can't run a whole house, so comparing it against an entire household's average load might be unrealistic.
Correct, 1 can’t run your whole house, but you can get 1 per room and backup your whole house that way.
So it's just a smarter UPS, (that can integrate with solar panels) but you only compare it to a standby generator.
Seems like you need to compare it to a UPS too, because that's what it really, really is.
Right. There are dozens of those things on Amazon, usually called a "power station". 1.1KWh costs about US$700. 2KWh costs about US$1000. This thing is 1.2KWh for $1000.
"Reserve now ... Orders are expected start shipping by the end of 2025."
Can't get funding? Or just testing demand without a real product? Nobody does Kickstarters for a me-too product.
It has an "app" user interface, requiring both a cellular connection and the service remaining in business. Plus it wants WiFi so it can receive "software updates". What could possibly go wrong?
It's a battery/power bank/station that can be remotely controlled and aggregated into a so-called "virtual power plant", which the manufacturer can then sell power source/sink capacity to grid operators. That's why the cellular connectivity is there.
That is the true purpose of the entire operation - all other functionality is a distraction (and can be taken away at any time by a software update despite any promises).
As per their FAQ (https://pilaenergy.com/tech-specs#faq):
> As balcony solar and plug-and-power products gain momentum, we welcome collaboration with AHJs and utilities to help responsibly shape the future of home energy. If you're interested in partnering with Pila, reach out!
The plan is to find enough people to buy these so they have enough aggregate storage capacity to solicit "collaboration" and "partnerships" (https://pilaenergy.com/press) with utilities and make profit (I'm fairly confident the device is currently sold at a loss), with the buyers getting scraps in the best case scenario, and nothing in the worst/expected case.
I guess the buyers of the batteries will at least be satisfied with the knowledge that they have paid to "responsibly shape the future of home energy".
> It has an "app" user interface, requiring both a cellular connection and the service remaining in business. Plus it wants WiFi so it can receive "software updates". What could possibly go wrong?
Do not be so dismissive so fast without reading. The FAQs and the website says that they have a local interface and requires no internet for controlling it. E.g from https://pilaenergy.com/tech-specs
"While we think you’ll love the Pila App, you’re welcome to connect your own monitoring platform with our free local APIs. We embrace and actively support open standards like Home Assistant, Matter, and Thread for local data streaming from Pila Batteries — Because your data should always stay yours. Local API documentation coming soon. "
"Pila does not require internet to provide backup power, monitoring, or smart energy management features. The Pila Battery Mesh Network keeps all batteries working together, even when your home Internet goes out. The Pila App includes a Local Connection Mode for reliable battery control and monitoring without internet.
For reliable Remote Monitoring, all Pila batteries are equipped with a cellular 4G LTE radio for backup communication when home Wi-Fi fails.
However, we highly recommend keeping Pila batteries connected to Wi-Fi to receive the latest software updates and unlock new features, enhancements, and performance improvements—ensuring your system gets smarter and more capable over time."
Great that they are local first. Far too many IOT products getting bricked these days. Plus my parents can use this without having to explain how to use the app. Just show them the touch screen.
This audience is definitely more up on tech - I've been surprised how often folks I talk to have never heard of UPS's!
We know we're not the first people to think of automatic plug in backup :) Aspirationally, we aim to do to the UPS what the Powerwall did to the lead acid battery bank -- Bring it into the 21st century, level up to better technology, add software intelligence so it's not sitting idle 99% of the time, and improve the design and usability to make it a more exciting and valuable product for more homes
>add software intelligence so it's not sitting idle 99%
Its a battery backup, how would it not be sitting idle 99% of the time?
Good clarification! Smarter backup batteries like Pila or Powerwall can be configured to dynamically charge and discharge, giving the benefit of outage protection and energy management. For example, charge up from the solar power you produce at home, and use that stored solar power to offset energy usage at night or when utility power is expensive. They they have a "backup reserve" setting which allows you to set a minimum charge to always be stored for an unexpected outage. Smart features like "Storm Mode" can use severe weather alerts to automatically charge up to 100% ahead of an outage to ensure you're prepared for possible outages
It can charge when energy is cheap & discharge when energy is expensive. If you have solar it can charge when solar is producing and discharge at night.
At first I thought it was some kind of UPS that would automatically "inject" AC to the house when it detected that there was no current in the mains (hence the connection to mains). But it seems it is just a glorified UPS... is that what the tesla "Wall" is?
A "no Electrician required" device that plugs into your wall and back-feeds power is a HUGE safety issue, and a HUGE no-no.
Half the problem with home-generation is a cutoff/sync device that synchronizes the frequency of your local generation with the grid, and kills power going back into the grid from your home generator when there is an outage, so line workers can do their jobs safely. And unless there is a more expensive/complicated device that can 'smear' the frequencys between the two systems slowly so they match after a disconnect/reconnect, most of these systems will shutdown local generation if there is no reference frequency from the main power feed.
Why is this a safety issue? Home batteries are capable of detecting outages and ensuring that they don’t back-feed after an outage. Pila is no different.
Don't you work for Pila? Shouldn't you know that?
If you backfeed during an outage, and then the grid reconnects, you're fighting the grid. If you backfeed during an outage and an electrician is trying to fix lines near you, you can hurt them.
Why does the OP say it "disconnects in 20 ms of detecting an outage"? If it's a UPS, it doesn't need to disconnect - It's just no longer fed by the grid. If it's back-feeding, the point would be to _start_ the connection when you detect an outage. But backfeeding is an extremely bad idea.
There is some merit to using it with appliances like refrigerators and washing machines. No backfeeding needed.
So, a UPS, or a Jackery
100%
> is that what the tesla "Wall" is?
Yes, plus an auto-transfer-switch
I don't understand this. It's a tiny backup battery with an expensive enclosure, with only 100W of solar input? How are you expected to run solar wiring with this in your living room?
The places that can afford this rarely have power outages, so having an dedicated appliance sitting in your living room or kitchen for those 1-2 times a year doesn't make sense. The capacity is barely enough to run your fridge for a day, I'd rather have a higher capacity unit that just sits in my garage that I can actually charge on solar (that costs the same price).
For the places that really need backup power, this is way too expensive.
Recently I had a power outage due to a storm, and the first thing I did the next morning was go to the store and get several bags of ice, which I put into the fridge and freezer. The fridge was still cold enough several days later when power was finally restored.
This could still have been useful if we weren't home, but as you said these things happen so rarely here that I cannot see myself getting something like this, especially for the fridge since ice just works.
To be fair though, it did mean we could not open the fridge willy-nilly, maybe that helped me lose some weight...
100%! This is a great solution, many people also freeze a glass of ice and put a coin on top so if there is an outage when they’re out, the coin will be frozen at the bottom when they get back (and they know their meat won’t be any good).
Pila is meant more as a set-and-forget solution if you want something seamless and connected.
Great question. It’s 1.8kwh and 2.4kw out (7.8kw surge) can run a fridge for 2-3 days, and is meant as room for room backup. For sure you can build something yourself for cheaper - I have - but most Americans don’t. Only 0.03% of the US has home battery storage like Powerwall or a bank of LiFePo batteries, and the 99% uses diesel generators or waits it out.
That’s the part of the market we’re trying to simplify things for :)
> Great question. It’s 1.8kwh and 2.4kw out (7.8kw surge) can run a fridge for 3-4 days,
Your marketing page says 32 hours for a fridge (1.3 days, first icon in the table)
Your other comment said 2-3 days for a fridge.
This comment says 3-4 days for a fridge.
In places like Germany it's supposedly becoming more common to have a solar panel on the balcony and use a similar plugin device. I think the legal situation in the US is more tricky unfortunately
Not only in Germany, as per Commission Regulation EU 2016/631 systems under 800W are not regulated as power generating facilities - you just need a two-way meter installed on request by your power company and you're good to go.
Does the two-way meter have a way to prevent back feeding the grid in the event of a power outage? Having an unregulated device even under 800W seems like it could be dangerous to anybody working on the power lines.
> prevent back feeding the grid in the event of a power outage?
Yes - such devices need a constant grid output to sync to. When the grid drops, their output drops. Furthermore, at 800W, it wouldn't be able to put any voltage onto the grid even if it tried to as it would get overloaded (it'll be trying to power up the entire neighborhood).
I think the idea was maintenance, so the connection to the neighbors would've been interrupted, thus the only connection would be through the person doing the maintenance.
100% across Europe & Utah. Soon to be across the US!
It surely sounds like your regular UPS.
If it actually has a good sinusoidal output, that's something, but yeah.
Is this a product for the USA? Is the grid that bad to need something like that?
Yeah, in some parts. California suffers from rolling blackouts during wildfire season. It's going to get worse before it gets better because of climate change, a bankrupt utility, and the time it takes to properly bury all the power cables.
Having a garage sure does sound nice!
I wouldn't call 1.6kWh tiny, running your fridge and charging phones for a day will have a big market in places that might get outages during the winter that last a day or two. How about apartment dwellers in cities? Not everyone needs something gigantic or permanent.
They support up to 1200W of solar with the expansion pack. Running a cable out a window during a prolonged outage doesn't seem like a huge deal, but I'd guess most of the use case is shorter outages < 48 hours.
The solution is far cheaper than something like the Tesla powerwall (which I have and adore, but it's definitely a bigger investment).
> The solution is far cheaper than something like the Tesla powerwall
That's like saying a $120K luxury pickup truck is a good deal because it's far cheaper than buying an entire semi-truck.
This is a UPS. Comparing it to the Powerwall is a marketing trick to distract people from the high price.
Powerwall is a UPS as well. It’s just larger and more expensive.
Right, just like a semi truck is a truck as well. It's just larger and more expensive.
But comparing the two doesn't make sense.
I'm not a fan of these devices in general as I'm more of a DIY, but...
A Ecoflow Delta 2 Max is $1100, gives you 2kWh capacity and 1000W of solar input. if you have a power outage, you can actually keep it topped off w/ solar while keeping your fridge, gas furnace, etc running.
