How is Blink behaving lately?

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dandrewk

Well-known member
Joined
May 28, 2012
Messages
128
Location
San Rafael, CA
I'm having my Blink installed next week, and have been reading up on the myriad of problems it was having at the beginning of the free program

The good news is the problem reports seem to have tapered off here! Can I hope the recent hardware lots and firmware updates have fixed the problems? How are the newest Blinks behaving?
 
The new Firmware Version 2.0.20120112 E1.10 is quite stable. A couple of months shy of a year my screen blanked out requiring a new card and a voltage adjustment.

Wouldn't buy one of these since I don't want or use all its functions. I let the car take care of things.
 
I was having ongoing problems with loosing WiFi connectivity. The unit would also freeze up and not respond when I plugged the car in so I would constantly have to unplug the unit to reboot. The 2.0 update did nothing to fix the problems. A tech came out about 3 months ago and used one of those power line adapters to hardwire the internet connection. Since then the unit has worked flawlessly. The tech admitted that the built-in WiFi is crap and the said the constant searching for signal can cause the unit to freeze.
 
Yea, I'm not that excited about Blinks either...
The last software update did make it more or less manageable, but still I have occasional (about once every other month) hangs so I need to power-cycle the blink to be able to charge...
 
Not a single problem since the update.

When the Blink was installed 8 mths ago, we had it on WiFi and did have to unplug it just a couple of times. It never failed to charge. We called Blink and told them that we'd prefer to wire it and they followed up to see if/when we did. No problems after we did, even before the update.

We didn't get to choose our electrician for installation, but it worked out ok. Pretty happy as we got the unit, the wiring done, permit & inspection taken care of. Maybe those with no issues are less likely to post vs. those that do have problems. I'm not sure if we just got lucky with a good unit, a good SD card etc... Hope the lucky streak continues!

Maybe good idea to wire it at the get-go. Ask your installer? Good luck on your's!
 
After getting a new SD card, the RF reader being removed, a power supply adjustment and the 2.0 upgrade my unit ran well for a few weeks but now it is now back to crashing every few days. Fortunately it doesn't affect charging and the price for the unit was right.

arnold
 
I have had a blink from the beginning. I don't use it to for anything other then plugging the car into charge, it has always worked for me. Maybe if I tasked it more by trying to check statistics or something it would misbehave, but I am not going to try :lol:

-Matt
 
FYI: I'm at over 4 months of uptime now (no reboots), and I do sometimes use the web interface... plus all my charges are controlled by the Blink timer. (Configured to only allow charges in Off Peak times.) Our LEAF is set to charge 24/7 @ 80%, so I don't need to disable or change the timer when I use public chargers.

Firmware 2.0.20120112, connected via built-in WiFi/802.11n.
 
With the version 2.02 firmware, it has been rock stable and has had no reboots since the upgrade over three months ago. I now consider it a non-issue. I'm on WiFi, by the way.

dandrewk said:
I'm having my Blink installed next week, and have been reading up on the myriad of problems it was having at the beginning of the free program.
The good news is the problem reports seem to have tapered off here! Can I hope the recent hardware lots and firmware updates have fixed the problems? How are the newest Blinks behaving?
 
I've had it for over a year, and it has never once failed to charge my car. The Wi-fi connection has been flawless from the beginning. After the 2.0 software update, it doesn't reboot.
 
Mine has been awesome ever since v2.0 was pushed, but after being away from home for the weekend I came home to find it stuck in an infinite loop at the boot up screen and no charge. It shows the please wait while I boot up screen, then the EV Project splash screen, then a small relay clicks and the screen goes blank and it starts over. I power cycled it several times to no avail. Luckily I just built an open EVSE so I am relatively unaffected.

I do like the timers on the blink and the cost tracking feature, but I'm starting to wonder if the dumb box is the better solution.
 
Yep, already called them today, they are supposed to have someone call me tomorrow to arrange a service visit.
 
One year of service with Blink.
Had a total of around 10 times that I had to unplug the unit to get it back working. Most common problem was it failed to recognize it was connected to the LEAF and failed to start charging or recognize delayed charge request from the LEAF. Just sat there and did nothing till unplugging it to reboot it.
Has been more unreliable the last three weeks. Showed recognition of internal fault on three occasions. Reboot cleared it up.
I've run wireless the whole time, but that is a bad idea.
I recently determined that it is probably the Blink that is causing substantial unreliability problems with my ATT DSL service.
If it drops, the Blink will cause major problems with the 2-wire ATT wireless router re-establishing connection. Kind of like poor communication between the Blink and the 2-wire causes the 2-wire to go into a multiple reboot mode.
The Blink is a poor unit, even though it was free through EV Project.
If you're buying, buy something else.
Or go with the L1 unit upgrade.
I need to go ahead and upgrade the L1, as I'm fairly certain the Blink will leave me dead in the water at some point in time.
 
our blink has a life of it's own, the screen turns on and off and it performs updates on it's own. If it reboots and asks me to go through the start up process again I just ignore it and come back later and voilla it's back to it's regular screen. it's never failed to charge the car. it is hard wired... If I were you I'd avoid using wi-fi as it seems a large percentage of problems come from poor wi-fi connectivity... if the signal breaks during an update, the pooch can get screwed. In the end, the only thing it needs to do is provide a way for the car's charger to charge. it's very complex for something that only needs to complete such a simple task. There is essentially no advantage to going with the blink over simply having an outlet installed and using the EVSEupgrade http://evseupgrade.com/ and it's much less expensive with fewer parts to fail.

As for public Blink chargers, I'd have to say, by and large I am very disappointed with the Blink/ecotality. their public L2 chargers have been very dodgy. Ecotality has failed to provide the one thing we really need in terms of a public charging network, Quick Chargers. The only one they have installed arrived "damaged" from shipping and has been sitting in the ground for many weeks out of commission. they were supposed to have something like 50 DC QC's in the ground. My impression is that the company has been dragged down by heavy maintenance of the L2 network, so much so that they have not been able to afford getting the QC's in the ground. Unfortunately L2 chargers are relatively easy to install and provide achievement the company can point to when in reality they can service very few vehicles and take many hours to provide a meaningful charge. If I had to do it over again, I'd probably not go with the Blink home charger simply because I am having a hard time supporting a company that is chewing up public funding in such large quantities without supplying the one thing we need the most, quick chargers in the public arena.
 
TimLee said:
I recently determined that it is probably the Blink that is causing substantial unreliability problems with my ATT DSL service.
If it drops, the Blink will cause major problems with the 2-wire ATT wireless router re-establishing connection. Kind of like poor communication between the Blink and the 2-wire causes the 2-wire to go into a multiple reboot mode.
There is no way the Blink should cause issues with the 2wire router. If it does, there is something wrong with the 2wire router.
 
The EVSE upgrade is something I'm considering, if nothing else for just a backup.

My Blink install is Wednesday. Can I assume they will install a separate 240v outlet, so switching to the upgraded EVSE is a simple matter of unplugging the Blink and using its outlet? I sure hope the Blink isn't hard wired.
 
blink at home has been generally reliable, but mine is hardwired and ethernet corded.
I have had to have a unit replaced at the beginning because it was fritzy and my "card" got corrupted and the thing would not charge. They sent someone to replace the card the next day.


the blinks at work do fine and remain free.
now, if I could get my Leaf fixed from the rear-ending, I would be a happy person about all this.
 
My home Blink with version 2.0 blinked me tonight:



2f3b0c3d.jpg
 
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