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Tesla Gateway and Powerwall - Converting to hard wired network

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Xebec

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Mar 20, 2019
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Hey folks,

I have a Tesla Solar Panel, Gateway, and Powerwall 2 setup in my home (installed earlier this year). I'd like to know about two things.

1. When the install was happening, they had me provide WiFi network information; I assume this is for the Tesla Gateway or Powerwall? and for whichever it is - I assume it's possible to run an ethernet wire if I wanted to?

2. They also gave me a small black box that plugs into my ethernet network but appears to be a wireless adapter. I *think* this is for the (Solar) Inverter, is this correct? If yes, is there any way to directly wire the inverter in my ethernet network without this box?

Thanks!
John
 
If I am not mistaken that NEO box is what lets the system communicate back to TESLA. Your gateway should have its own WIFI antenna to connect to your network. You can run an ethernet cable from the gateway to your wired network.
My system has both WIFI and ethernet plus cellular connectivity.
 
1. When the install was happening, they had me provide WiFi network information; I assume this is for the Tesla Gateway or Powerwall? and for whichever it is - I assume it's possible to run an ethernet wire if I wanted to?

The Tesla Energy Gateway supports wifi and wired ethernet connections. If you open the TEG you will find an ethernet jack inside and you can run an ethernet cable to this device. The powerwalls themselves don’t really directly communicate with the internet, all of their communication goes through the TEG.

2. They also gave me a small black box that plugs into my ethernet network but appears to be a wireless adapter. I *think* this is for the (Solar) Inverter, is this correct? If yes, is there any way to directly wire the inverter in my ethernet network without this box?

This allows Tesla to communicate directly with your inverter and for solar only installs, this is what allows the Tesla App to see your solar production data. It’s not really needed in an install with powerwalls because the TEG will communicate solar production data to the Tesla App in that case.

SolarEdge inverters do have an ethernet jack in the inverter and you can connect them to Ethernet, however, doing so is only beneficial if you want to be able to monitor them through the SolarEdge app. Connecting the inverter to Ethernet will not do the same thing that the little black gateway box does and will not allow Tesla to communicate with the inverter.
 
The Tesla Energy Gateway supports wifi and wired ethernet connections. If you open the TEG you will find an ethernet jack inside and you can run an ethernet cable to this device. The powerwalls themselves don’t really directly communicate with the internet, all of their communication goes through the TEG.



This allows Tesla to communicate directly with your inverter and for solar only installs, this is what allows the Tesla App to see your solar production data. It’s not really needed in an install with powerwalls because the TEG will communicate solar production data to the Tesla App in that case.

SolarEdge inverters do have an ethernet jack in the inverter and you can connect them to Ethernet, however, doing so is only beneficial if you want to be able to monitor them through the SolarEdge app. Connecting the inverter to Ethernet will not do the same thing that the little black gateway box does and will not allow Tesla to communicate with the inverter.


Brett, I've had my Gateway set to WiFi to connect directly with my router for over two years. Dependent on various versions of the firmware, the unit constantly disconnects from my local network, requiring me to reset the Gateway almost daily. In fact, I keep a Phillips screwdriver near the box for quick resets. I've gone through this because it wasn't possible previously to get an Ethernet cable to the garage where the Gateway is housed.

Due to some recent electrical piping for an additional room for the house, there is now tubing close to my router that I will also use to run an Ethernet cable from the router right to my MBU, which is on the other side of the garage from my Gateway and thus can route it directly to the Gateway. I hope to have an Ethernet connection by end of this week.

My question is whether I need to get into the software set up for the Gateway to enable the Ethernet or does it automatically connect and take over for the WiFi using the IP address I have tied to that MAC address just by plugging it in. Do you know whether any additional work needs to be done past just connecting the Ethernet cable? Let me know. Thanks!
 
Brett, I've had my Gateway set to WiFi to connect directly with my router for over two years. Dependent on various versions of the firmware, the unit constantly disconnects from my local network, requiring me to reset the Gateway almost daily. In fact, I keep a Phillips screwdriver near the box for quick resets. I've gone through this because it wasn't possible previously to get an Ethernet cable to the garage where the Gateway is housed.

Due to some recent electrical piping for an additional room for the house, there is now tubing close to my router that I will also use to run an Ethernet cable from the router right to my MBU, which is on the other side of the garage from my Gateway and thus can route it directly to the Gateway. I hope to have an Ethernet connection by end of this week.

My question is whether I need to get into the software set up for the Gateway to enable the Ethernet or does it automatically connect and take over for the WiFi using the IP address I have tied to that MAC address just by plugging it in. Do you know whether any additional work needs to be done past just connecting the Ethernet cable? Let me know. Thanks!