If you're gonna hang a wire out the window, why pay the premium for the pretty enclosure and screen?
Not to hard pivot but any DIY links you’d recommend? I’ve been getting into this field and would like to DIY something around this scale. Keep a fridge running, maybe have a little dc circuit for a home lab.
In addition to Will's channel, don't overlook thermal battery links, too, which often can be made out of old water heaters that folks dump on craigslist all the time. The gist behind thermal batteries is to help with the (solar->battery->coil->hot water) efficiency loop by changing it to (solar->coil->sand->hot water) e.g. https://hackaday.com/2022/11/21/making-a-do-it-yourself-sand... (I love his channel, too) or https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/04/18/1091481/how-to-b...
They also have vastly different failure modes than pumping a bunch of DC voltage into battery cells
There was also recently a post about flow batteries <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41235789> which are also very interesting to me, but I haven't gotten far enough into that learning curve to know if they're a good fit
Will Prowse on youtube a great resource.
For <$1000, you can get a 3-5kWh system (battery+solar charge controller+inverter)
Pila allows you to plug in solar as well.
I agree, 1.6kWh is a good bit of energy during an outage. Get the expansion pack & you get 3.2kWh. My house, most of my consumption is large loads. If I just needed essentials backed up, this would be perfect. Fridge, Starlink, and phone.
It would be quite smart if this battery only runs on a single power group. You could get like 2 or 3 of these and put them on your most important power groups. But you disable the power groups of nonessential but heavily consuming devices such as your car charger, heating, washing machine, or drying machine.
That way, three small batteries that only power part of your house would be cheaper than powering your entire house.
From your site: "For homes with electricity prices that vary throughout the day, Pila optimizes charging to help manage your utility bills."
Based on experiments like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtNq-0kV8YM, I'm extremely skeptical. Can you back this claim?
Also, why are people going to spend $1,300 on this when a good UPS is a fraction of the price, and (for example) an Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus is $3,200?
That video's conclusion is misleading - he's only shifting his fridge's energy consumption. That's not actually much in the grand scheme of things - it's a well-insulated box that is already a thermal battery. In fact, he only discharged his power bank to 64% at the end of the day, so he didn't even use up his full capacity (that he paid for and is factored in his spreadsheet).
Batteries can provide significant savings but for that you need to actually use them fully, either by load-shifting significant loads (if you have enough to fully consume the battery capacity), or just charging/discharging the battery directly into the grid (essentially acting like a grid storage system - charging the battery to full when energy is the cheapest, and dumping it back when it's the most profitable). Even better when you have solar - instead of selling that energy at low feed-in prices, save it in batteries and use it once the sun goes down so (if you have enough battery capacity) you never ever need to actually "buy" any energy from the grid.
I believe the Pila can technically do the above, although its battery capacity is probably too small to ever recoup its purchase price on this type of arbitrage. However, the underlying concept is absolutely workable and profitable with the right equipment.
> I believe the Pila can technically do the above, although its battery capacity is probably too small to ever recoup its purchase price on this type of arbitrage.
That's my point, thank you for putting it so succinctly. The front page opens showing the Pila being used for a refrigerator — presumably doing load shifting, given the front page marketing copy I quoted — so I think asking for data showing that this is a legitimate use case is fair.
It definitely does load shifting and utility rate arbitrage (and solar power charging) as a side benefit, but it’s not built to be an arbitrage machine. Its primary use case is backup, for now.
100% Pila can charge from your home solar or cheap electricity and discharge when power is expensive.
I've used gas and portable "solar/battery" backup generators and UPS systems.
The win for me is the form factor. It can slot right next to any appliance or utility room shelf. The cost is not bad by comparison to portable battery systems, but portable battery systems fall into two form factors:
1. Garage / basement stacks that have to connect to a generator hook-up: which itself costs kilo-dollars. And what if my garage / utility panel isn't heated? Extreme temp swings can degrade these I'd imagine.
2) carry or roll-away. Which is great for camping or pulling out of the closet during an outage, but that's not convenient and not what I'm looking for
And finally, the UPS-like standby power beats both options as well. The solar generator types don't do passthrough power well (they warn against it) and the garage/basement stacks have to be connected to a cutover switch anyway.
Correct me if I'm wrong nowadays but this product beats both those for these reasons.
A UPS can usually only power 100W, not enough for most fridges. Pila can do 2.2kW, enough for fridge, microwave, internet, and coffee maker.
100W is a _very_ small UPS, I don't see any on the first page of the amazon listings that are that small.
Absolutely true, yes. I mentioned UPSs to represent the low-end of the UPS/power station/generator spectrum, with the Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus at the higher-end (which costs only 2.6 Pikas). The video I linked to does a solid job of evaluating the pointlessness of using a more comparable $500 1.8kW Anker SOLIX C1000 for the same use case Pika is pushing, which is what prompted my skepticism.
2 Pilas ir a Pila & a battery expansion offers 3.2kWhs which is enough to qualify for ITC which is a 30% discount.
That conclusion all depends on how much extra power the UPS uses while acting as a pass-through. I think the SOLIX doesn't directly pass through the power so it's having the inefficiencies of conversion to and from AC-DC-AC, maybe this version has a more efficient pass-through system?
Correct, this does direct feed-through no conversion losses for pass through because it uses a relay rather than an inverter to connect to the grid.
I bought lights-out manageable 400 lbs (lots of kWh) of rack mounted sealed lead acid batteries in the form of UPSes with expansions for less than $600.
The other thing is that rewiring a main panel for generator and/or solar to provide emergency power to a subset of circuits is preferred to simply trying to power everything with a tiny battery pack. This usually means adding a subpanel and an automatic transfer switch, which is a heck of a lot simpler than running extension cords through the house and much more fine-grained than powering everything with backfeed.
> What's been your experience with home batteries? What recent power outages have you had, and how were you affected?
I love my Powerwall, but it's not powerful enough to power my HVAC. (Heat pump in a northern climate.) I wish I spent more money on a more powerful one.
The payout I got last year for the virtual power plant was phenomenal. If they continue for a decade or so, the Powerwall will come close to paying for itself.
That being said, when I was a renter, I once went looking for a UPS for my CPAP. I never experienced long outages. (Just the one where the Tesla exec flew into a powerline and died.) I don't think I'd spend $1000 on one of these. Even if I hacked together a solar panel onto one, apartments are so small that it seems like it's overkill.
Wait, a Tesla exec flew into a power line?
When was this?
15 years ago.
https://www.wired.com/2010/02/plane-crash-kills-tesla-employ...
I definitely like it. I experience regular outages and have a whole home generator because of it. But that takes time and isn't cleat. So this is basically how I already have everything set up, with ~6 UPSs scattered around. And I have looked at the whole home systems to get away from that. But the mesh with smart features is definitely interesting.
Does it have any power cleaning functionality? I have occasional issues with voltage drop and it and confuses some of my stuff. The input V is out of range and it cannot get it back up to 120V so it ends up just turning off to avoid passing through to the equipment.
And how about any automatic load shedding? I have some which will start turning off outlets based on percent battery left, to power the most important stuff longer.
You also mention moving past the basic lead acid UPS. I can't seem to find it anywhere, are you not using lead acid batteries? Or what are you using? Will I be able to buy a replacement battery up the street at the battery store like I can my current UPSs? Or will I be locked in to buying replacements from you?
Also looks like you have Smart Outlet Strips mentioned, which are only 3 outlets. Any plans for something more substantial? Like 12s? Most places I have UPSs there are many things plugged in and a single 12 would be preferable over multiple.
It does have power cleaning functionality when it's off-grid, let me check in with hardware if it does that in pass-through mode. Voltage drops it should detect and cover though.
Automatic load shedding will be configured by appliance priority we were thinking, but open to feedback. The fridge should go out last, the wifi first.
We're using a 1.6kWh LiFePo! Replacement is something we're working hard on, I unfortunately can't speak to that until we're closer to shipping (Q3/Q4).
There are 4 outlets btw - 2 on the front, 2 on the back. Plus 4 USB-C outlets that output 100W DC. 100% we are planning something more substantial (240V is also requested a lot), but we're only launching with 1 SKU that fits a lot of use cases for now.
Probably only passing power through when it's still on-grid, because it's more efficient is our current plan for now. Surge protection we will cover though, just voltage drops are not planned to be covered for above reasons.
As soon as the power's going through our inverter, it'll be the clean sine wave you are talking about.
Two questions:
1. Have you considered building a “microgrid interconnection device” to go with this to allow the batteries to backfeed a house in the event of an outage? (This would require native 240V split-phase capability and/or an auto-transformer.)
2. Have you considered removing the fade-in-when-scrolling abomination on your website?
1) Can't be automated without a failover switch to disconnect the house from the grid so it doesn't back feed into the actual power lines outside the house and either break or risk injuring linemen who think a line has been disconnected and isolated.
In addition to that you're feeding energy back in through a much smaller wire so you're limited to the capability of the circuit it's connected to and the devices have to be smart enough to actually limit their output to what the wall can handle. Otherwise imagine you have 2 of these each on 1000W circuits (not a normal circuit but for convenience lets pretend) and you have 1500W of load running elsewhere in the house. One runs out of power because it had a lower charge state when power failed, now unless the remaining UPS limits it's output and browns out everything you're pulling 150% the rated power of your circuit, potentially damaging the wires or the loads you're powering.
This is potentially what's causing fires on nVidia's high power connectors, one connection wears out or is simply loose so more power flows through the remaining pins and it's too much for those wires causing fires/melting the wires.
Feed power in through one circuit back to the main board, on a different circuit cause a short, main breaker trips, main board is now isolated from the grid.
Technically possible, irresponsible, bad advice, and probably won’t work in most scenarios.
Doesn't work and would likely cause fires.
