A growing concern for all manner of hardware that relies on software to function. Give an added bonus to relatively weak warranty requirements for the U.S. that makes it easier for companies to suddenly dump support than in Europe or Australia.
Anyone know how we would be able to continue these products? My understanding is that this charger is 100% controlled by an app. Are there open source alternatives?
Apparently, the chargers will be updated to become dumb terminals that just charge automatically when plugged in, but for many end users, the main reason they went with Juicebox (which was bought by Enel) was that Enel would handle user accounts and billing. I work at an organization where we charge employees at a discounted rate, and the chargers are open to the public to use as well if they install the app and input their payment info. We’re going to have to close down public access if we can’t find a solution. A couple companies are saying they might be able to take over. Would have been nice to have more than a couple weeks to figure this out!
I’m sure it’s technically possible to reverse engineer the software, but there are also “dumb” chargers that require no software or app. They’re more reliable and cheaper, and there’s no risk of being locked out when a company stops supporting its software.
Open EVSE is the only open source charger I’ve heard about, but I haven’t used their products before.
I have been using Open EVSE for years and love them, They have a nicely documented API so i can control them with just about anything.
