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

[Jim Lewis]

f you already have a subpanel and don't have solar... why don't you just save the $5000+ and get a manual transfer switch ($100 or less) and plug it into the 7.2 KW inverter in the truck?

Well, for one thing, if I want, I can leave home with the truck plugged in, the set of breakers I want to back up switched on, and have the truck automatically back up my house while I'm on vacation elsewhere and get up to 9.6 kW rather than 7.2 kW out of the truck. The option to have solar is nice in that we have a very large picturesque hollow live oak shading the southwest side of our house that probably should be cut down. The wife refuses to have it done and says she'll rebuild the house if the tree ever falls on the house (only uninhabited areas of our house are likely to be affected, including the truck in the garage!). With the tree gone, solar would be a more realistic option for us.

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[djwildstar]

Hold the phone...they put the charge port and the communication module on complete opposite corners of the truck? Who's the nincompoop that approved that?

That’s the exact reaction I had when I read it! The illustration shows an 80” distance from the Bluetooth module to the CSP, so I’m guessing a “normal” setup where you park right next to the charger should be just fine.

 

[Stonelew]

Got the HIS to work but it can be hit or miss to work every time. I think the issue is a software issue with the inverter.

 

[Pitbull2o08]

Got the HIS to work but it can be hit or miss to work every time. I think the issue is a software issue with the inverter.

It is. I've been on the horn with Sun Run senior Tech's, AEE solar customer service, Delta Techs and They have been in touch with Software writers in China. There is alot that's not fine tuned but will be soon. I still like the product.

 

[Stonelew]

The other day we simulated grid outage and after 4 minutes nothing, unplugged the charger and put it back in and it worked in about 2 minutes.

 

[Barrels]

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.

Hello detasinn, we also have 16kw panels and will soon have our Lightning. I have a generator inlet and have decided to forgo the HIS due to the expense and problems. Which transfer switch did you decide on?

 

[detansinn]

Hello detasinn, we also have 16kw panels and will soon have our Lightning. I have a generator inlet and have decided to forgo the HIS due to the expense and problems. Which transfer switch did you decide on?

I haven’t decided yet. Welcome recommendations from those who have been down this road.

 

[Barrels]

For what it’s worth, in my case I’ve decided against a xfr switch this morning. First decision was whether to go auto or manual transfer - auto would be preferred. But the killer is the limitation of the truck power and the # of circuits in the switch. You have to id the critical circuits and put them in the xfr switch panel and then you are stuck. The 7.2 kw of the truck won’t run enough critical circuits. I will need to manually switch them. If more of my systems were gas powered instead of electric then I may be ok. But having electric heat, electric hot water, a well pump, garage heat I need and more has me needing to rotate loads. Good luck with your design.

 

[v2h8484]

For what it’s worth, in my case I’ve decided against a xfr switch this morning. First decision was whether to go auto or manual transfer - auto would be preferred. But the killer is the limitation of the truck power and the # of circuits in the switch. You have to id the critical circuits and put them in the xfr switch panel and then you are stuck. The 7.2 kw of the truck won’t run enough critical circuits. I will need to manually switch them. If more of my systems were gas powered instead of electric then I may be ok. But having electric heat, electric hot water, a well pump, garage heat I need and more has me needing to rotate loads. Good luck with your design.

Even 9.6kw won't be enough for you. Backup is definitely one reason I am staying with gas powered heating appliances.

 

[Henry Ford]

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

You should write a book and call it Zen and the Art of Wireless Connections.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

Even 9.6kw won't be enough for you. Backup is definitely one reason I am staying with gas powered heating appliances.

Interesting - I have an all-electric 2-700-sq-ft townhome with one heat pump, was able to move every circuit over, but was required to add a soft-start device to the heat pump in Oder to reduce the max draw there. I normally only draw 1.2-1.4 except when both the heat pump (a/c in our case in FL) and hot water kick in, at which point I’m at 8.9. At that point running the microwave or oven would trip the system, but for normal house operations, everything is good. Except that it won’t stay operating for any length of time, fails due to the other issues discussed above, no hardware or truck-level issues except the known interference from outside Wi-Fi signals. Would really like thus system to work as designed and advertised, but not possible under current conditions.

 

[deltacap]

You should write a book and call it Zen and the Art of Wireless Connections.

The system cries out for a hardwired ethernet connector.

 

[Whammy Bar]

The system cries out for a hardwired ethernet connector.

8 months later, the Ford offering still crap.

Thanks for bumping the thread.

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