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.
>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.
Geez. I knew this. I'm not sure why it didn't click with me yesterday.
The color that fits my stuff best is an organic green like olive, moss, or asparagus. No need for y'all to worry about that. I can always change the color here to fit or use velcro strips to wrap it in leather or a light fabric to complement the colors I have. I'm pretty handy.
I could picture needing a powerstrip for the extra outlets, especially for the Pila that powered my workstation/network setup. There are more than 4 devices needing clean power.
From the pictures on the site it appears that the expansion battery is a pure battery add-on with no additional outlets though it will have a port for connecting to a user solar array up to 1200W.
Other competitors spend time expounding on the benefits of having a portable, solar generator. When you look at their offerings they are similarly styled boxy rectangles that may be difficult to fit inside vehicle compartments. The advantage of the Pila is the layout geometry. Something with a flat profile like that can be made to fit in many commercially available pickup/camper/RV drawer units with no need to take up living space. It has much more deployment flexibility. You should consider a portable unit sized for those applications since the form factor is optimum for that user space.
Can you describe the method that your solar array will use to connect to the Pila and the expansion battery? Is it a fairly standard screw-type hold-down for the solar conductors, a plug-in, or a proprietary connection type? What is the wire gauge used in your solar panel cables and how long are the cables? I see that Pila uses dual MPPT input so that's probably the best flexibility for someone to be able to take best advantage of their local situation since it manages different string lengths, panel types, etc.
Thank you for the clear replies. I wish you all the best. This looks like a great product with flexible application and it is styled to look like it can fit with many common decor elements. Other similar units from competitors are nowhere near as cleanly stylish as the Pila.
If the handles could be made to pivot so that they laid flat against the sides when deployed that would reduce the long dimension (currently 26.5"/675mm) by around 3-4"/38-51mm and allow them to fit in less space. It would preserve the rectangular profile of the unit so that it looks more like a common piece of tech and a bit less like an industrial device. The handles could be recessed into the case with a positive lock in the closed position so that they don't flop down if deployed with the long axis vertical.
I really see the potential of something like this when your system can manage up to 64 Pila batteries (102 kWh!). That is huge capacity, far beyond residential requirements and really establishes Pila as a strong contender for use in commercial settings to function as backup and to aid commercial operations recovery after disasters. The closest I have seen is the EcoFlow unit which can be stacked up to 90 kWh capacity using their extra batteries in a three inverter setup.
If you're looking for test drivers let me know. I would be happy to test this product line and app to help you identify any stumbling blocks before your customers have the opportunity to complain. I have a bit of experience troubleshooting data processing software and acquisition hardware in the seismic industry and am a born button-pusher. If it can be made to fail, I can make it fail spectacularly at all the wrong times. Just kidding.
I'm not a You-Tuber. Anything I did would be for your internal use only to aid product development and verify functionality matches the information in the user documentation.
I'm in N Texas with a great view of the southern sky. We have massive thunderstorms with awesome lightning shows that sometimes take our CO-OP power down. Tornadoes are a common seasonal threat as well. We do experience brownouts and surges, more in the last 5 years than I can remember in the 25 years we've been here. That's why I have a couple of small UPS' to protect our electronics and why we are interested in building out our own solar capacity with battery storage to manage all those times when the CO-OP grid has problems.
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.