Some Blink network oddities

[wmcbrine]

My town recently installed three public Blink L2 charging stations, and it's been weird. The stations are all for pay, nominally, but they keep fiddling with the stated pricing, and it's not clear so far that they're actually charging anything. None of them showed up on the Blink app, at first -- the first-installed station now does, after a few months. (I added all three of them to PlugShare myself. It's rare that I have that opportunity.)

The first one:

https://www.plugshare.com/location/476591

You can read the saga of the pricing in the checkins and the photo captions. (All of that was before it appeared in the Blink app.) My session never did show up on my Blink account.

The second one:

https://www.plugshare.com/location/518450

Here, Michael says he used the Blink app, but this station still doesn't show in the app. So I dunno how that works... in my case, I tried my Blink card, but it seemed to ignore that (it had worked on the first station), so I tried a credit card, and was supposedly charged $0.16 for a brief test. (I'll have to check the statement later.)

The third one:

https://www.plugshare.com/location/518454

No one's checked in here yet, but note the pricing in the screen shot -- same as the original on the first station (and unlike the second).

 

[GerryAZ]

Yes, something may be going on with their network. I had a bit of trouble getting a Blink DCQC charge session started the last time I used a station across town that I use every once in a while. I don't think I was charged for it and I was unable to get into the part of my account that would show details of charge events. Instead, logging in took me to some sort of commercial section for charging station hosts.

 

[wmcbrine]

Yeah, their web site seems to be only aimed at hosts now. You have to use the app to get to the consumer side, AFAICT. It's bizarre.

I never have used Blink much, due to the previous lack of stations in my area. But now, not only are those three up, but they've taken over SemaConnect, which had tons of local stations. I got emails from SemaConnect about my account being moved to Blink. Hmm.