Blink 2.0

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The Email Ecotality sent out is titled "Look Out for the New Blink Software!". How appropriate! =)

2.0 seems to have even more bugs than the old 1.8!

-Phil
 
It would be great if the new version stopped the public chargers from going into an endless loop, effectively taking themselves offline until they are reset. Seems like at any given time 30% of the chargers are in this state. Since Blink wants to start charging you'd think eliminating this problem would be high on the list of things to fix.
 
SanDust said:
It would be great if the new version stopped the public chargers from going into an endless loop, effectively taking themselves offline until they are reset. Seems like at any given time 30% of the chargers are in this state. Since Blink wants to start charging you'd think eliminating this problem would be high on the list of things to fix.

I think collecting money from Uncle Sugar is number one. They don't have enough of these chargers to pay one employees salary.
 
SanDust said:
It would be great if the new version stopped the public chargers from going into an endless loop, effectively taking themselves offline until they are reset. Seems like at any given time 30% of the chargers are in this state. Since Blink wants to start charging you'd think eliminating this problem would be high on the list of things to fix.
+1

I sure hope 2.0 fixes it. With so few public chargers we really can't afford for 1/4 or more of them to be broken at any time. It looks like this is the same problem that happens to our home chargers, where we just unplug the Blink and plug it back in to reboot it. There's no such quick fix possibility with a public charger.

Another thing they must fix before they can start collecting money, is to set some reasonable charging session timeout after unplugging, and/or to implement a session logout button. Else much of the public charging is going to be mis-billed to the previous driver's account.

A third thing that would be highly desirable before they start collecting money is the ability like Chargepoint users have to reserve a charging station. In that way you could feel more confident before driving past the half-range point that you would be able to charge and make it back home again. I believe they said they are planning to do this.

I wouldn't be surprised if the start of money collection were delayed past ECOtality's announced date in order to fix the necessary software bugs first.
 
With the typical Blink-in-Public EVSE:

Could one unplug it from a paying customer's charging car,
plug it into a different car, and "continue" to charge ...
billing the first guy's account, no Blinking card needed? :eek:

Further, in those AB475 "specially marked" parking spaces,
to add major injury to minor injury, have the first car ...
towed away for being unplugged? :eek: :eek: :eek:
 
linkim said:
What I noticed is that the display showed the amount of energy passed (12.2 kWh), which was about the same as what showed up on my Blink internet site (12.15 kWh). I don't recall seeing an energy display on the Blink screen with 1.8. Or am I just not observant?
You're correct - 1.8 didn't have a "kWh" display, only a "charge time" display - the only way to see the kWh was via the blinknetwork site.

That's one of the things I was hoping they'd add in 2.x. Now I just have to keep waiting for it...
 
garygid said:
With the typical Blink-in-Public EVSE:

Could one unplug it from a paying customer's charging car,
plug it into a different car, and "continue" to charge ...
billing the first guy's account, no Blinking card needed? :eek:

Further, in those AB475 "specially marked" parking spaces,
to add major injury to minor injury, have the first car ...
towed away for being unplugged? :eek: :eek: :eek:
Once the car is unplugged, the Blink requires a car be swiped again to restart charging.
 
Unfortunately, there's nothing to prevent the second part from occurring. :cry:

As far as I remember, the J1722 connector for Blink units doesn't even have an area to put in a small travel lock to prevent your vehicle from being easily unplugged.
 
OK, Blink needs a card swipe to start a new session?
No swipe needed to END a session?

Why was "walterbays", 5 posts above, asking for a session timeout after unplugging?

From what you say, the session timeout is immediate upon unplugging, right?
 
garygid said:
OK, Blink needs a card swipe to start a new session?
No swipe needed to END a session?

Why was "walterbays", 5 posts above, asking for a session timeout after unplugging?