I am not brett, but (Assuming you are talking about the tesla powerwall gateway), you can check on networking for it when you log into it locally. I dont remember if you need to do anything to turn on ethernet, because my installer set up networking for me on it, but I remember logging in and poking around.

You can have ethernet, wifi and cellular all active on the TEG, and it is "supposed" to default to using ethernet first, then wifi, then if both of those are not connected,. cellular, if cellular is activated.

Here are instructions from tesla for logging on locally (its not as straight forward as you would think to log onto the TEG directly)

Connecting to Tesla Gateway | Tesla Support
 
I am not brett, but (Assuming you are talking about the tesla powerwall gateway), you can check on networking for it when you log into it locally. I dont remember if you need to do anything to turn on ethernet, because my installer set up networking for me on it, but I remember logging in and poking around.

You can have ethernet, wifi and cellular all active on the TEG, and it is "supposed" to default to using ethernet first, then wifi, then if both of those are not connected,. cellular, if cellular is activated.

Here are instructions from tesla for logging on locally (its not as straight forward as you would think to log onto the TEG directly)

Connecting to Tesla Gateway | Tesla Support
I hope they make it easy to change the subnet since mine is 192.168.0.xx
 
Brett, I've had my Gateway set to WiFi to connect directly with my router for over two years. Dependent on various versions of the firmware, the unit constantly disconnects from my local network, requiring me to reset the Gateway almost daily. In fact, I keep a Phillips screwdriver near the box for quick resets. I've gone through this because it wasn't possible previously to get an Ethernet cable to the garage where the Gateway is housed.

Due to some recent electrical piping for an additional room for the house, there is now tubing close to my router that I will also use to run an Ethernet cable from the router right to my MBU, which is on the other side of the garage from my Gateway and thus can route it directly to the Gateway. I hope to have an Ethernet connection by end of this week.

My question is whether I need to get into the software set up for the Gateway to enable the Ethernet or does it automatically connect and take over for the WiFi using the IP address I have tied to that MAC address just by plugging it in. Do you know whether any additional work needs to be done past just connecting the Ethernet cable? Let me know. Thanks!

When I finally got around to running some cat6 under the house to my TEG I simply logged in to it and had it forget all of my wifi network information so it's never even tempted to connect to wifi. It should prioritize ethernet over wifi over cellular but I didn't want to risk it.

The wifi adapter in the TEG is garbage. My enphase gateway is physically next to the TEG and it's never had a problem connecting and staying connected to the wifi. I took my laptop and cell phone out to that area and they both had solid connections to the home wifi. No matter what I did I could never get the TEG to connect and stay connected even with a freakin' wifi repeater literally on the other side of the garage wall. I thought it was the TEG's wifi antenna - nope, the installer replaced the antenna which changed nothing. Plugging the TEG in via ethernet changed everything.

Something else to be aware of: I'm not an electrician but it is my understanding that running power lines with ethernet cable in the same conduit is generally not allowed by code. Code aside there's interference considerations to address as well.
 
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When I finally got around to running some cat6 under the house to my TEG I simply logged in to it and had it forget all of my wifi network information so it's never even tempted to connect to wifi. It should prioritize ethernet over wifi over cellular but I didn't want to risk it.

The wifi adapter in the TEG is garbage. My enphase gateway is physically next to the TEG and it's never had a problem connecting and staying connected to the wifi. I took my laptop and cell phone out to that area and they both had solid connections to the home wifi. No matter what I did I could never get the TEG to connect and stay connected even with a freakin' wifi repeater literally on the other side of the garage wall. I thought it was the TEG's wifi antenna - nope, the installer replaced the antenna which changed nothing. Plugging the TEG in via ethernet changed everything.

I remember reading your feedback on this topic before I had my powerwall install. It was one of the driving forces in getting me to get a wired connection to where the Tesla energy gateway was going to be installed. I had to jump through a few hoops to get that done before my install, but did so after reading your and others feedback on how poorly the wifi antenna in the TEG 1.0 gateway device was.

Maybe its better in gateway 2? I certainly hope so.
 
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TEG gets an IP from router (WiFi or ether) via DHCP; it does not have a DHCP server itself. I have mine on ethernet and may look into disabling the TEG WiFi altogether (along with the 2 inverters) to reduce WiFi noise. The TEG cellular has never really worked and shows no connection most of the time.
 
If there is a dhcp serve, then that would have to be disabled. Cannot have more than one dhcp enable in a network. I have like 6 routers and the first thing I had to do with each of them was disable their dhcp server before I changed the lan default IP to address in my subnet.

