Is the little black box needed if you have solar with powerwalls? and Thank you!

[jedmo]

I had my solar/powerwall install today. The powerwall installer was done in a flash and walked through the Tesla App with me before he left. The solar team still had some work to finish up, but before the solar team left one of the installers handed me the little black box (gateway). I was under the impression that with a powerwall installation, the big white box with the glass cover was the gateway. Do I need to connect the little black box too?

Before I forget, a huge thank you to the members on this board. Many of you have been very informative and quick to respond to questions or post helpful tips on this forum. I have learned a lot from these forums over the last couple months and its thanks to the awesome members of this forum.

 

[chrisbailey13]

Yes, you connect the little black box to you router.

https://www.tesla.com/sites/default...Solar-Panels-with-Powerwall-System-Manual.pdf

 

[mnsweeps]

If your Solaredge inverter is hardwired to your router/wifi then no need for black box. Mine is hard-wired and I threw that black box in some closet in the garage.

 

[BrettS]

There are two things that tesla calls a gateway, which makes things kind of con

If your Solaredge inverter is hardwired to your router/wifi then no need for black box. Mine is hard-wired and I threw that black box in some closet in the garage.

It’s worth noting that hardwiring the inverter does not do the same thing as connecting the little black box zigbee gateway. Hardwiring the inverter allows the inverter to connect directly to solaredge so you can get a solaredge account and use the solaredge app to see your solar production, however, the inverters will not connect to tesla when they are hardwired.

The zigbee gateway allows the inverters to connect to tesla. If you have a solar only install this is how you can see your solar production in the tesla app, but if you have a powerwall install then the large white electrical panel tesla energy gateway provides the solar production data to the tesla app, so the zigbee gateway is not needed for that. As of very recently tesla is allowing the inverters to also connect to solaredge through the zigbee gateway, so you can also use the solaredge app if your inverters are connected that way.

 

[jedmo]

I connected it to my wifi/router but the unit shows no signal.

 

[jboy210]

I connected it to my wifi/router but the unit shows no signal.

Is the inverter on? At least for mine, the signal it is referring to is a connection to the inverter. And for my Delta M series inverters, this only happens when the inverters are on. And I have both it and my Tesla Energy Gateway connected to the internet.

They are both called gateways which is very confusing. The white box is the Tesla Energy Gateway, or Powerwall Gateway. The little black box is the Tesla Gateway. Super confusing naming.

I am not sure what the Tesla Gateway provides that the Tesla Energy Gateway does not. Maybe separate solar generation values if you have multiple inverters.

 

[BrettS]

I connected it to my wifi/router but the unit shows no signal.

It can take a good 5 or 10 minutes for it to make the connection and the no signal light to go away, so make sure you give it enough time. It also needs to connect to your inverter though zigbee, which has a limited range, so if it’s too far from your inverter then it might not be able to connect

 

[jedmo]

Is the inverter on? At least for mine, the signal it is referring to is a connection to the inverter. And for my Delta M series inverters, this only happens when the inverters are on. And I have both it and my Tesla Energy Gateway connected to the internet.

They are both called gateways which is very confusing. The white box is the Tesla Energy Gateway, or Powerwall Gateway. The little black box is the Tesla Gateway. Super confusing naming.

I am not sure what the Tesla Gateway provides that the Tesla Energy Gateway does not. Maybe separate solar generation values if you have multiple inverters.

The inverter is on, the solar guys left my system on since the powerwall installer has to come back to run a few more tests. He cut out prior to the completion of the solar install and mentioned he'll be back to run some tests after the solar install was complete.

 

[GHTech]

I connected it to my wifi/router but the unit shows no signal.

Mine took a couple of days for the "No Signal" to disappear.