First the smaller circuits will trip first, that's where the current is actually flowing, there wouldn't be any actually flowing through the whole house breaker in your idea. The main circuit to your house is 100+ Amps (this would be a tiny old circuit most houses have larger main feeds these days) at least. You'd have to feed at that much through the main disconnect for it to trip.
Second even if you could push that many amps through the main breaker somehow to trip it you'd be feeding it through wires designed for 15-20 amp nominal loads which would cook them.
> Second even if you could push that many amps through the main breaker somehow to trip it you'd be feeding it through wires designed for 15-20 amp nominal loads which would cook them.
Well, you'd end up tripping the 15-20 amp breaker protecting those wires first.
Probably but I'd rather never send that big of a pulse down a 15/20 amp line at all.
It's no more of a pulse than any other dead short that would trip the breaker instantly rather than on a delay.
The fault current that a breaker is required to be able to interrupt is two orders of magnitude larger than we're talking about feeding into the wire, and a 15 amp breaker is designed to _not_ interrupt a 150 amp load until a second has passed (there's a rating curve for this): some loads might require that much current briefly, and the wire in the wall is not going to overheat in that time (that's why the breaker has the curve that it does: to model and therefore protect the allowable heating of the wiring).
You’re right, my mistake.
This is why we have regulations.
1. I'm actually hopeful we see a generic MID standard emerge with folks like ConnectDER well positioned to support that, so more homes can benefit and households can gain the ability to flexibly try different batteries without ripping out their panels every time. If not, we could definitely build our own (helped build 2 generations of Tesla's MID as well as 3 generations of SPAN Panels with MID functionality). Happy to nerd out on the topic anytime :)
2. Feedback taken hah
Huh, I hadn’t seen ConnectDER before. That’s cute. It’s not entirely clear to me how it interacts with power sources in the house, and it’s also not clear to me whether it’s standardized enough so that a different MID could be used in its place with the same inverters/batteries/whatever. I would love to see the industry standardize on a MID protocol well enough for applications like V2H/V2G to work without absurd levels of vendor lock-in.
I suppose another potential issue would be exceeding the capacity of a panel bus. Balcony solar has the same problem, and I guess no one os likely to connect enough balcony solar units to cause a real problem.
I agree we need a universal option for both home batteries & V2H. ConnectDER is working to be that standard. Tesla’s Backup Switch was supposed to be open, but unfortunately hasn’t been opened for others to integrate with.
Whatever design wins should also be available as a standalone device (maybe even something that can be installed inside an existing enclosure if there’s room and maybe even in a circuit breaker format) and not just a meter ring adapter. There are users who, for various reasons, cannot use meter ring adapters as switches. For example:
- Some services cannot be switched at the meter ring. This includes services that use a current transformer separate from the meter. (As far as I know, this includes all services over “Class 320”.)
- Some apartments aren’t separately metered. Fortunately, this is rare.
- Some users will want to back up only part of a service.
I've seen this "meter plug piggy back vampire tap" scheme used for EV chargers, looks cool to use it for grid tie generators too.
Tesla offers the Backup Switch which is a Meter Socket Adapter(MSA) like ConnectDER.
MID = Microgrid Interconnect Device ?
DER = Distributed Energy Resource ?
SPAN = an energy device company https://www.span.io/ ?
Just had to check the definition of some acronyms and thought others might find the results helpful inline.
Correct, Thanks!
Pila team designed the Powerwall & SPAN microgrid interconnect device (MID) / relay that disconnect the home from the grid. So we could, but we believe the value to be the 0 install cost. Installing an MID can cost anywhere from $2500-15,000 depending on complexity.
1: And of course some sort of isolation of the house from the grid when it's back-feeding.
Yep, and to clarify Pila includes an MID onboard so while Intentionally Islanded there is no backfeed. But in terms of a whole-home disconnect, I believe we'll see more generic options appear that are somewhat DER-agnostic.
>Pila includes an MID onboard
How does that work? Is just not putting energy out the input "plug" count as a MID?
The Tesla MID is in the Tesla Gateway or Backup Switch meter socket adapter. The Pila MID is onboard inside the battery. Pila can push power back through the plug.
When utility power drops, Pila & Powerwall react exactly the same. They both detect the outage, open the MID, and power load downstream of the MID. In the case of Pila it powers loads downstream / plugged into Pila.
Im having trouble understanding this, if you back feed into a circuit why wouldn't it go out via the beaker and onto the power grid?
Given the founder’s background, Pila seems well positioned to create a new Virtual Power Plant. I’d welcome an opportunity to participate in a VPP at a smaller scale than a traditional power wall.
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
Thanks for the great feedback! We’ll definitely take this into consideration.
I like the idea and would probably reserve some if I still lived in the US.
But I don't think you should be setting yourself up against Powerwalls so directly. You're not really competing for the same market. The power storage solution for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls is in fact Powerwalls (or similar) if you have solar panels/want a serious amount of backup power storage.
Your offering is not that. In fact, I can imagine some people with Powerwalls might want to add your product to their house as well, so no point in immediately turning off that 0.3% in your messaging.
Where do you live now?
Asia.
Great point, thank you!
What's the use case here? Power outages?
In Europe we have plug-in batteries that just cycle PV every day to lower your electrical bill. But these are usually 2,5kWh or 5kWh.
In Europe you are hard limited to 800watt on a normal plug, no way you can do 2,4kW without a special fuse.
I don’t know where the 800W is coming from. It is quite common to have 16A breakers on a circuit. That is 3,8kW. My regular apartment has 3x20A breakers and for example my induction hob is 7,2kW two phase.
The 800 watt is a safeguard.
If you add the battery to a 16A circuit then you can theoretically draw 3,8kW + 800watt on it with the battery.
With this Pila battery you could put 3,8kW + 2,4kW on the same circuit!
If you want more than 800watt you can't use a regular plug in your house, it has to be a dedicated circuit.
I've just been looking for a UPS for my home lab.
Do your batteries need any kind of an internet connection to set up or operate? Assuming I wouldn't want to use the app.
Internet's not required, and we're aiming to pack as much offline functionality in as possible. This includes an MQTT based local API (WiFi) and ability to directly tether the phone app to the device over WiFi. Certain app features like historical usage and utility data integrations may not be available if the device isn't internet connected though, just to be transparent.
This is almost exactly my question but I'll be a little more specific. I want to guarantee that no data about my usage leaves my network. You mention local integrations, is there a formal commitment to opening up the platform to opensource local servers? Similarly, what about always providing functionality without sending usage data?
I don't think the intended use-case is servers. The products they list are appliances and less critical electronics.
It has a 20 ms switch-over to battery backup. APC UPS' range from 2 - 6 ms.
There is a StackOverflow answer that says the upper limit for servers is 25 ms but 20 ms might be cutting it fine.
https://serverfault.com/questions/564156/what-is-the-interru...
Why not buy a UPS?
I love the design, but I wonder about the "selling feature".
How many people regularly experience power outages (ok, if you're American relying on Canadian electricity, you might have a right to be concerned).
I'm surprised you're not touting the "save on your power bill" benefits. Could this not store power when rates are low, and use the battery when rates are higher, while maintaining a balanced minimum storage amount to ensure power is available should the power go out?
I'd think it could be quite smart about this if you looked at weather patterns and other factors to calculate a likelihood of an outage, and ensured more back-up was available.
From a selling stand-point, isn't saving money every day a better feature than "just in case the electricity goes out"?
Offsetting power usage to the cheaper time is also the only possible utility I see here. Unfortunately, last time I ran the numbers (against a $10k battery) it would be incredibly difficult to recoup your investment over a reasonable timeframe. Having to limit this to a single room (fridge, AC, whatever) makes it seem even more difficult as the consumption you can push is limited.
I haven’t run the numbers but I believe you. I’m hopeful that a couple years from now we see second or third generations of the same product, at a significantly lower cost.
> How many people regularly experience power outages
Anecdotally in a major city it was rare I would not have a power outage several times a year. In a more rural location now, it's rare I have a month without a power outage, some very extended.
We have a backup generator and it has saved our frozen foods at least a dozen times over the last few years. Installing a backup generator costs about $10k for a whole house permanently installed unit, so it's not a small cost, and the running and maintenance costs are not zero ($5 an hour when running, $100+ a year for parts and consumables)
If Pila existed before you bought the generator, would you have bought a Pila?
Does your generator require maintenance? Is it loud?
> I'm surprised you're not touting the "save on your power bill" benefits.
At ~$600/kWh for capacity, the ROI isn't great. I have a pretty big differential on my rates because I have an EV, and even then I'd need over a decade to make the $1,000 back assuming I fully discharged it every day.
It’s definitely an important feature & will help reduce the purchase price. Especially charging from home solar since it most solar in the US gets installed without a battery.
> ok, if you're American relying on Canadian electricity, you might have a right to be concerned
You don't have to go that far. Puerto Rico is a United States territory with a third-world tier power grid. Most Puerto Ricans rely on electric generators and battery backup systems to survive their day-to-day.
https://www.npr.org/2024/12/31/nx-s1-5243984/puerto-rico-pow...
This is bordering a humanitarian crisis and I'm surprised it gets little attention in the mainland. These outages have a real human cost: the elderly struggle with maintaining their generators. Hospitals rely on generators. Roads and sidewalks are in the dark. The haves get diesel delivered; the have-nots struggle. Some, especially the elderly, die in fires or asphyxia due to their constant operation.
https://www.univision.com/local/puerto-rico-wlii/hombre-muer...
https://www.primerahora.com/noticias/policia-tribunales/nota...
A woman died on New Year's Eve due to a fire in her residence while trying to operate a transfer switch. The power was out all night across the island.
https://wapa.tv/noticias/locales/falla-en-planta-el-ctrica-p...
Apologies for derailing, but it bothers me how little attention this gets. The privatized power company has successfully externalized its costs--thousands of Puerto Ricans are going into debt to install solar panels. Half of the island lives under the poverty line.
