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

> 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.

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.

> 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_...

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.

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.

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.

How many watts max output? Couldn't see it on the site. Thanks!

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.

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".

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 :)

The results are shocking!

> 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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

I struggle with the math on how this is running your typical fridge for even 16 hours

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.

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.

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.

> 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….

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.

> 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).

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!

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

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.

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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."

>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?

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.

> is that what the tesla "Wall" is?

Yes, plus an auto-transfer-switch

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?

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

If it actually has a good sinusoidal output, that's something, but yeah.

> 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.

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?

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.

> 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.

100% Pila can charge from your home solar or cheap electricity and discharge when power is expensive.

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.

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.

15 years ago.

https://www.wired.com/2010/02/plane-crash-kills-tesla-employ...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Asia.