Reliable Smart Chargers?

[timbop]

There is always the manual approach where a kWh meter is wired in series with the feed line to the EVSE and the readings are written down on a sheet of paper.

I use this one.

https://www.ekmmetering.com/collect...ers/products/universal-single-phase-kwh-meter

It will maintain the reading for 10 years in the absence of power.

Does that need its own electrical box for it to be mounted on? I assume so, but curious to see your installation

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[murphy62]

Does that need its own electrical box for it to be mounted on? I assume so, but curious to see your installation

It mounts on a DIN rail which is an extra cost option from the manufacturer. I mounted the DIN rail to the cover plate of a 4" square metal box. The one on the left feeds a 100 amp sub-panel wired with 2 gauge copper wire. The two hot wires go straight through the unit. Two little screws punch through the insulation to get power for the unit. The neutral and ground are not used by the unit. The three breakers in the sub-panel, left to right, are for the Tesla EVSE (80 amp), a 14-50 outlet (40 amp), and a Leviton 40 amp EVSE for the Mach-E. Only one breaker is turned on at a time. The left one shows 12,074.05 kWh. It can be read if you zoom in on the picture. The flash washed out the picture.

The one on the right feeds a 6-50 amp outlet, wired with 6 gauge copper wire, that connects my original Leviton 16 amp EVSE that was for the Energi which will be traded in on the Mach-E.

If mounted outdoors a weather proof box would be needed to protect the unit from rain or snow.

The units are mounted at my eye level.

 

[OlyPen]

I want to get a smart EVSE for monitoring my energy use over time and manually calculating mi/kWh. In doing research there seem to be overall highly positive reviews but then checking Google Play, reviews for the EVSE apps have some very not-good-sounding things being said. For instance the ChargePoint Home Flex, which seems to be at the top of most peoples' lists, apparently can't charge the car without a data signal via WiFi, and some people reported that their car would fail to charge overnight if there was a WiFi hiccup or something. WiFi signal in my garage is kinda meh so this is concerning to me.

Another seemingly high-rated option, the Wallbox Pulsar Plus, had even worse reviews about its app. People said that sometimes the charge statistics would just disappear or fail to be recorded at all. The whole point of me spending money on a smart charger would be to get these statistics, so if that doesn't work reliably, then the Wallbox is not for me.

I just learned that the Ford Connected Charger is available for sale again (I realize this is not new news) but there doesn't seem to be a lot of info about people using this option.

Anyway if you own a smart charger, which one do you have, and would you describe it as reliable? Have you ever had a failure to charge, or a loss/failure of charge statistics?

I have the Chargepoint Home Flex... Yes, you need a WiFi connection to set it up initially (or it defaults to a lower charge rate and won't know it can ramp up to a higher amp rating unless you do that during intial app setup. It periodically disconnects from the WiFi (it sits in a challenging area of our property) BUT, it always reconnects automatically and updates the app log from it's onboard backup.

And, the Ford Pass app successfully recognizes the charging days from it and logs it in the Ford Pass app under the charging log.

Overall I'm very happy with it. And the same app that manages the home charger also works across the Chargepoint network to use any commercial station as well (which are also part of the Ford network).

 

[methorian]

Thanks for sharing. I'm glad that the app is functional. Do you have issues getting the app to load? That seemed to be a common complaint on the Play Store reviews.

I have had 2 Wallbox Pulsar Pluses since February, installed on the same 50A circuit using their power sharing feature. They've been great, no issues with them or the app.

You can use them with Bluetooth only, or via Wifi. If you connect them to Wifi, you'll get your charging data through the app and through their online portal (where you can export the charging data).

 

[ARK]

I want to get a smart EVSE for monitoring my energy use over time and manually calculating mi/kWh. In doing research there seem to be overall highly positive reviews but then checking Google Play, reviews for the EVSE apps have some very not-good-sounding things being said. For instance the ChargePoint Home Flex, which seems to be at the top of most peoples' lists, apparently can't charge the car without a data signal via WiFi, and some people reported that their car would fail to charge overnight if there was a WiFi hiccup or something. WiFi signal in my garage is kinda meh so this is concerning to me.

Another seemingly high-rated option, the Wallbox Pulsar Plus, had even worse reviews about its app. People said that sometimes the charge statistics would just disappear or fail to be recorded at all. The whole point of me spending money on a smart charger would be to get these statistics, so if that doesn't work reliably, then the Wallbox is not for me.

I just learned that the Ford Connected Charger is available for sale again (I realize this is not new news) but there doesn't seem to be a lot of info about people using this option.

Anyway if you own a smart charger, which one do you have, and would you describe it as reliable? Have you ever had a failure to charge, or a loss/failure of charge statistics?

I have a ChargePoint Home Flex. The wifi antenna on it is pretty good. I get a connection where my iPhone does not. It’s on par to an iPad’s wifi antenna. I think they know people will mount these outside or on the far edge of their house and included the appropriate wifi antenna for this purpose. I think you should be OK unless you have a particularly spread out or large property.

 

[timbop]

You could also consider adding a wireless access point on that side of your house. I just recently added a TP-Link WAP on the side of my house farthest from my wifi router and it was very easy to set up and install. If you don't want to run an ethernet cable there are also wifi repeaters that just plug into an outlet - I'm not sure how well those work but they should be good enough for the low bandwidth you'll use.

 

[Dark Matter GT]

If only the CP wasn't sold out so much, although I suppose that's a good sign...

Just order it from charge point. Ordered mine and it said 6 weeks. Took less than 2. Don't even have my GT yet. Figured the CP would get here a few weeks before the car not a few months lol.

 

[JoeDimwit]

I now have 2 charge points installed in our garage for 3 EVs. Also zero issues in over 6 years.

Can the 2 esve’s track all 3 cars charging stats collectively? Like if you plug car 1 into charger 1 and car 2 into charger 2 on one day, then plug car 3 into charger 1 and car 1 into charger 2 the next day, can you still see what each car is receiving charge wise?

 

[vinny2487]

I have had 2 Wallbox Pulsar Pluses since February, installed on the same 50A circuit using their power sharing feature. They've been great, no issues with them or the app.

You can use them with Bluetooth only, or via Wifi. If you connect them to Wifi, you'll get your charging data through the app and through their online portal (where you can export the charging data).

I'll second this and say I've had no problems with my Pulsar Plus. The app has been near flawless. There have been a couple times where the app takes a couple minutes to connect. But overall, I've never had the app not connect to the charger.

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