People are desperate. A year ago, the Dept of Energy established federal incentives for solar panel installations in the island. These were the kilometric lines to get a voucher:
https://www.telemundopr.com/noticias/puerto-rico/cientos-de-...
In short:
a) This is a real problem. Puerto Rico has 3.5 million American citizens, more than some states.
b) Battery backup systems, solar panel installations and generators are a necessity in these areas.
I wish this product was targeted towards lower income families, but any innovation in the space is welcome.
Adding another comment because I can no longer edit my original.
- Power instability causes serious economic damage to individuals, families and small businesses. Imagine establishing a business in an island where you don't know if you'll have power today.
- In PR, you don't buy groceries for an entire month. The power goes out once and all your food is ruined. Families bear the brunt of these reliability failures.
- Outages damage your appliances. This is even more economic damage to families and the poor. A couple years ago, in jest, protesters from across the island took their damaged appliances to the power company headquarters and dropped them off there.
- Diabetics have to use generators or special machines to keep their insulin refrigerated.
I could keep going. It's a shame that this absurdity is happening in the wealthiest country in the world.
I support Puerto Rican statehood and representation in US federal elections†.
Until then, I don't see any hope of meaningful federal support in times of Puerto Rican crisis. Too many Americans are not sure whether Hawaii is a state, or if Rhode Island is an island. The amount of time that PR occupies anyone's thoughts in Real America™ is basically nil. Just like Trinidad, or Turks and Caicos. "Oh, I know someone who took a cruise there. They don't speak English do they?" That's it.
† I also support Puerto Rican self-determination and independence. :) But that path will not bring FEMA, or infrastructure investment.
yeah it looks like a fancy tech gadget marketed to people in developed countries where you have like one power cut every 2 years
What range of sensitivity does this offer? My US apartment complex has fluctuating levels of neutral sag 24/7/365 and it’s unclear how that would interact with your hardware.
The off-grid detection is based on a combination of voltage and frequency measurement over different time windows, so I'm sorry that I won't be able to give you an exact answer on your situation. I've lived in apartments with bad high impedance neutral connections and it did all kinds of weird things to the loads... Hopefully something your apartment complex can look into!
This whole discussion is very confusing to me - is this just a UPS you have to plug all your items into, or does it somehow back feed into the plug to power the circuit?
If it's the former it's nothing new and inconvenient, if it's the latter how do you avoid backfeeding the grid?
It's just a UPS with an app, as far as I can tell. The outlets are visible in the pictures, they're just hard to see.
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.
> no bidirectional power, no integration with solar or smart home systems, and no ability to manage home energy dynamically. They tend to be boxy, ruggedized, meant to be moved around, not seamlessly integrated into your living space. On top of that, many use e-mobility battery chemistries, which are great for delivering high power on demand but wear out faster when cycled daily for home energy use.
I already use an Ecoflow as quasi-UPS in my networking closet and one for a chest freezer and its worked great for that. They advertise a ~25ms switch over. I think (could be wrong) they also have features like scheduled tasks to managed recharge/discharge schedules.
Is the main difference between an Ecoflow and this basically the form factor?
> Is the main difference between an Ecoflow and this basically the form factor?
The form factor and the potential rugpull in the future when this turns into a subscription and/or a "virtual power plant" where you get the homeowners to pay for the device while the manufacturers sells the aggregated capacity to source/sink power to the highest bidder and keeps the profits. There's a reason these have built-in cellular; you don't put that in (and pay the ongoing data charges) without one.
This thing is too "nice" and polished for its price point, so profits will have to come from somewhere down the line (because they're definitely not making any on the actual device sales).
I'm not sure how that's different from numerous similar products. And the issue is always the same, price.
One 5kWh Pylontech module would cost around 1K too, but that's 5kWh. Plus 500 for an inverter. That would require a couple of wires to be connected, but 5x more power for nearly the same money?
And yes, you can run a heat pump and/or a washing machine on pylontech. I doubt that's possible with these modules.
Definitely a product I've been thinking about... Lead-acid based UPC products have lingered on way too long into the lithium battery age.
I had a lead-acid based UPS which I plugged one DSL modem and my cordless telephone base station into the wall which would give me 3 days of modern communications into a power outage, which happens quite frequently in my location. Once my DSL got upgraded to fiber-to-the-node (with a 10x speed increase) my DSL would quit working when the power went out at the node so the UPS wasn't quite worth using anymore.
Sounds like you need Starlink.
I'm waiting for it to get some competition.
This looks pretty cool.
Whats the idle power consumption of the unit itself without devices connected?
I got rid of an old UPS recently that had surprisingly high power draw, and it didnt have any of these advanced features, screen, radios, etc.
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.
Ac uses so much power it is impossiple to be affordable. it might be cost effective but the sticker shock will get you.
For your whole house AC or a window unit?
So what is the coordination between batteries doing? Is it moving electricity through the walls to balance things when the grid is down? How is it different than a typical UPS like for servers or other electronics? Just bigger/longer lasting battery? What integration need is their with typical home systems? (Beyond things like turning them off when battery gets low?)
I kind of don't really get what having an app for a battery does that just sticking UPSs everywhere doesn't, other than maybe having a better battery.
Appreciate the question! The coordination is similar to what a whole-home battery might be doing for you, depending on how you configure it: Timing charging to follow real-time solar production, energy arbitrage to shift home usage to times of day when electricity is cheaper (e.g. TOU rates, big in my neck of the woods in California), "storm mode" to charge up automatically when severe weather alerts are issued, and eventually things like Demand Response for grid services which you can get paid from if you opt into. Beyond the battery control stuff, locally sharing energy data across the batteries across your home can help build a model of energy usage to help make sense of your usage, look out for anomalies in your home wiring, and more -- And doing this with a local connection just means it can be a more reliable, more resilient system, even providing this sort of value when internet drops out
The simple case I can think of is priority charging, with total load limiting. Since solar supply is variable you want to avoid drawing from the grid if possible, and you want batteries attached to things that will draw the most expensive power (by typical usage time) to fill first.
I bought and am using a "Lion Energy Safari Solar Generator" to use as a heavy-duty UPS, and it almost but doesn't quite meet my needs. It works fine, except about every 15 minutes a quite loud cooling fan turns on, to cool the inverters I suspect. This is bothersome since my intent to to keep my WiFi and computer and TV functional with this particular setup. Does the Pila have a similar cooling fan, and if so, is it audible?
Also, FWIW, it appears your web page pricing is slightly cheaper per kWh than the Lion, so good on you.
> ... connect your own monitoring platform with our free local APIs. We embrace and actively support open standards like Home Assistant, Matter, and Thread for local data streaming from Pila Batteries
Love this! I am tentatively interested. I might put down a deposit after a bit more research.
Thank you! This is super important to me (one of the software guys) personally. We want to make the software as open as possible, and will publish our MQTT topics and spec publicly so you can hook Home Assistant, whatever into it.
My personal goal is that the software outlives the hardware (and the batteries, inverter should last around 10 years with normal use).
We have no ecosystem or cloud to lock you into yet, because we're new :D
This looks great!
> When an outage happens, the onboard inverter detects the power loss within 20ms and automatically disconnects from the grid (islanding)
How does this work? Do I need to install anything additional in my grid? Like, how does the fridge "know" that it should now draw power from Pila?
Sorry for my noob questions :D
This is essentially a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) with an app. The UPS basically passes power from the wall to your fridge until there's a power outage. At that point it flips to using the battery to send power to your fridge.
But with the added benefit that it charges during the day on solar and then powers device during the night.
My one question would be: does it work with home assistant? It would be great to integrate in te energy dashboard.
Yes re: Home Assistant. We're stoked to have folks integrate with their own energy dashboards if that's what they prefer to do.
>But with the added benefit that it charges during the day on solar and then powers device during the night.
As an important caveat on solar: if I'm reading correctly, it appears that the main unit only has support for a small amount of solar input directly connected to it (100 W, which makes me suspect it may be using USB PD for input), while larger amounts need the expansion pack, or a separately installed system.
Can also monitor and charge from standard roof top solar when on-grid.
Pila plugs into a normal wall outlet. The fridge plugs into the outlet on the back of Pila. Pila detects an outage in 20ms and automatically begins backing up the appliances that are plugged into it.
How much will it cost though? 1.6KWh of LFP or such batteries isn’t cheap…
It would take several full refrigerators worth of food to make that up, not counting the intangible inconvenience…
$999 with a $99 pre-order. Normally $1299
Brisbane Australia just went through a cyclone last weekend. We had 300,000 homes without power for days. Please sell these in Australia, we need them for both Cyclones and also to curb our very high electricity prices.
I hear you, and I'm also sorry to hear that! Here at SXSW we've heard from a bunch of Aussies, plus Brazil and Puerto Rico (where we actually ship) are some of the most requested beyond mainland US.
We'll be there ASAP!
So this is a per-room/per appliance battery system? Not sure how this would work for my oil burning boiler, which requires power but has no "plug". Maybe this is better for households that run 100% electric for HVAC?
To add more: To backup big 240V appliances that are hard-wired (EV charger, large HVAC, for example) you need to connect the backup system in the same hard-wired way to the electrical panel. For folks who are keen to make the big investment in whole-home backup, it’s a great solution. Our goal is to give folks more onramps to get started with smart battery backup, focusing on no-rewiring solutions. But I’ll say, Pila can be a compliment to whole home backup systems to add a bit more backup capacity where it matters most
It doesn't need to be hardwired. Devices like the Generlink provide an outlet to plugin in a fossil-fuel based generator or a battery backup unit, and take care of islanding. They sit somewhere between the utility company meter and the main service panel. Power goes out ... plug into the Generlink and if your generator/backup can handle it, your entire system is running again. Not cheap though - around $1k without installation (which can vary from insanely easy to complex, depending on your situation).
Assuming your boiler is 120v, you can have an electrician install a "generator switch" that lets you plug in a generator directly to the boiler; or you can just rewire the boiler to a standard, 3-prong 120v plug.
