The Ford Home Integration System is a complete joke, and borderline criminal

[neririn]

I had my very expensive Home Integration system installed back in the second week of November 2022. Unfortunately, after six months of back and forth it is still not working.

The official line was that SunRun does not service the state of Utah and therefore I was on my own to get an electrician to connect the system, and SunRun would provide the necessary support and documentation 'that a qualified electrician will understand'.

I did so, yet after my solar qualified and experienced electrician completed the Sunrun provided 'training' and spent hours on the phone with support staff woefully untrained for the task at hand, he has thrown his hands up in defeat having tried everything they told him to do now multiple times.

Customer support has been almost nonexistent. Frankly It would've been better if they had been nonexistent in place of their replies of willingness to help and promises to follow up. All which have have gone unfulfilled.

All the documentation that I have found has been through this forum, and I am grateful for those on this forum who have provided insights and suggestions.

I am now asking if anyone knows of the proper way to contact Ford, Sunrun, and their joint shell company AEE solar specifically via their individual legal departments. My next and likely final message to them will be from my attorney, demanding a full refund of money spent, and reasonable compensation for the many hours of my time wasted on this complete POS and poorly designed solution.

Has anyone been unfortunate enough yet to have had the opportunity to contact any of these legal departments and, if so, could you point me in the proper direction?

I assume I can likely find the information with some additional time spent on various Internet searches, but since this forum has been so gracious and knowledgeable in the past, I'm hoping I may be able to cut my time losses and find a more direct path to the proper legal teams.

Thanks in advance.

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[idahospud]

i had a very similar experience in Idaho, I resolved my issue last week. Do you mind sharing your last error message (or a specific point in the process that is failing). If you want to give me a call, PM me i will give you my # and i can tell you about my trial, error and success, maybe it will help you. Warning, I am not technically proficient but did my own troubleshooting.

 

[neririn]

the most recent failure is the truck recognizes the outage, FCSP flips from blue LED to green, then when either trying automatic cutover or manual, the screen states "preparing to transfer power' then does nothing.

 

[detansinn]

I was originally all-in on doing Ford's solution, but now, I'm just going to have my electrician install a generator inlet and a transfer switch. It won't be as seamless, but substantially cheaper and less headaches as we already have a 16.8kw PV solar power system.

 

[RickLightning]

@Ford Motor Company should have experts available to resolve issues like this on their much heralded capability.

 

[RickLightning]

Have you read this thread?

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...ntelligent-backup-power-without-sunrun.12564/

 

[neririn]

Have you read this thread?

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...ntelligent-backup-power-without-sunrun.12564/

I have, and that is how I 'learned' that the inverter must be registered. WHY they can't do this automatically when they know what inverter they are sending customers, and what charging station they are sending customers I'll never know.

But yeah, that "registration" took FOUR weeks to complete once they had my information submitted. What are they using behind the scenes here, punch cards and morse code?

 

[neririn]

@Ford Motor Company should have experts available to resolve issues like this on their much heralded capability.

HIS is an industry first capability. I get it. I am bleeding edge to a point. 2nd Lightning in the state, first HIS order according to the AEESolar rep. With new tech, there will be glitches, snags, and flat out failures. That said, THIS is the key differentiator between Ford/Rivian/GMC etc. When rolling out such critical functionality, Ford should plan on significant handholding, resource training, and continual customer communication and feedback should be top of mind.

Yet in my experience it has been an absolute after thought. Days if not weeks between responses? Promises of follow up that never happens?

When calling SunRun support in the initial stages of this, I was told there were only 2 support people trained on the HIS system and that they were busy every time I called. Three times they were 'at lunch' so I always needed to wait for them to call back. Sure, call me back... take your time. It is no rush when I am paying an electrician a significant hourly rate to do nothing.

I love Ford, and always have, but they are working my last nerve right now.

 

[idahospud]

FWIW. I found that Delta was the most helpful throughout the HIS troubleshooting process. 1-877-442-4832.

 

[RickLightning]

When this was announced, my first reaction was "that's neat!". My second thought was "I'll bet it costs a fortune" followed by "I'll wait until they've got 50 installs working..."

Further research showed me how it wasn't worth doing, as a whole house generator wasn't much more, is there all the time (vs. being away and not able to power the house), and doesn't run out in 3 days.