I think there is a misunderstanding here. I didnt say it defaults to being a dhcp server, I said it defaults to dhcp, meaning as a client. Most networking devices default to dhcp to receive their IP from whatever is handing out addresses on your network. You likely have one router that is handing out DHCP addresses in your network, so it would default to getting an IP from that.

your router situation is fairly common in larger home networks if you have multiple devices that can function as dhcp servers...but most devices are not dhcp servers (and the TEG isnt either).
 
I think there is a misunderstanding here. I didnt say it defaults to being a dhcp server, I said it defaults to dhcp, meaning as a client. Most networking devices default to dhcp to receive their IP from whatever is handing out addresses on your network. You likely have one router that is handing out DHCP addresses in your network, so it would default to getting an IP from that.

your router situation is fairly common in larger home networks if you have multiple devices that can function as dhcp servers...but most devices are not dhcp servers (and the TEG isnt either).
My mistake, I read your words wrong.
 
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The Tesla Energy Gateway supports wifi and wired ethernet connections. If you open the TEG you will find an ethernet jack inside and you can run an ethernet cable to this device. The powerwalls themselves don’t really directly communicate with the internet, all of their communication goes through the TEG.



This allows Tesla to communicate directly with your inverter and for solar only installs, this is what allows the Tesla App to see your solar production data. It’s not really needed in an install with powerwalls because the TEG will communicate solar production data to the Tesla App in that case.

SolarEdge inverters do have an ethernet jack in the inverter and you can connect them to Ethernet, however, doing so is only beneficial if you want to be able to monitor them through the SolarEdge app. Connecting the inverter to Ethernet will not do the same thing that the little black gateway box does and will not allow Tesla to communicate with the inverter.

So what do I give up if I hardwire everything?

Meaning, if I hard wire the GW's. do I lose functionality?

And if I hard wire the SE inverters, so I lose functionality?

If functionality is lost, can one or either be setup for both wifi and hardwired?
 
I ran 2 CAT6 cables for my Tesla installation. The installers first connected the TEG to the Zigbee black box and then hardwired to my Ethernet with the CAT6 cable. They were unaware of hardwire to the SolarEdge so I did that myself with help from YouTube videos. There is no downside to this method that I am aware of. I now have hardwired connections with wireless backup. My blue status light on my inverter is always on as opposed to intermittently transmitting every 10 seconds wirelessly. I only plugged the cable in and the inverter automatically went with the wired connection. I made no changes to settings.
 
I ran 2 CAT6 cables for my Tesla installation. The installers first connected the TEG to the Zigbee black box and then hardwired to my Ethernet with the CAT6 cable. They were unaware of hardwire to the SolarEdge so I did that myself with help from YouTube videos. There is no downside to this method that I am aware of. I now have hardwired connections with wireless backup. My blue status light on my inverter is always on as opposed to intermittently transmitting every 10 seconds wirelessly. I only plugged the cable in and the inverter automatically went with the wired connection. I made no changes to settings.
thanks. Looks like with 2 Se inverters, there is a different cable to connect the two.
 
I remember reading your feedback on this topic before I had my powerwall install. It was one of the driving forces in getting me to get a wired connection to where the Tesla energy gateway was going to be installed. I had to jump through a few hoops to get that done before my install, but did so after reading your and others feedback on how poorly the wifi antenna in the TEG 1.0 gateway device was.

Maybe its better in gateway 2? I certainly hope so.
Gateway 2 seems a lot better. I had a system installed and can see the gateway ssid across a few rooms and walls without any dropouts.
 
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I know this is old, but I'm trying to add wired ethernet to my TEG as well. Problem is I don't know how to safely access the ethernet port. I popped off the left and right plastic covers, but I don't see any obvious way to access the internals. And I don't want to start randomly removing screws. Is there a guide for safely taking off the outer cover? I found the AC installation manual online, but there aren't really any details for cover removal. Thanks for any help!
 
I know this is old, but I'm trying to add wired ethernet to my TEG as well. Problem is I don't know how to safely access the ethernet port. I popped off the left and right plastic covers, but I don't see any obvious way to access the internals. And I don't want to start randomly removing screws. Is there a guide for safely taking off the outer cover? I found the AC installation manual online, but there aren't really any details for cover removal. Thanks for any help!
The ethernet port is in the Gateway, not the Powerwall.

Do you have GW1 or GW2? Or do you have a PW2+ which might have the ethernet port in the upper inverter section?
 
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I have a Powerwall 2 I believe. Not sure what the difference is between that and Gateway 2. I already have an ethernet connection to my SolarEdge inverter. And my TEG is connected via Wifi. But the connection occasionally drops out, and I'll get an email/text from Tesla telling me as much. To remedy this I'd like to connect the TEG primarily via ethernet instead and only use Wifi for backup. But I can't get access to the internals. I can barely peak at the upper right section with the right panel removed, but I didn't see any RJ45 port - just the wires for the on/off switch.