The bigger issue is how many amps the heating system draws. Assuming it's really a furnace that pumps hot water, (as opposed to a boiler that sends steam to radiators) those pumps really do draw a lot of current.
Get an electrician to put your oil burning boiler on a plug, then you can plug it into whatever source (UPS, generator, UPS with fancy marketing) you want.
It is designed to backup your most important appliances. You can start with one or have one in each room.
Understood. My boiler/furnace is the single most important "appliance" in my house. I guess I still need an electrician and/or use the traditional gas generator/panel switch approach.
Some furnaces are still 120 volt (same as an outlet) so depending on how the furnace is connected, Pila could be an option or at least could work with some minimal electrical work. But definitely recommend chatting with a good local electrician to pick the right path
If you get an electrician to rewire it to have a plug, you could certainly back it up with Pila.
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.
Correct, integration is key for a seamless consumer experience.
In California, you can purchase a 14.3 kWh battery for $3,500, which qualifies for a $2,500 SGIP rebate from the state plus a 30% federal rebate. I find this concept interesting, but the cost is quite high considering it’s literally hundreds of dollars less money to just get a 14.3 kWh battery.
https://bigbattery.com/products/48v-eg4-powerpro/?srsltid=Af...
You will still need a (hybrid) inverter to use it so add at least $500 on top of that. And that money doesn't really get you a unit which is capable enough to really make use of a battery of this size.
For what it’s worth, Biolite is trying to do something similar https://www.bioliteenergy.com/pages/backup. I personally love the idea, not needing a permit is already a great feature.
Agree, it's a great idea! I think this is quite a lot more affordable than biolite, and also has smart features that biolite lacks. Will be interesting when both products are in market and we can see some reviews.
Very cool. You mention powering connected devices - is it feasible to push power back through the outlet to power parts of the home? Euro solar panels are doing this I believe.
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 participate on the grid, so I’m encouraged
Are the grid isolation and backfeed capabilities mutually exclusive? Isolation would have to happen at the panel if you are backfeeding into an outlet, right?
So this is supported in the EU?
Yes & in Utah.
Interesting. How is this being managed on the device level? do devices ship with this functionality and configure it based on their state code?
Yep! All hardware is capable, and the Grid Code configuration can be set and updated at any time. So as more states follow suit, Pila's ready
Technically Pila is able to push power back through the home when the grid is up. Utah passed a law to allow this. We hope to bring this potential to all states. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/03/05/balcony-solar-gains-u...
But 'when the grid is up' isn't the time you'd want to feed power from one outlet into the others. It's when the grid is down you'd want to do this, no?
I guess you could flip the trip switch to isolate the circuit?
Can't wait to buy one of these for my homelab! I've been waiting for someone to basically make an eco-flow that's meant to be on constantly and has decent cooling that's quiet and intended to run continuously!
Insanely cool!
Thanks! What color are you going to order?
Can this cold start or does it need to have grid power to turn on?
Yep, it can blackstart without AC power from the grid
Traditional UPSs don't tend to advertise capacities, so I may have an incorrect perception of what a good Wh/$ is, but isn't 1.6kWh really damn good for a $1k UPS? How'd you guys manage to pack that much capacity in at that price point?
Might be suitable for a rack assuming all the cloud bullshit can be turned off.
No cloud required. Fully optional!
So, it's a UPS. Just with better settings, and no beeping.
Sounds like I just want a LiFePo4 UPS customized...
Great idea. I am considering buying one for my refrigerator and furnace.
Are you planning to charge a monthly fee? I’d be open to that, but it would be nice to not pay for more than the hardware. I.e. build the operating costs into the cost of the initial purchase
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 go out the window.
Challenge accepted
I’m curious what’s the rank sort of items a typical apartment dweller would want to keep on backup - for me it would be WiFi router, phone charger, microwave, kettle and a couple kitchen lights. Any power restrictions that would preclude running microwave or kettle?
No restrictions, it can provide 2.2kW of power & even more temporarily for starting sump pumps or other motors.
Hi, I develop firmware for mesh networked communications tech. What exactly does Pila's mesh network do? Why do the units need to talk to each other?
TLDR it's so that we can seamlessly synchronize settings and events between them. When to charge from solar, cheap utility rates, or when a storm is incoming.
Consumers (incl me) will not update their 2nd Pila to their new Wifi password when they change it, or not even pare it properly with their first to start with. Also, in an offline situation like a power outage where the internet goes down, you won't be able to communicate over the cloud and synchronize them there. If our servers ever go down (they won't) then you want to be able to rely on local communication.
The local mesh is going to set up new follower devices over an open MQTT api and talk to each other over it - but yes it's more of an enable than a feature in and of itself.
That all makes sense. A few more questions, if you'll humor me:
Why not leverage an existing smart home mesh networking technology? I know the industry has made a hash of the whole Matter/Thread thing, so if the answer is "we didn't like the existing solutions" that's understandable to some extent.
That said, Zigbee seems like an obvious fit here. Adding resilient links to a vendor-agnostic smart home network seems like a selling point to me.
What features will and won't be available in the MQTT interface? Given this product's narrative revolves around resilience in the face of infrastructure failures, I'd hope that the app can use MQTT to provide a complete user experience even when the mothership can't be reached.
This is fantastic to see - I've been thinking about the need for something like this for a while.
I think there are two markets for this and I feel like you are already addressing the homeowners. Have you reached out to utilities who are looking to shave peak loads with DER?
I agree! Utilities across the US & energy retailers in Texas should partner to offer this to their customers.
This is another Inflation Adjustment Act business if I'm not mistaken. Our tax dollars will pay 30% of the retail price to the company on every sale.
The ITC (Investment Tax Credit) doesn’t go to the company it goes to you as the consumer.
Duh. My point is the business may be able to sell at 30% higher prices than typical as the consumer won't care as they aren't paying that 30%.
Would you be able to avoid leaking back into the grid?
During a recent major weather event outage, a neighbor up the street was running a generator, that I think was not properly islanded. I experienced it by having some devices making weird sounds because they were receiving some low level voltage. They were probably leaking to tens of neighbors and losing generator output in the process.
This doesn't put power back through the home. It acts more like a UPS. You plug in the stuff you need up during an outage to the back of it like a power strip.
Yikes! I’ve heard so many similar sounding examples of misuse of generators and sketchy generator setups. Pila has the grid disconnect built in so there’s no risk of un-intended backfeed when islanded
Not just that, it's a danger for the linemen trying to fix the neighbourhood.
Right! Unintentionally back-feeding is a huge safety risk, and I hope that smarter safer solutions will prevail over the all-too-common hacky unsafe approaches. But also, I get it. I’ve wired generators back into panels - safely - in situations where it’s that or no power for days, you start taking matters into your own hands
I’d love for something like this to be great, but the economics just don’t make any sense. This is a 1.6kwh battery for $999. You’ll never save what it cost to buy the unit before the battery is worn out. It’d be hard to save more than $1-$2 per day.
Is there any reason this won't eventually be commoditized?
The retail cost (low end) for lifepo4 batteries is $125/kWh, and for hybrid inverters it's $175/KW, thanks to decades of Wright's Law.
Currently Pila is $625/kWh, but what is stopping it (or clones) from being $200-400/kWh eventually? Their high prices are probably temporary artefacts of (1) lack of current scale, (2) premium due to UI/brand/lack of competition. But markets will catch up.
If the price does drop to that level then it's a big deal because you don't have to pay labor installation costs, which is a large proportion of total costs for end consumers.
The main question I'd have at that point is about electrical and fire safety relative to the standard setup.
Pila is certified to a UL standard to ensure it’s both electrically & fire safe. Easy for folks who have done this for a career at Tesla and SPAN.
Energy arbitrage value depends a lot on your utility, agreed. For most home battery systems it's a 5-7 year payback, even with solar. In my experience most folks investing in these systems are also putting a lot of value on the backup power, and from the data/insights. The average fridge in the US has $300-500 of groceries inside, and some insurance providers offer as much as $600 per outage to pay for spoiled food. So for folks contending with frequent outages, we're excited to offer more peace of mind value while delivering some additional smart energy management value on top
I am a bit worried for the safety of these devices, due to their energy density. In Germany, a battery storage unit in a house recently exploded https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/schleswig-holstein/Nach-Explo...
Safety is #1. That said, there are millions of EVs on the road today & I feel like they are pretty safe.
This is great for devices plugged in to the same circuit. Can it provide power to separate circuits? Such as fixed lights, which are typically on a separate circuit from power outlets.
Great question! Unfortunately no, it'll only power devices that're plugged into it. It's basically like a very large, connected UPS.
It's unfortunately illegal to push energy back into the circuit without a permit in all states except Utah in the US :D
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.
Is like to optimize for low cost power ranges like 5 to 9 or other depending on areas
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.
I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. The power goes out every couple of days.
These products are a lifesaver in places where the electric grid is unreliable. Most Puerto Ricans rely on generators and battery backup devices to power their day-to-day life.
1) At the price point, lower-income countries with unreliable grids are not the target audience. If not that, then who? Off-grid wealthy individuals?
2) This app-controlled system MUST work offline. In wide-scale power outages, diesel generators in cell towers die out or get looted fairly quickly. Cable coax repeaters for home internet stop working almost immediately.
This latter scenario must be first in mind. Telecommunications will be gone in give or take 5 days after a large disaster or outage.
As for positive notes: loving the industrial design and battery mesh idea.
I'd love to see the price continue to come down, so more and more folks can get these products. Compared to the expensive install of a large battery systems, I'd call it a step in the right direction but I agree we need to make these even more accessible. Features like energy management and demand response can improve the economics in some markets, but low upfront cost is the ultimate goal. Most of my family in Louisiana are similarly not considering smarter backup systems seriously because of the cost and either "do nothing" in outages, rely on neighbors' generators, or have unreliable pull-start generators in their garage.