Turned out to not buy a truck anyway, but was considering these things when I had wiring done for my Mach-E, and elected to max out at a 60amp circuit.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

I am in the buyback process right now (entire truck and HIS), cannot discuss much more until complete, but have found Ford to be very responsive, including flying the head of the HIS engineering program in Dearborn to my Florida home, and the head of SunRun's electrical installations from New Jersey flew down here twice. Many other visits from SunRun (and their original subcontractor, which they fired after the first bolloxed install) including a complete reinstallation from scratch using a team that came from Orlando for three days. Still will not work properly, with no solution at this time other than possibly to wait for a software rewrite being done for all of our trucks, at which time it may or may not work (Ford engineering has high confidence, I have little). So I will switch back to a PowerBoost after the buyback review/approval is complete, supposedly 3 days.

I have one advantage compared to your situation having paid zero to SunRun for the HIS so far, which they are okay with pending installation success/proven ability to run the house. They do send bills, to which I now say "come and get the equipment." Everyone involved is super-apologetic and has gone WAY over the top in terms of both responsiveness and communication (direct emails and phone numbers for the folks in engineering at Ford HIS systems, Ford OTA systems, and SunRun). I don't abuse, will not out them here but may provide privately when my situation is fully resolved.

This is truly a disappointment, as I love the truck, and it seems sorted to spec and current software now except for its inability to communicate properly through the charge station to the HIS when generator mode kicks in - errors out every time. The HIS function was the #1 reason we bought the truck, as it's mostly a Florida vehicle for 6 months of the year, intended to sit and watch the fort, ready to take over when bad stuff happens. We cannot have a generator in our gated ICW-facing townhome community.

The HIS just isn't ready for prime time yet - and with Farley's announcement of a whole new systems architecture (presumably finally abandoning the antiquated modular software approach endemic to all Sync vehicles), I sense that some of the issues are too cumbersome to resolve without restarting a la Tesla's much simpler single-point non-modular OTA process, which in my ten years of Tesla ownership experience works every time and always has. In other words, development will end on these first-attempt HIS systems, likely with some near term support, but all hands-on will focus on the planned clean-slate bidirectional approach and Sync replacement. As it is, there are so many things that must go exactly right when a generator session is initiated - five local devices, each with their own software included in the dance (six if we count the smartphone app, eight if we count the Ford and SunRun mothership servers that handle much of the communication/security) - and if one element steps on another's toes or misses a step, physical intervention is necessary - maybe just unplugging and re-plugging the truck, or a full start over/reboot on the hardware boxes. My system isn't even to that level - won't ever complete a generator session initiation and then stay lit without failing. This defies the point of HIS - unattended reliable operation. We won't be here for six months and no one can physically do anything to the systems or the truck in that period, even as simple as re-plugging the charger cable. It's simply not ready for its intended purpose - unattended switchover when the grid drops.

What would I do in your situation? Call Ford customer relations and open a case. At the end of the day, they designed the system in-house and SunRun is simply the installation provider of hardware for which Ford did almost all integration work and for which the software is written inside Ford. SunRun does have a role in terms of a login database (other issues there, including with your experience), but this is really a Ford-integrated product, with a model installation site in Dearborn engineering, and all responsibility ends there, even though my contract was with SunRun. Only Ford has the big picture.

I was handed off to Ford customer relations by Ford engineering with an acknowledgement that they don't have a solution at this time. It appears that a buyback is now being fast-tracked, as they have separate groups inside customer relations that handle buybacks depending on circumstance (for example lemon law cases, which this is not), with relatively short turn-around times. I'm still holding my breath, but do have a Platinum PowerBoost on hold at the dealer.

Your issues are slightly more challenging to resolve given you've already paid for the system and used your own contractor, while I was solely with SunRun/Ford. Refunds are harder than nonpayment until proven installed. My situation is also slightly atypical because SunRun normally requires a deposit but for whatever reason never collected one from me. Getting reimbursed for your third-party self-install elements might be a heavy lift, but for what you paid SunRun, you could look into your credit card warranty/return policies. That would require you to exhaust claims with SunRun first, something else that you should initiate in terms of those funds - go wherever you paid or signed the purchase agreement and move up from there. Best of luck to you.

 

[Pioneer74]

It's interesting that yours couldn't be made to work and @tommolog has had no problem with his.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

It's interesting that yours couldn't be made to work and @tommolog has had no problem with his.

