We recently had a Powerwall3 installed, Gateway2, and 11 Silfab solar panels (just enough solar to provide a bit of power during an extended power outage). Cool tech. The PW3 has some great capabilities that the PW2 didn't have.
One big question: What is the procedure to get data connectivity to the PW3 when the Internet is down? While the PW3 will keep my WIFI up, it is highly likely here that Comcast will go down during many power outages. In fact, we had a 15 minute Comcast outage recently, and the Tesla App merely said something like "Check Network Connectivity" and we couldn't even get a notification from the PW3 that an outage had occurred, or see the event log.
There is a Tesla web page that provides a procedure to connect to the PW3 via Bluetooth when the Internet is down, but it starts with "tap 'Device Offline'". During that outage we never got "Device Offline". We just got "Check Network Connectivity". Similarly, I'm simulating a network outage by Pausing internet connectivity to the PW3 on my WIFI. When I do this, I can go into Settings on the app and see that it isn't connected to WIFI. Sometimes it'll say "Check Network Connectivity", but mostly it won't say anything, and will look like all's well, but the data doesn't update.
I've read (but don't see in the app) that the PW3 has Cellular backup, but where we live cell signals are...at best...abysmal, so I doubt it can get a cell signal. And since there is no data updating....
Our installer doesn't have any insight in this regard.
If the power's out, and we're operating on battery, it seems pretty critical to be able to see the state of the battery and the state of the solar, so we can adjust our power usage in real-time. If Comcast is down (likely), we're not going to see that info as things stand now.
Thoughts??
One big question: What is the procedure to get data connectivity to the PW3 when the Internet is down? While the PW3 will keep my WIFI up, it is highly likely here that Comcast will go down during many power outages. In fact, we had a 15 minute Comcast outage recently, and the Tesla App merely said something like "Check Network Connectivity" and we couldn't even get a notification from the PW3 that an outage had occurred, or see the event log.
There is a Tesla web page that provides a procedure to connect to the PW3 via Bluetooth when the Internet is down, but it starts with "tap 'Device Offline'". During that outage we never got "Device Offline". We just got "Check Network Connectivity". Similarly, I'm simulating a network outage by Pausing internet connectivity to the PW3 on my WIFI. When I do this, I can go into Settings on the app and see that it isn't connected to WIFI. Sometimes it'll say "Check Network Connectivity", but mostly it won't say anything, and will look like all's well, but the data doesn't update.
I've read (but don't see in the app) that the PW3 has Cellular backup, but where we live cell signals are...at best...abysmal, so I doubt it can get a cell signal. And since there is no data updating....
Our installer doesn't have any insight in this regard.
If the power's out, and we're operating on battery, it seems pretty critical to be able to see the state of the battery and the state of the solar, so we can adjust our power usage in real-time. If Comcast is down (likely), we're not going to see that info as things stand now.
Thoughts??