Yes, yes, and yes on offline performance! We're on it!
Would financing help?
This made me realize that I should get a UPS. After seeing the price tag, I'll search elsewhere!
What are you trying to power?What’s your budget? Let us know what you get that is more capable than Pila.
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 listening to them, they are not normal people)
- What exactly is the purpose of this battery? To provide power to a single 15/20A circuit, to power a fridge, tv and microwave for a day? So it's not going to help a multi-day outage. If I buy a dinky solar panel it's going to take forever to charge, assuming there's good weather on the day of the emergency. So really if I wanted to survive multi-day outage, I need a bigger battery. Which Jackery already sells, with solar panels, for cheaper than your unit, in a more portable, easier to move form.
- Why aren't the expansion pack and solar panel listed on the front page?? It's under tech specs?!?!? Is this a VC-focused B2B SaaS pitch panel, or a consumer product? If it's a consumer product, get rid of all these stupid I-have-to-scroll-for-a-week-to-find-information pages, and just show me what you want me to buy, right there at the top of the page, with pictures of happy people using the product in real life. That sells product to consumers. This silicon valley design dreck doesn't. (I just counted... there are 20 pages with virtually no information on the front page. Jesus christ.)
- Now if you had pitched this as a "save on your energy bill" solution, I can totally see buying one or more of these with a solar panel, if you have software that'll pull power from solar alone when the battery is full. Even if it didn't actually save me much money, I'm still stupid enough that I would buy it anyway. But you didn't pitch this... so I'm not buying it.
- What it actually seems most useful for in its current form is people in developing countries with inconsistent power and short brown-outs, but I don't see wide adoption there at this price point.
Thank you for the feedback! We’ll try to simplify the wording and streamline the website.
What a noble mission to make energy independence more accessible like this, even to renters!
I read your site, watched the video, but I still don't understand why you implemented a mesh network? Why multiple batteries need it to synchronize? Aren't they completely independent? Why would the fridge battery need to communicate with the other battery powering your lights?
Also, as an angel investor, I'm curious to know how much capital you have raised or invested so far?
Thanks.
To give more functionality around energy management, we wanted all of the batteries to be able to work in concert. We could have gone with "any old wireless" network to coordinate the batteries. One thing that's really stuck with me from building products at Span and Tesla is how important reliable connection is over years of operation. Depending on consumer wifi is a huge pain for reliability (changed passwords, inhomogeneous equipment, etc), using cellular is OK but has latency limitations and can be expensive. Existing stacks like Zigbee just had other limitations we wanted to avoid, so we realized borrowing from the world of the mesh wifi systems could offer a lot of what's needed. If we do our job right, the result will be a reliable connection over the years, that also facilitates easy addition of new battery nodes as you go, as your needs evolve.
re: funding, We've not yet made our detailed financing info public, but you can check out crunchbase for some insights on our investors to date!
By "more functionality around energy management" you mean what? For example if a battery powering a fridge detects a loss of power, it could inform a battery powering less essential things to shut down, so that the user would have the ability to swap batteries once the fridge one runs out? Is this the type of use case you have in mind?
I'm curious about the Zigbee limitations you're alluding to. Bandwidth is limited for sure, but I would expect a sub-GHz mesh network to be even more limited. The only issue I could potentially see is that a Zigbee mesh might work great when the power is all on, but might suddenly partition once power is cut and some intermediate nodes suddenly go offline. That would be a surprising thing to happen in the middle of a power outage.
Zigbee is on the same frequency as WiFi and therefore suffers from all the same issues that WiFi has interference and limited range. SolarCity used Zigbee for communication with solar inverters. It was very unreliable. Tesla moved to WiFi after acquiring SolarCity.
Did you consider using homeplug, IEEE 1901, or some other network over powerline standard? I imagine it being more reliable if they're all behind the same breaker.
Unfortunately, AC powerlines are extremely noisy. Powerline comms are used by SolarEdge to communicate with their optimizers. Because it’s a small closed loop there is far less noise than the home grid.
This qualifies for the ITC (Investment Tax Credit).
Yep! Pila qualifies for the 30% Federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) under the Residential Clean Energy Credit if your Pila system exceeds a total of 3 kWh capacity through either:
Two or more Pila batteries (1.6 + 1.6 = 3.2 kWh)
One Pila battery plus a Pila Expansion Pack (1.6 + 1.6 = 3.2 kWh)
> Most portable batteries are missing the functionality that makes a home battery useful: no bidirectional power
Soooo this product ?
This product is capable of bidirectional power.
How do you avoid electrocuting a linesman? Don't products like a powerwall have a disconnect relay to ensure there is no backfeed?
I can't see how this product can backfeed to the household circuit safety/legally unless there is some technology I'm not aware of?
Any chance this would be a good fit for existing off grid houses and expanding the home battery life?
Off-grid capable, yes. In my experience having redundant systems is a great approach for off-gridding. Pila will happily work alongside a whole-home battery system to add extra capacity wherever you need it most.
Hi Cole, a few questions:
When you say it is bidirectional, what does that mean? It sounds like it means backfeeding into the wall outlet, but I dont think that can be right.
I am also missing how this is different from other inline device battery backups that have been around for decades and cost 20% the price. Is it that it has a built in DC charge controller for an optional solar panel?
Overall, This seems like a tough space to carve out a niche. It seems like the product is trying to position between whole house batteries ( powerwall), multi-purpose power stations (ecoflow), and generic outlet battery backups. As an outside observer reading your website, it wasnt immediately obvious how this solution is better than any of those in their respective domain, or how its own domain is different.
Edit: Maybe I misunderstand the solar charging? How does this work? Does it charge from AC outlet during solar production? Is this managed with a timer, or other smart connections to the solar inverter, ect?
Yeah thanks I appreciate the questions. I'll do my best to answer them, but let me know if I can clarify anything here!
On bidirectionality: Yep this would involve backfeeding an outlet - It's new here in the U.S. but not unprecedented. Plug-in "Balcony Solar" systems have taken Germany by storm in recent years, and Utah just passed the first bill in the US (HB340) to allow plug-in solar panels to export to the grid. Pretty cool to see new these options emerge for renters. There's still work to do to take this to mainstream and get all jurisdictions, utilities, and equipment manufacturers aligned on final standards but I'm optimistic.
On solar: You've got 2 options -- Timed charging with a rooftop system just like how "AC-coupled" batteries like Powerwall work. Or, "DC-coupling" by connecting solar PV panels directly to Pila. If Pila is in your kitchen, running a DC-coupled panel wire may only be practical in a multi-day outage, but for a fridge in the garage it's a relatively easy option.
On differentiation: We're up for the challenge :) - With Powerwall and SPAN (or other home devices like Nest) my take is it's the software and integration value that sets them out ahead. That's where we're really excited to create value and carve our niche. But zooming out, it's a big market, and our goal is to give folks more options to fit their needs, and it's totally going to be the case that simpler portable camping batteries are right for some, and big Powerwall-like batteries are right for others.
Portable camping batteries, generally: More options come out every year, but on the hardware side they're not optimal since most use e-mobility battery chemistries, which are great for delivering high power on demand but wear out fast when cycled daily for home energy use. And since they’re meant to be manually deployed, they’re not always charged and ready when you actually need them—unlike a system that’s always on, managing power in the background without you having to think about it.
It’s bidirectional in that it can push power back into the home through the outlet. This is popular in Germany & was recently allowed by Utah legislators. It can charge from the wall or a temporary solar.
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.
This is a great thought, and I just surfaced it again for our founder. There has already been some thought into this. Thank you!
DIY systems have come a long way :)
How long will this keep a fridge powered?
Great question! The 1.6kWh pack will run your fridge for about 32 hours. We designed an “Expansion Pack” that doubles the battery to 3.2kWh and gives 2x 60V MPPT solar inputs (for up to 1200W of direct PV charging). But of course “your mileage will vary” depending on your fridge’s size. That’s where the real-time backup time remaining forecast comes in handy!
Answering my own question here - 1.8kWh / 500-ish Wh/day for fridge usage is 3-4 days.
How does the device handled grid isolation from a single outlet?
It uses a built in Microgrid Interconnect Device (MID). It can only backup appliances that are plugged into it.
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 dangerous. I get that your experience telegraphs that you are more than qualified for the task. However, established companies invest a non trivial amount of money into products in order to, among other things, ensure they are safe when manufactured and deployed at scale. Heavy abuse with environmental chambers, EMC emissions and susceptibility, as well as corner cases (fridge compressor over-current event, SMPS on a computer exceeding startup currents, etc.) are examples of this. This kind of testing isn't trivial, can take a long time and cost a lot of money. BTW, just going through UL, CE, TUV, etc. testing isn't equivalent to a solid testing program.
EDIT: Sorry, one more question.
What's the power-in/power-out efficiency?
Not through the inverter, but in the power-in -> charge-battery -> battery-power-out cycle.
This alone could negate savings. If each side is ~80%, the plug-to-plug (through the battery) efficiency is only 64%, which means you consume much more energy to deliver the same outcome.
The real business model here is to sell these at a loss and build up an install base to aggregate them into a "virtual power plant" that can provide large-scale distributed power source/sink capability and sell access to that to utilities. That's why it's got cellular connectivity for which they are preemptively footing the bill (you wouldn't do that without good reason).
Pila is funded by venture capital firms.
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%
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?
Yes, great question! As the software person, this is very close to my heart.
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!
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 pay to use devices like these for demand response if you were able to get decent scale which could also be part of the model to offering them for free/cheap.
Some random thoughts:
- I really like the industrial design on your device. The form factor for right above the fridge is exactly what I was envisioning.
- I would love a lower than 20 ms switching time. This is right on the border of might keep your machine on or not. I don't understand why battery backups for hardware have been so stuck and mediocre for so long. Last i checked there was only really one company selling LiFePO for this target. A Pila mini 200-300 Wh with a faster switching time would be amazing and would sell a lot i think if under $300.