Ford believes the issues are environment-dependent. My dense neighborhood (3-story 2,800-sq-ft waterfront garage townhouses) is full of mesh networks and varying brands of router hardware, all with their own communication protocols. Ford's working theory is that overlapping device signals from adjacent homes is interfering in the wireless datacom between the charger and the truck. They went so far as to sense and determine the specs of the systems sending signals from homes across and next to us, and purchased those devices for the Dearborn engineering lab's house mock-up, and say they were able to replicate the problem there. That's probably more than I should say, but I do believe that it is possible for folks to have a fully operating HIS at this time - just not in a dense location with many nearby wireless devices. Again, they have confidence that revised software can solve it, but I will be gone before that happens and can't spend any more time on this effort.

I love bleeding edge stuff, always go with the latest tech, am quite familiar with doing software upgrades to all kinds of devices. My entire house is Apple Homekit-run, and I've had initiation issues with seven Homekit-compatible Hunter fans, six Eufy cameras, a Eufy doorbell and locks,dozens of connected Lutron switches and outlets, four Samsung TVs, and other bits like Apple speakers throughout the house, along with apps on our Apple watches and multiple phones and ipads. The Homekit-compatible Chamberlain MyQ garage door opener with Amazon delivery functionality was the biggest challenge. That resolution also involved their top engineers and required me to personally do a main board swap in the opener to fix a hardware design issue - but it was solved and has operated perfectly for the past couple years. For the first year Homekit was essentially a 10-hour-per-week hobby. This issue exists everywhere. We now have four bicycles with wireless electronic shifting. I recently was forced to do individual update on each brake/shift lever, the display head, each derailleur, and the battery control module. That's six downloads and firmware updates for each bike.

There's a rule: "You can't own nice things." That rule comes slightly below "Incompetence reigns supreme" on my list. A corollary is that we don't own anything - the stuff you have owns you. The more connected things we have, the more the software overlords and mandated operating system obsolescence will control our time. For me, the HIS is the new Exhibit A, but I spend SO much time on niggly little software issues on the two connected homes that there are plenty of other examples. Right now we have an LG washer-dryer combo where the interconnected ethernet from the washer to tell the dryer what's coming does not work at our Virginia farmhouse, and the relatively-new connected refrigerator was down when we visited a couple weeks ago, full of month-old-thaw rotten food. That took an entire three days of my time to disassemble, disinfect and de-odorize, and the repair parts remain unavailable after six weeks. And don't get me started on the chartplotter GPS/satellite communication systems that we have for two motorcycles, two jet skis, two boats, one kayak, and hiking - I spend weeks every year with Garmin and Raytheon software support getting those puppies to update properly, stop auto-resetting, and to gain the most current maps and navigation updates, subscription of course - infuriating to step onto my boat with fishing buddies only to find the maps and navigation locked out because it needs the annual subscription updated - available only through a laborious sim/laptop download process that requires an hour and multiple hop-on hop-offs at the boat. Zero warning, subscription over, no use until payment and update done. That despite that fact that I'd be happy with an older map version - that's now not available with Garmin and Raytheon - must pay and be updated annually or go dead at the end. YOU DON'T ACTUALLY OWN ANYTHING. I just wanna fish, ride my jet ski, paddle my kayak, pedal my bike. But now, each of those things requires firmware update intervention.

The point is that I was willing to take a lot of teething pain with Ford/SunRun to get this to work - and let it run its full course. Given the architectural underpinnings inherent in Ford's modular software approach, I should have known better. They were never able to get my '21 King Ranch PowerBoost (project one) to download the required modules to gain the paid-for BlueCruise functionality - which was still nonoperational when traded on the Lightning last July, despite four shop visits at two different dealers, including one six-week session and six cumulative days of tech time, with support from Ford engineering. We don't really need a truck in Florida for most of our daily running, use bicycles, a motorcycle and my wife's two-seater convertible except when towing the jet skis or boat locally for service or storage, or when ferrying guests. I admit maybe even enjoying the first-adopter Lightning HIS process given that this truck isn't mission critical except four days per year when transiting between Florida and Virginia. I genuinely appreciate how open Ford and SunRun have been while working on it, have remained very patient and supportive of their eventual desire to use my installation as essentially a test case, but the patient is still in a coma and time's up. Pulling the plug

 

[LightningCanuckNB]

Just skip the HIS entirely. Get someone to install a standard 60A generator panel with transfer switch (manual or auto), this will run you probably $800 or so. Then plug the backed up circuits into the 7.2 KW outlet on truck when the power goes out.

Yes, you will have to manually go plug the house into the truck. But you will save thousands of dollars on not purchasing an inverter when the truck already has one, and also have the flexibility of using a gasoline generator instead if you choose.