From what you say, the session timeout is immediate upon unplugging, right?
When you disconnect it may stop "charging" in the electrical sense but I don't think it will stop "charging" in the monetary sense. Every time I use a public Blink I get notifications on my smartphone: charging, plugged, unplugged. This is great. But for hours afterwards I continue to get notifications, e.g. that my car is once again charging at Ikea, which is by then miles distant from my car. So I think they continue to associate all charging events with the same card that originally activated the unit for quite some time after unplugging, which does not give me confidence that I would be correctly billed for use of the unit. Maybe it's an easy bug to fix. I'm hoping that firmware 2.0 delivers the fix, and that it makes the public units more reliable.
 
ahagge said:
linkim said:
What I noticed is that the display showed the amount of energy passed (12.2 kWh), which was about the same as what showed up on my Blink internet site (12.15 kWh). I don't recall seeing an energy display on the Blink screen with 1.8. Or am I just not observant?
You're correct - 1.8 didn't have a "kWh" display, only a "charge time" display - the only way to see the kWh was via the blinknetwork site.

That's one of the things I was hoping they'd add in 2.x. Now I just have to keep waiting for it...
They used to display kwh and removed it in 1.8? I was going to start a thread on "desired display items for the Blink", and list kwh. I can't believe it's got an internal energy meter and it doesn't tell you how much kwh you used in you last charge or your current usage while you're charging.

Has anyone had any luck suggesting these "features" to blink?

Maybe we can stop them from going backwards and removing helpful items.. Like kwh!
 
Splittinglanes said:
They used to display kwh and removed it in 1.8?
I think there's some confusion here regarding what and where. The Blink has an accumulated kWh display, but it's not on the Main screen. It's also not on the "Your Last Charge" display. It's on the Stats screen. And, it's cumulative, so if you want to know how much this charge used, you have to know what it read before you started. This is in 1.8 and in all the older versions.

The Beta testers didn't say, but perhaps the new firmware has a running kWh display while charging.

One other note: I don't think any of this information can be gotten from the commercial chargers, other than charge time. That, you'd have to get from the Blink Network site. However, I've found that the charge time and the energy used follow very closely, at a rate of 3.7kW. This is true except when you are nearing 100%, where the charge tapers off.
 
garygid said:
So, what is the proper way to "close" the monitary charging
session on a non-free Blink?
Swiping your card before unplugging doesn't do anything, however when you unplug the cable from the car the screen goes from "unplug at any time" to "swipe your card to begin."

I've tried to plug back in the cable after unplugging without swiping and it doesn't start charging the car until I swipe my card again.
 
Logged into my Blink this morning, and noticed the kWh reading had 3 decimal places. Then I went to "device info" but I couldn't--it wouldn't recognize my PIN. Then I noticed the kWh number was reset. So I went out to the garage, brought up the device info--sure enough, version 2.0 is here. Apparently saving the old settings was way too hard for the programmers. Oh well...time for another "Blink Cleared" entry on the spreadsheet :)
 
I know it's a bit late for a Santa wish list (I'm willing to wait until next Christmas), but here it is for a BLINK 2.0:

- a unit That Just Works (TM)
- no touchscreen: why is there a touchscreen, what is it good for? When was the last time you had to calibrate a touchscreen (This is so last millennium)?
- no features, no gimmicks: what's the point of the timer function? My Leaf has already all the necessary brain and knows exactly how to charge it's own battery whenever I tell it to. Having a timer on both sides could lead to deadlocks (i.e. no charging at all).
- small, compact, unobtrusive unit which blends perfectly in. Not an huge, bulky, in your face box (Look at the Tesla charger, ok it comes with a premium but I'm ok if it's a tad bigger)

All these would also considerably reduce development, production and transportation costs and we, the alpha testers, would be instantly gratified. How does that sound?
It sounds like your are excatly describing the AV EVSE!
 
Anyone else still waiting for 2.0 to be pushed to their Blink? I got the email ages ago and it still hasn't upgraded...
 
drees said:
Anyone else still waiting for 2.0 to be pushed to their Blink? I got the email ages ago and it still hasn't upgraded...
Me too. But it has been reasonably reliable for me on 1.8, with just an occasional power fault, so I'm not rocking the boat.
 
I've had 2.0 for a while. I noticed the main display after charging was not showing correct information. For example it showed zero off peak charging. This last weekend the display changed. It no longer shows off peak charging used, instead it shows total kWh used as the top item, and it appears to be correct. The software version is now 2.02.something, I can't recall the entire number.

Things are getting better :D
 
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