Steer clear from AIO?

Having gone through a year of pain with two 9.5s and finally reached a point where the battery firmware (3.12 for us) is now doing a reasonable job, I was about to recommend a neighbour to look at the "new" GE AIO system.

However, dropping back in here and seeing tales of woe and understandable frustration, is that a recommendation I should avoid? Is it just a few users who have problems or wide-ranging, as were the earlier issues pre AIO? Surely GE didn't launch half-cocked did they? I'm reluctant to steer him Tesla Powerwall way but with their recent price reductions, maybe that's best? Anyone having good experience with AIO for balance please?

sponev

I have had an AIO & Gateway installed in August. There were a few problems to start with however there has just been a software update and things are much better in my opinion.

It will only get better with future software updates.

I see the advantages and cost of the AIO going forward over a few teething issues.

1. EPS included incase of power cuts
2. 4 x 4 kWh batteries instead of 1 big battery, these can be replaced if any issues. My opinion on some of the issues maybe one of the batteries is faulty causing the SOC issue.
3. Option for up to 6 AIO in future.
4. 6000w charge and most importantly discharge
5. 12 year Warranty

Mines operating pretty well at present. It fully charges overnight on IO, feeds the house during the day after solar, and then discharges what's left after 9pm to start the cycle over again the following day.

Had it about 6 weeks, only issue I think I have is the communications freeze when charging over 4kW, I am going to investigate this once I have had a reasonable period of steady running.

I've had mine about a month now and my 13.5kWh AIO is now delivering 10kWh max so most days it depletes before my cheap rate tariff kicks in.
So for my use it's not fit for purpose ie to run house on off-peak electricity courtesy of my Intelligent Octopus tariff.
It was also meant to de-risk my pending heat-pump install ie if it uses to much electricity at least a chunk of it will be off-peak.

I have a support case with GivEnergy, which is with their firmware team, but so far nada (this seems to be a 0.608 firmware issue).

It has potential but so far I feel like a beta tester, which I did not sign up for.
As far as additional AIO units (functionality 'coming soon apparently'), that was my plan. However based on my current challenges, the idea of having to buy an additional battery because the 1st AIO unit is not giving me the capacity I paid for does not appeal.

I'm more inclined to wait and replace it with the incoming Tesla PW3 and call it a lesson learned ie don't touch small UK companies that don't seem to have the capability/resources to bring a functioning problem free product to market (hell I'd be OK with that if the support was there to resolve any teething issues.

I am annoyed with myself as numerous installers (including approved GivEnergy installers) told me not to touch GivEnergy, due to the challenges they and their customers have had. But me with my misplaced optimism went ahead anyway as I was confident lessons had been learnt and the AIO was going to be fine.

Thanks for your feedback. Seems a bit mixed at the moment unfortunately and I sympathise with those who have invested where it's not performing. On paper it looks great but the inconsistency and serious lack of field support is disturbing. For transparency I'll advise my neighbour of the various pros and cons and let him decide. If it was me, I'd be giving it another 6 months I think.

Lucky folks in here still getting nearly full charge, two consecutive nights for me my AIO has only put in 6.6kwh from flat to full and then after dropping til sun comes up and then getting back to 100% ive lost another 1.5kwh

Ive had issues since it was installed and they seem to flat out refuse to see if it is an issue with the batteries at all and keep putting it all on the firmware.

I have just this second got off the phone with octopus to change my tariff as ill never make TO the peak period let alone past it on flux when parents are home and its not just me.

I am now not charging this from the grid at all and I am contemplating whether to flip the breaker in the gateway to power it off completely so I don't have it sit idling consuming 80-150w of power doing bugger all.

Jellybaby I'm not sure about the AIO but with the 9.5s there are ways to examine cell voltages - this is a handy indicator of possible battery problems. Are you able to do that? With mine you can use the Android monitor app and also via GivTCP I believe. You shouldn't have to do that of course but if you can and you spot something, it may give you some leverage. I believe, but can't prove, that a lot of the issues with the 9.5s is down to inconsistency with battery internals. If you get a bad one then no amount of firmware updating will resolve it satisfactorily.

sponev Cant do that yet with the AIO.

AIO since early August, recently had a few days of sudden SOC drops, never had issues when under PredBat control using Givtcp sensors. I cannot understand why GE are keeping silent, why won’t they let us know what we are experiencing and why. And let us know that it will be fixed!

Jase1703 That's how the saga with the old batteries started. Paul brought some transparency when he started his new role but still some questions unanswered. Hopefully things get resolved soon, however it's disconcerting that issues like this exist on a new product. I thought that was behind them, but maybe not 🙁

I may have changed my mind, I would wait as you say for 6 months.

I have just had a total discharge twice in 24 hrs.

sponev

We went PW2 as it was cheaper than AIO plus an extra rebate.

Yes I’ve lost a lot of control, but the automated nature has done an excellent job so far only a couple of weeks in.

Given the choice again I’d make the same decision and reading some posts on here I do feel i dodged a bullet (no doubt I’ll get caught by others)

I spoke to GE at the Solar & Storage show yesterday.

I also asked when they were going to resolve the many issues that are being experienced with by many GE owners, and specifically the AIO's, that appear to be reasonably common on here and other forums.
He said asked what kind of issues to which I replied numerous problems with charging, not charging, not working with Octopus integrations, capacity etc etc. The reply was "we" are not aware of any particular issues but.... where someone was having an issue they should contact GE Support.