- I was hopeful when I first saw this that you had sorted out some way to easily have this run on mains or at least a single circuit. Which i understand would require some level of electrical work but i don't understand why that has to be such a big barrier and why it can't be simplified and standardized enough to the same level as like installing a smart thermostat so even if you are renting it is just a minor inconvenience/cost thing.
- There are significant diminishing returns to the amount of battery backup in my opinion. There is a huge advantage to having any system at all even just a few hundred Wh just to run some lights and charge devices or fridge for a bit. I don't have the data but anecdotally most outages are in the hours range not days range. Still for some reason a HUGE percent of people have absolutely no battery backup at all. And then on the other end full sized power your whole home with no lifestyle adjustments for days systems that costs tens of thousands are equally ridiculous. The sweet spot is a couple kWh in terms of giving you still a lot of flexibility but reasonable prices, oddly to me this seems the most underserved segment.
On my original idea I was thinking of a device similar to your form factor but target squarely at running fridges for ~8-12 hours. Fridge alone won't work for time of use but if you could manufacture this as cheap as possible and make a deal with utilities from the demand response angle and some sort of special time of use deal I think there could be a sweet business. You would have to target specific utilities/regions at a time but if you could get 50k plus units in a region and at under $200 to the consumer I think utilities would be interested.
I think offering financing & working with utilities to further reduce the price will be a key unlock for more affordability.
TL;DR: $999 pre-order price, $1299 retail for UPS.
It does not compare to or replace Powerwall and similar backup solutions. It's a UPS with 4 x 120V outlets and some USB ports. It has inputs for a single 100W solar panel.
Looks polished, but I think the marketing department really got carried away with everything on this one.
I keep having multi-hour power outages a few times a year, so I decided to build a battery system a few months ago. I was happy with it during a recent four hour high-wind winter outage, powering my 120V furnace, fridge, desktop PC, some lights and chargers. Here's what I ended up with:
- Bluetti Elite 200 V2 portable power station: $999, 2073 Wh LiFePO4, 2600 W inverter output (120 V only), 1000 W DC input at 60 V max, Bluetooth & Wi-Fi connectivity to app, 53 lbs [1]
- LiTime 51.2V 100 Ah battery: $999 (includes charger), 5120 Wh LiFePO4, local Bluetooth connectivity to app, 82 lbs [2]
TOTAL: $1,998 for 7.2 kWh = $278 / kWh (before 30% tax credit). Plus tax and a few hundred more for the random bits and bobs.
Here's a video that talks about using the big bulk LiFePO4 battery to extend the power station: [3] This setup can supply 2600 W for about an hour (limited by the Bluetti's inverter and internal battery capacity), or 1000 W average for 7 hours (limited by the Bluetti's DC input). Limited to 120 V loads only, of course.
For me, this made the recent outage smooth sailing, running a few hundred watts average load for furnace / fridge / small conveniences. A friend nearby had pipes freeze and burst ($$$ repair and highly inconvenient) during a 20-hour winter power outage. It was nice to have a longer buffer to get a good night's sleep and know that everything would be fine even if utility power didn't come back quickly!
I think the original poster here is latching on to a basic issue that the consumer-grade UPS companies (APC, CyberPower) are being slow to adopt LiFePO4 batteries. At the same time, the "portable power station" companies (Bluetti, Anker Solix, Ecoflow, etc) have been recklessly marketing that they have UPS functionality, without delivering on that until recently. Be careful if you buy one: many of these portable power stations will not turn back on their AC output unattended if they fully discharge before the utility power comes back on! Just recently, they are starting to roll this out on some models: Bluetti calls this option "System Switch Recovery", and Ecoflow calls it "AC Always On" -- and neither are enabled by default!
And I 100% recognize that I'm in the tiny minority willing to combine these products together to get a lower overall $ / kWh. But maybe you are too :)
[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCJV9LTB [2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DG9BDB36 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ODIF2EfsUA
I love DIY solar and have built a few of my own systems too, long before Pila. I posted something called $200 solar self sufficiency to HN many years ago in 2017 and it got me onto this train. Will Prouse is the best, agreed!
If low cost is the goal, a box store generator is considerably cheaper.
Even if you have to buy 2.
Generators in this price point are loud, low power, unreliable, & even require maintenance.
Looks pretty neat, but at 1.6KWh it's not enough for "any" outage, so it's not really comparable to a PowerWall, which has a capacity of 13.5KWh. That said, the price is also much lower. If I didn't already have a 2KWh battery and a 3KW inverter generator, I'd buy one.
We have Ecoflows and they're great for keeping the internet on when the power goes out, I have one I can actually boil a kettle of water with! So I kind of know what the size vs output ratio is and my concern is these units seem too small. Unless you've solved the heating problem you need some ventilation and a fan?
They look cool, but it would need to be a bit bigger I think to realistically power an appliance like a refrigerator. And also, can you boil a kettle with it?
Great question, our device has a metal case that offers much better thermal performance than your typical camping battery.
Yes, you can boil a kettle with it!
I’ve got several Jackery batteries at this point and my wife complained that they were a waste of money right up until our breaker panel gave up the ghost and we were without power for several days. Your product is more expensive but not significantly so, and has some nice features the Jackery does not. For homeowners like me though, all of this becomes unnecessary once I can power the house from my car.
How will you power your fridge when the car isn’t home?
Looks like a very cool product, one I might be interested in buying -- totally depending on price, for which you don't seem to be supplying any clues.
$999 for early access! We just launched at SXSW, and will begin shipping later this year. Via our website we’re offering the $999 early access pricing for a refundable $99 deposit today. Once we enter distribution we’re expecting to increase pricing to $1299
$999 if you pre-order. Normally $1,299.
As far as I know, backfeeding is illegal and not allowed by the NEC because of how dangerous it is to linepeople without a disconnect switch. A local transformer when energized by backfeed creates high voltage on lines that should be deenergized.
Pila can only back feed on-grid. Pila has a built in Microgrid Interconnect Device (MID). When an outage is detected, like Powerwall Pila opened the MID and continues to power downstream loads that are plugged into Pila.
My guess is the battery will come with some sort of remotely controlled switch that disconnects the house from the grid, before the battery starts supplying power.
Odd choice of name. “Pila” means “battery” in a couple of languages, but refers to small disposable types (AA, AAA etc.), not something you’d associate with a UPS.
From the Pila website: “In 1880, Italian physicist Alessandro Volta built the world’s first electrochemical battery — the Pila di Volta, or voltaic pile.
Inspired by nature’s own electrical engineers, he stacked metal plates to mimic the organs inside electric eels, transforming a wild phenomenon into a scientific breakthrough.
Like Volta, we’re reimagining energy storage with nature as our guide — building a smarter, more adaptable battery system designed to bring peace of mind, control, and energy savings to every home.”
https://pilaenergy.com/mission#:~:text=Pila%20%20(that%E2%80...
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.
Local first, MQTT API is open from the beginning. No cloud or app needed. If we go under, we’ll open source the schematics to ensure they can be repaired.
A friend recently had a house fire from a handheld battery bank catching fire in a cupboard. She was ok but there was a lot of smoke damage in the house.
This UPS has LFP cells so that is a huge improvement on safety of LiPo but I am still not sure about a large capacity indoor UPS.
Edit: I am not sure why I am attracting so many downvotes.
My thought as well. Keep this big thing outside. Apparently LiFePO4 can emit more hydrogen than normal Li-ion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFhSI0IcVtA
Any way to get 240V out of the ecosystem?
Our first product is focused on 120V, but we'll be iterating on a 240V option. Out of curiosity which 240V loads are you most interested to connect?
I’d like to be able to use a 240V hot water kettle to boil water for tea (or for sanitization during an outage). I live in the US and 120V is slow and inefficient, especially at family-scale.
Do you have frequent enough power outages that waiting an extra minute for tea is a concern?
> Do you have frequent enough power outages that waiting an extra minute for tea is a concern?
I’ve had ten power outages in the past six months, one mile from an international airport. I’ve lived through hundreds hours of power outages due to PG&E’s fucking incompetence in the past ten years. You’ll have to judge for yourself whether that justifies my comment - but, if you were a startup considering a 240V outlet on your home battery solution, I’m pointing out an entire category of uses that they may not have considered:
US kitchen countertop equipment that runs at higher power draw when a 240 outlet is available.
As an apartment renter, I have no reasonable solution today for a battery that can cope with my kitchen at all, prior to this one — and if they go 240V, I can upgrade my kitchen appliances, take them with me when I move, and be more resilient to power outages. And if that puts more weight behind the 240V purpose so they eventually offer a model for people’s furnaces, cool beans. I may not be able to convince my landlord to install a Charlie range, but I already have battery backups in every room except my kitchen, so there’s an unmet need that this startup’s a very close fit for already.
Being dismissive about someone’s questions will cause you to overlook potential market niches that have no viable solutions today. Your competitors thank you for your service :)
I love 240V appliances. I have a 240V induction hob from Italy(Fabita Ordine). Would love to have a 120V in and 240V out for this use case.
I’m in Australia and everything is 240V (well, I think technically it’s 230V now) here.
Any timeline yet for international distribution?
On a personal note, I'll also be really stoked when we're shipping to Australia. Lots of friends down there, and have been lucky to work on some past home energy products for the Australian market.
Parts of Pila's power electronics are already 230~240V capable. We've just launched in the US, and are doing our best to stay focused on excellent support for our home market before expanding. That said, I could see 2026 being the right time for expansion... stay tuned mate!
Best of luck -- hope to see it available here soon!
I have well water and the pump is 1.5 HP on 230 volts. In a power outage situation I doubt it would run for more than a minute at a time, maybe 4 or 5 times a day.
Often well pumps and sump pumps can be wired for either 230 or 120V, so Pila could be an option with some added effort and a conversation with an electrician. But in any case, looking forward to building the 230/240V version!
What are the environmental requirements for Pila?
