Charging Interrupt By Utility?

[whoami]

When this interruption occurred one of the first things I did was to check the Blink log to see if there was any activity or messaging which could have accounted for the interrupt. The only record was of the standard "check-in" which had been done almost 12 hours earlier. Let's not go too far down the "Big Brother" road. Just because there is a "stagger" feature, whatever that is, doesn't mean it's been implemented, and her explanation that it was something on the electrical side makes sense.

They definately have this implemented in the Blink code. Do you think they log every network transaction? Go compare a network sniff with your syslog output.

Do you know they also cache your lat/long and ship it back to the mothership? I just found this nugget today.

[DarkStar]

Do you know they also cache your lat/long and ship it back to the mothership? I just found this nugget today.

They want to make sure the Blink doesn't "move" on them!

[ElectricVehicle]

Do you know they also cache your lat/long and ship it back to the mothership? I just found this nugget today.

They want to make sure the Blink doesn't "move" on them!

Can be handy so the service person comes to the right address, instead of getting lost when your unit needs service. It may also help them as they ae looking at usage patterns for EV charging so they don't have to look up your charger in their database.

[TEG]

This keeps happening. This time the car was actually charging, and I hear a "thunk" from the Blink and then see this:

Hopefully it isn't bad for the car to have it cut power during charging like this.

If anyone wonders why their car isn't fully charged, maybe it is because it is "on the blink".
(OK, I am sure that one has been done repeatedly by now...)

[squirrelmeat]

Do you know they also cache your lat/long and ship it back to the mothership? I just found this nugget today.

They want to make sure the Blink doesn't "move" on them!

Can be handy so the service person comes to the right address, instead of getting lost when your unit needs service. It may also help them as they ae looking at usage patterns for EV charging so they don't have to look up your charger in their database.

I've read too many stories about the wrong house being demolished because the lat/long was used instead of the street address. I wouldn't count on this getting the service folks to the right location.

[scm6079]

This keeps happening. This time the car was actually charging, and I hear a "thunk" from the Blink and then see this:

Hopefully it isn't bad for the car to have it cut power during charging like this.

If anyone wonders why their car isn't fully charged, maybe it is because it is "on the blink".
(OK, I am sure that one has been done repeatedly by now...)

This occurs any time that the blink unit restarts while it was charging. It is a feature designed For a future where neighborhoods are full of chargers and if their is a utility outage the electric companies don't want all of your devices turning all back on at once causing an instantaneous power pull and possibly knocking the power back out. It is not technically YOUR power company requesting the time out right now - more of a general nice thing to do for the power companies. Your blink unit comes up with a random time based on it's device ID and waits to get the charge started.

I expect to see many more appliances doing this in the future. The problem is right now we are all seeing this screen more often than blink planned on - since the crash/reboot problem causes our devices to restart thus thinking the power went out on it momentarily.

-Scott

[whoami]

This keeps happening. This time the car was actually charging, and I hear a "thunk" from the Blink and then see this:

Hopefully it isn't bad for the car to have it cut power during charging like this.

If anyone wonders why their car isn't fully charged, maybe it is because it is "on the blink".
(OK, I am sure that one has been done repeatedly by now...)

This occurs any time that the blink unit restarts while it was charging. It is a feature designed For a future where neighborhoods are full of chargers and if their is a utility outage the electric companies don't want all of your devices turning all back on at once causing an instantaneous power pull and possibly knocking the power back out. It is not technically YOUR power company requesting the time out right now - more of a general nice thing to do for the power companies. Your blink unit comes up with a random time based on it's device ID and waits to get the charge started.

I expect to see many more appliances doing this in the future. The problem is right now we are all seeing this screen more often than blink planned on - since the crash/reboot problem causes our devices to restart thus thinking the power went out on it momentarily.

-Scott

This is INDEED a bug and by this "feature" you make it a large issue. Now out of my 5 hour super peak off I could potentially not charge for a longer period.

Ecotality--focus on the basics. What about writing some code and put a screen saver in QT? It took me about 2 hrs to implement this. Few more hours to test.

In addition I really do not like this "feature". So when I fire up my A/C, oven, microwave, pool pump, electric water heater, etc, you anticipate they will randomally backoff starting? Thats pure crap. The local utility is responsible for providing equipment in their network that will accomidate this (traditionally cap banks). If the utility really sees this as an issue they will adjust MY rate schedule accordingly and randomally offset customers. Ecotality needs to provide a solid product and stop act as my local utility.

[TEG]

If the utility had nothing to do with the delayed restart then they should change the message!
If it happens every time the unit has a crash/restart (or firmware upgrade?) then they message ought to be more like:
"Charging temporarily delayed after system restart."

The way it is worded now it makes it sound like the utility did it.

[smkettner]

Just because there is a "stagger" feature, whatever that is, doesn't mean it's been implemented, and her explanation that it was something on the electrical side makes sense.

Stagger feature is just to prevent all EVs from starting to charge at the exact same second. If all clocks are synchonized together with wifi it would be easy to hit the local grid with thousands of vehicles all together at the same instant. A random 0 to 15 minute delay would seem normal.

[Spies]

If the utility had nothing to do with the delayed restart then they should change the message!

How about

This unit was rushed to market and not properly quality assured and contains many bugs so just about anything can be wrong.