Grizzle Smart charge

Tremor38

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Hey everyone, I picked up one of the new grizzle e smart chargers. I was on the wait list for it prior to being released and got it in March right after release. I have unfortunately had a fair bit of trouble with it. I’m on my third unit now and it’s still not working. Up till this 3rd unit I was chalking the issues up to early release issues but by the time this 3rd unit showed up and didn’t work I’m thinking this unit is not likely to work properly anytime soon.
My question is did anyone else buy one and have you had any issues? Below are the issue I’ve had and for information sake, the Ford charger works fine on the same plug and has never faulted on me.
1. First charger showed up and would fault out just plugging into the wall. I was unable to get it to not fault. They immediately sent me a replacement.
2 the first replacement worked when it arrived until I connected it to wifi. As soon as I did it would no longer charge. I disabled the wifi as directed by united chargers and they told me to wait for an update. A few weeks ago the charger started to randomly fault out and stop charging. It has gotten progressively worse from ones a week to multiple times a night to the point I can’t rely on it to charge overnight. I contacted and they said it needed replacement and they immediately sent me a replacement.
3 the last one arrived and would when plugged into the car if failed and the car charging lights all go orange. I tried connecting to wifi as directed by united and it still does the same. They tried seeing it remotely and say it’s not connected yet I know it’s on my network and connected.

I don’t need the smart features and frankly there really are no features at this time anyways. I’m thinking of just having them swap me with their standard charger but not sure it’s reliability with the Mach E.

Any feedback on similar experience or perhaps perfect experience would be great.
Thanks
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Ciero

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I have no experience with their smart charger, but their standard one has been working fine for me for months. From what I remember there was supposed to be an upgrade path to the smart charger if you get the regular one. If that is still the case I would say go for the basic one and upgrade if you decide you want those features later.
 

TDAnthony

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I have one, but still waiting on the electrician to run the line. I was planning on having him also hardwire the Grizzl-E Smart charger, but your comments are making me think that maybe I should just get a NEMA 14-50 installed instead.

@bellyer how is your Grizzl-E Smart working for you?
 

bshaw

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I have purchased two Grizzl-e (non-smart) units so far.
Both have worked well for me.

I did have trouble with the second one tripping a GFCI breaker, but like it says in the manual, the Grizzl-e has an internal GFCI. Replaced the breaker with non-GFCI and its been working flawlessly ever since.

Adding the "smart" features to an EVSE was not a priority for me, and seems to just up the chances of something going wrong on what is essentially a single-purpose device.
The car itself and the FordPass app should be doing all the "smarts" of deciding when to charge, etc. (Still a ways to go in improving FordPass, but I'm optimistic it will eventually be reliable).
 

GrumblesTheDog

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I have no experience with their smart charger, but their standard one has been working fine for me for months. From what I remember there was supposed to be an upgrade path to the smart charger if you get the regular one. If that is still the case I would say go for the basic one and upgrade if you decide you want those features later.
Second this. My regular GrizzlE works great and I just set charging parameters in the car since my power company doesn't do TOU billing.
 


skuker

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I have one I’m not crazy about it. It faulted constantly after a firmware update it got a little better but is only pulling 32amps.
 

zhackwyatt

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I have one, but still waiting on the electrician to run the line. I was planning on having him also hardwire the Grizzl-E Smart charger, but your comments are making me think that maybe I should just get a NEMA 14-50 installed instead.

@bellyer how is your Grizzl-E Smart working for you?
Using an outlet gives you more flexibility anyway.
 

bellyer

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I have one, but still waiting on the electrician to run the line. I was planning on having him also hardwire the Grizzl-E Smart charger, but your comments are making me think that maybe I should just get a NEMA 14-50 installed instead.

@bellyer how is your Grizzl-E Smart working for you?
I have to admit, for the time being, my Grizzl-E Smart is just a regular, old Grizzl-E EVSE. For the life of me, I cannot seem to figure out what to do to set it up in an app and do anything with it. I found some instructions on the Grizzl-E site noting to use the AmpUp app and I tried to configure it, but it does not seem to connect that way. I am also using it at my vacation home where the internet is pretty poor and the router is pretty weak, so the signal might not be strong enough to maintain a connection. I will have to play around with it a bit more when I am up there again. For now, though, the Grizzl-E works great for charging my Mach-E off of a 14-50 NEMA outlet, but it is not doing anything from a smart perspective.
 

Timelessblur

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I have one, but still waiting on the electrician to run the line. I was planning on having him also hardwire the Grizzl-E Smart charger, but your comments are making me think that maybe I should just get a NEMA 14-50 installed instead.

@bellyer how is your Grizzl-E Smart working for you?
I have a Grizzl-E dumb charger and it is plugged into a NEMA 14-50 I had installed. Hard wiring it if it is in a garage does not gain you much if anything at all other than turning the EVSE into a feature for your house so when you sell it you need to leave it behind.
That being said it being plugged in saved me as my first Grizzl-E died and had to be warranty it which was very simple and quick but not having to call out an electrician to swap it over.
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