My well pump is 120V, but I don't keep it in my house. It's in a shed out back built over the well and tank. The shed is not insulated, but does have a 400W space heater plugged into one of these [1] that tries to keep it above freezing in there. I think most of the time it succeeds but it is possible that for a few days a year it might get below freezing for a while.
I have no idea what the humidity is like, or how hot it can get in the summer.
Would the current Pila be OK in that kind of environment?
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Farm-Innovators-TC-3-Thermostatically...
I parted a 2.56 kWh secondary-battery system at $773.66 for my business' self-driving computer product, but it's not one complete unit or as sophisticated as this product. It seems like a decent price for what you're getting. Especially in terms of space consumed.
Totally agree. This is great value!
This device is quite dense and priced accordingly. Other dumb UPSs or "solar batteries" with this level of battery capacity are all around $1000.
Great work on the local API first approach. I can't remember the last SmartAppTM device that was local API first and not wholely dependent on some fly-by-night SaaS that requires you to sign-up. Hope we see more of this in the industry. Span is infamous for removing local API control of their panels.
Our team's really excited about the local-first approach. Both because it's going to make the system more reliable overall (essential for devices aimed at resilience), and because we're also excited to build integrations and see what the community develops as well. You're right, so few do it even though there's so much to gain. Happy to take any thoughts or requests on local monitoring/control/data features that you'd like to see!
I'd love to have better backup power but I'm skeptical of huge lithium batteries inside my home.
Here's a tiny scooter battery going on fire spontaneously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld00r-tEEJ4
Can we use something other than lithium for home battery backups? Weight isn't really a concern.
Lithium batteries can be made to be safe. There are millions of electric cars on the road.
Wow, $99 is a great price. Makes sense though, it’s just a battery…
Oh wait, that’s $99 to reserve. $999 to purchase! Ouch
the website doesnt even display any text when running noscript on.
how energy efficient is your website? is it really needed to run loads of scripts to display mere text?
I hear you - while I'm privately a static-site afficionado, this is squarespace so that the whole founder, business _and_ engineering team can edit it easily :P
>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 I will be expanding over the summer.
I also bought an EcoFlow Delta 3 Pro or something like that for one of my kids who lives in an apartment in an old building in a large city in tornado alley. They have experienced power outages during storms and since they're working on their PhD right now and teaching classes I figured that backup battery power sufficient to power a refrigerator and a bunch of devices and that functions like a UPS would be handy. I don't have any performance data right now since they just got it this past weekend. It looks like a solid unit and has good specs.
I am in the market for a similar product to use here at our home. I like the whole house systems that are reasonably portable and can be charged from multiple sources. The Pila is interesting. I had considered the Jackery and the EcoFlow product lines but would like to work out how the Pila compares. Do you plan to add comparison graphics to your site so that interested parties can see where you shine and make accurate cost comparisons?
>What recent power outages have you had, and how were you affected?
Here in N Texas we had the Feb 2021 freeze and grid breakdown that lasted several days. I won't dig into the details about how part of it may have been intentionally manipulated to take advantage of knowledge about supply constraints to capture as much money from consumers as possible. Nothing surprises me about the corruption of these grifters running this state any more.
During this period, we did great because I'm kinda data-driven and was able to take notes about outage timing and duration and use that to our advantage so that we never lacked for hot food, water (we're on a private water well), heat (we have a wood-burning fireplace), or light.
I bought a big diesel monster, a 20kW generator/light tower, after all that but haven't done anything to connect it to my house panel yet. It is handy as pockets on a shirt for doing things out on the property though. I can pull it out to wherever I need power and run all kinds of stuff with it. I may keep it or just set it up to power my shop in emergencies or sell it to one of my dumbass relatives or some local redneck.
The power it produces is not conditioned so I need a way to clean the power if I am to run my workstation or network devices and a simple battery solution like the Pila looks great for this compared to that generator.
Many questions that I had have been answered on this thread or by reading your FAQ or the pages on your site.
I am interested in reserving more than one Pila. I see that they are available in four colors, none of which match the earth-tone palette that I use in my house. Are there plans to add colors or should I invest in rattle-cans and painter tape to help these units blend in?
From your order page where I took an order to checkout I didn't see a way to make a single order that would get me multiple Pilas, all different colors. If you are interested in buying multiple Pilas but don't want all of them to be the same color can you do that in a single reservation order or do you need to make separate orders for each color?
The first photo on your home page shows a Pila on top of a fridge. It looks large and I know the placement is done to illustrate some of the features of the unit and not to show how it would look in real life on my fridge since I can't imagine having that large unit hanging out to the outside door edge. My fridge has a decorative arch in the center that would cover part of the display.
Anyway, that photo started me thinking about the placement of the Pila. A fridge needs air circulation in order to function normally and there are minimum air gap requirements for the sides and top so that it can pull enough air over the cooling coils to be efficient. In the configuration shown in the photo I think that fridge will be struggling since the Pila will be exhausting some heated air as it runs and that won't help the fridge chill things efficiently. The side gaps are too small and the top gap is consumed by the Pila. Mounting it behind the fridge will subject it to all the things that appliance techs love to see - dusty cooling coils, tight spaces with insufficient clearance for airflow, opportunities for water problems, etc.
I think it could be hard to place a big unit like the Pila near a fridge especially if your kitchen has a built=in fridge cabinet since they usually are designed with minimal clearances and all models won't fit. What is the length of the power cord for the Pila?
What is the operating temperature range, and dust and water intrusion rating? I don't see this information in the tech specs. For something that may need to be installed inside a cabinet with limited air flow or behind an appliance like a fridge where you will see significant dust issues and share a cavity with an icemaker line these are useful things to know.
I see a powerstrip in your product line but don't see a way to order one. I like that it appears to use the same app as the Pila battery. It's possible that the unit pictured is renderware though.
Is this available or when will it be available? If someone buys the powerstrip will they need to pair it with a Pila for it to be useful or can they use the app with it to help them monitor power usage by things attached to it? What sets it apart from the plethora of other power strip options that offer more outlets, more connection types, but with a dumber interface?
I use temperature sensors around my property and other places. I noticed that the Pila will work with Home Assistant and in the app photo on your site I see the fridge using temp measurements from a sensor. Will you be producing sensors or is that intended to show that Home Assistant sensors can be used to drive part of the battery backup power usage? My sensors are from SensorPush and they are great. Maybe a partnership could be developed to bundle third party items with a Pila so that the buyer could build a system in one purchase.
In that app example there is power backup information given for multiple rooms. For that example are we seeing how the app looks with multiple Pilas in different rooms or are we seeing how a single Pila can distribute power in the event of a power loss?
Perhaps more info about the app could appear on your site. I know it is probably in a state of flux while you get all this ready but we all know what fluxed up things look like before they get polished for delivery.
One other thing that I did not see on the site is a view of the back of the Pila that would show the outlets, the power cord input, etc. Maybe adding a 360 view would clear that up.
I'll hang up and listen now.
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.
Why wouldn't I just buy a bunch of small UPS that are already commercially available?
UPS units are low power have minimal storage and no smart coordination or control. They also often last less than 3 years.
off grid here for many years self built systems can do the math for solar powered,off grid sytems with battery banks, in my head. The numbers posted with battery back up system are so wildly inflated as to be absurd, laughable , 32hrs for a fridge, it wont run a big fridge for 1 hr, tiny fridge for 5 hrs. bar fridge, laptop, phone and one light might make 24hrs, might, when its new, hot weather, fergetit. the way it's presented is totaly disceptive. This is as best, a nice ,very expensive camping accessory or a slightly upsized ups.
Puget Sound Electric here in Western WA has a very nice feature showing usage by hour by day (using their smart meters). We live in a relatively small home, and do not use electric heat. Yesterday our "vampire draw" was about 0.5 kwh per hour (12am to 5am -- nothing really active). Once we got up, fired up the coffee pot, and lights, etc. we used 1.3 kwh from 6am to 7am. Pia looks like a good UPS for standard appliances, but as a whole house solution... Folks really need to understand how their home would work using a combinations of Pias. For us, we spent about $1k for a Westinghouse 9,000 kwh generator which runs on propane, and I put in the fairly inexpensive breaker and lock-out in our service panel. Costs were well below $2K. When our power goes out (which it does A LOT), simply fire up the gen, shut down all the high amp circuits in the house panel, and switch service panel input to the gen. Takes less than 5 minutes, and everything works apart from some high amp devices which we can easily live without short term. Having a good backup is important -- moreso with the power system strained and more "once a century" events.
Hey there - First I will concede it's always hard to give an "average" number for something like a fridge, since all fridges consume differently based on usage, ambient temperature, ice makers, overall capacity. But I'd stand behind our numbers - we're not looking to deceive and transparently provide the remaining backup time on the device screen and app. For whatever it's worth, I've gotten familiar with lots of appliance usage data during my time at SPAN, and our average wattage heuristics for appliances are in line with what you'll see from other batteries' materials. Still, always open to hearing ideas for how to help average people put energy usage in context. Would you find a calculator module useful on the website, so you can enter your own usage data if you know it?
Fridges and freezers are pretty power efficient, on the whole, because they're big insulated boxes and the power that leaks through isn't very much. An average of 50W power consumption is not ludicrous for a fairly large, properly functioning fridge (the peak will be larger, since they cycle on and off). It will depend on ambient temperature, of course, but even a pretty beefy fridge running at 100% (which will probably fail in short order since the mechanics are not generally designed for such) is not going to be drawing the 1.6kW you are suggesting.
>1.6 KWH CAPACITY
looks at fridge in marketing photo with estimated 2 days of life
Bullshit on that one. A modern day french door fridge will use 1.6 kWh per day. Even more if they have bullshit features.
What model fridge are you using? Is it 10yrs old? 1.6Kwh per day? That can’t be energy star rated.
Lmk when it can power my 240V HVAC and Well pump otherwise it’s just a toy UPS
Will do!