The entire way the HIS has been designed where it does not take any advantage of the trucks own inverter, is ridiculous from the outset... it was basically engineered to generate revenue for SunRun.

 

[Maquis]

I am in the buyback process right now (entire truck and HIS), cannot discuss much more until complete, but have found Ford to be very responsive, including flying the head of the HIS engineering program in Dearborn to my Florida home, and the head of SunRun's electrical installations from New Jersey flew down here twice. Many other visits from SunRun (and their original subcontractor, which they fired after the first bolloxed install) including a complete reinstallation from scratch using a team that came from Orlando for three days. Still will not work properly, with no solution at this time other than possibly to wait for a software rewrite being done for all of our trucks, at which time it may or may not work (Ford engineering has high confidence, I have little). So I will switch back to a PowerBoost after the buyback review/approval is complete, supposedly 3 days.

I have one advantage compared to your situation having paid zero to SunRun for the HIS so far, which they are okay with pending installation success/proven ability to run the house. They do send bills, to which I now say "come and get the equipment." Everyone involved is super-apologetic and has gone WAY over the top in terms of both responsiveness and communication (direct emails and phone numbers for the folks in engineering at Ford HIS systems, Ford OTA systems, and SunRun). I don't abuse, will not out them here but may provide privately when my situation is fully resolved.

This is truly a disappointment, as I love the truck, and it seems sorted to spec and current software now except for its inability to communicate properly through the charge station to the HIS when generator mode kicks in - errors out every time. The HIS function was the #1 reason we bought the truck, as it's mostly a Florida vehicle for 6 months of the year, intended to sit and watch the fort, ready to take over when bad stuff happens. We cannot have a generator in our gated ICW-facing townhome community.

The HIS just isn't ready for prime time yet - and with Farley's announcement of a whole new systems architecture (presumably finally abandoning the antiquated modular software approach endemic to all Sync vehicles), I sense that some of the issues are too cumbersome to resolve without restarting a la Tesla's much simpler single-point non-modular OTA process, which in my ten years of Tesla ownership experience works every time and always has. In other words, development will end on these first-attempt HIS systems, likely with some near term support, but all hands-on will focus on the planned clean-slate bidirectional approach and Sync replacement. As it is, there are so many things that must go exactly right when a generator session is initiated - five local devices, each with their own software included in the dance (six if we count the smartphone app, eight if we count the Ford and SunRun mothership servers that handle much of the communication/security) - and if one element steps on another's toes or misses a step, physical intervention is necessary - maybe just unplugging and re-plugging the truck, or a full start over/reboot on the hardware boxes. My system isn't even to that level - won't ever complete a generator session initiation and then stay lit without failing. This defies the point of HIS - unattended reliable operation. We won't be here for six months and no one can physically do anything to the systems or the truck in that period, even as simple as re-plugging the charger cable. It's simply not ready for its intended purpose - unattended switchover when the grid drops.

What would I do in your situation? Call Ford customer relations and open a case. At the end of the day, they designed the system in-house and SunRun is simply the installation provider of hardware for which Ford did almost all integration work and for which the software is written inside Ford. SunRun does have a role in terms of a login database (other issues there, including with your experience), but this is really a Ford-integrated product, with a model installation site in Dearborn engineering, and all responsibility ends there, even though my contract was with SunRun. Only Ford has the big picture.

I was handed off to Ford customer relations by Ford engineering with an acknowledgement that they don't have a solution at this time. It appears that a buyback is now being fast-tracked, as they have separate groups inside customer relations that handle buybacks depending on circumstance (for example lemon law cases, which this is not), with relatively short turn-around times. I'm still holding my breath, but do have a Platinum PowerBoost on hold at the dealer.

Your issues are slightly more challenging to resolve given you've already paid for the system and used your own contractor, while I was solely with SunRun/Ford. Refunds are harder than nonpayment until proven installed. My situation is also slightly atypical because SunRun normally requires a deposit but for whatever reason never collected one from me. Getting reimbursed for your third-party self-install elements might be a heavy lift, but for what you paid SunRun, you could look into your credit card warranty/return policies. That would require you to exhaust claims with SunRun first, something else that you should initiate in terms of those funds - go wherever you paid or signed the purchase agreement and move up from there. Best of luck to you.

Since you already have experience with Tesla (and stated you really didn’t need a truck) I be interested in why you decided to go with the Lightning instead of a PowerWall for backup power. The only thing I can think of is that a single PowerWall is a fraction of the Lightning’s storage capacity?

Thanks!

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