>What's been your experience with home batteries?

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.