The person I spoke to claimed that GE have sold around 30-40,000 units so far.......
Speaking to another manufacturer they told me there is no way of confirming whether this is true or not as GE do not provide any sales figures to Standard & Poor (S&P) who provide regular market % figures.

I did point out that it feels like GE are trying to "run before they can walk"....... perhaps another, and more accurate, way to phrase it would be "using live customers as BETA testers".

Ooh and an as an aside (slightly off this topic) the much promised update around the solution for multiple installs of Hybrid inverters (and other configurations) aka "plant installation" was not so much of an update - ie a product finally being released, it was simply to be included as part of a talk they were giving. So its a still "in progress product"

Worth adding to anyone thinking pw3 it’s a hybrid only system from what I’ve seen. PW2 will be made to integrate with other inverters.

dragon2905

Were these people junior sales people? I as saying we have never heard of it would be stretching things as letters were published on here apparently from directors…

Doesn’t instil confidence in the product or support.

Daveb01

This is very similar to me. I cannot see exactly but it looks like the grid only supplied 6/7 kWh to take your battery from 4% to 100%. Obviously that is not full. Once you have used those kWh the graph suddenly falls back to 4% which is the true value. Where the graphs shows ₇₀% you were already close to 4%. The gradual decline from 100% to 70% is you using the 6/7 kWh. There is a programming error on the graph. If it was correct it would show that after the grid import the total battery charge is less than 50%, and a gradual decline to 4% from thereon.

I've not got anything concrete to add nor have I got one/seen inside one but given the specs of the AIO match up perfectly with 2x AC3 running together in a box there is a chance that is how these are made and that one of the two inverters are not handling SOC gracefully: each counts power in & out but one is counting half the capacity and or neither value is being processed to give the total added together. The whole landing on 6.5/7kWh that a few seem to mention is suspiciously half the total actual just seems too coincidental to me.

dragon2905 The person I spoke to claimed that GE have sold around 30-40,000 units so far

That just means that there's thousands sitting in wholesaler/electrical suppliers warehouses.

No way have they got 30-40,000 AIO's installed. Not a chance.

This all just sounds painfully familiar. Have they learnt nothing? IMO they do not deserve more time on this. launching the AIO with the same KNOWN fault deserves to sink the company.

phoenix I'd agree with you bar the fact I have one and I'd like them to fix the issue before they do go under 😁

Basically it's the installer's who will bring the company to it's knees as they are the ones getting continual grief from their customers on GivEnergy products. The number of GivEnergy approved installers who told me to steer clear and get a powerwall was an eye opener.

But between my optimism and the odd positive YouTube review I decided GivEnergy had turned a corner with the AIO and found a local installer, who despite his misgivings (lots of previous issues with GivEnergy installs), was prepared to install the AIO to see for himself if things had improved.

Apparently it's a pleasure to install, commissioning is a bit shit and some sort of ohm threshold got breached so G99 fast track got rejected.

And I like many others have vanishing capacity issues.

Sadly even if they do resolve this, the number of reputable installers who just won't touch it means most punters will never hear about GivEnergy.

Which leaves the clowns offering to install it at a great price despite not being approved installers but don't worry they know the GivEnergy CEO (I had a few of those) - I'm sure that will work out for GivEnergy

tomorrowman I'd agree with you bar the fact I have one and I'd like them to fix the issue before they do go under

That's understandable! I do feel for all having issues who are now locked in. Frankly I'd be sending back/taking legal action if it were me. They have been getting away with this for too long IMO.

tomorrowman

We had a fair few tell us they wouldn’t. Two latest who did our work both strongly suggested PW2 instead or solaredge DC if we didn’t want AC.

IMHO glad we’ve ended up elsewhere as ours does just work. Also not seen similar complaints on the kstar or libbi and they’re both LFP too.

If we had not been strongly recommended to avoid and had had an AIO installed with these issues, the installer would have been told to take it out and the CC company involved for an s75 refund.

TBH it will only take a few at trading standards or perhaps a lawyer to pick up a class action.

Is GE related to the co. Ltd company as if so that would explain a lot.

I was going to get the powerwall but it was going to cost a few grand extra, wish I had now.

Well I still went ahead as the Saving on install over a PW2 even with all the offers was still more, and at the end of the day if it doesn't perform there are ways to resolve.

Probably worth a reminder that people who are unhappy are the people who post, there is no knowledge of installs out there to have a ratio of complaints per sale as such and yes my installer also bemoaned them but simply due to the hit and miss nature of commisioning

Im only posting that mines okay simply because Im new Im pretty sure after a month Ill stop looking here as long as all is well and for me apart from initial niggle (setup not device) so far its been fine and is doing what I expect it to do.

DreadorUK

Read the 3007 SoC thread for the same issue running for years on other inverter/battery combinations then see how yoy view the above comments.

FYI a recently installed PW2 was significantly less (north of £1k) vs the AIO on the quotes we had received and that’s before any rebates.
Not saying that’s always the case, but you know…

kram

It does nothing to my argument that unhappy people do tend to be the only keyboard warriors, lets for sake of argument say there are 10,000 batteries out there in all probably a low figure but still - that post has just under 3000 responses with lets say on average 5 posts per person so 600 people with a issue = 10,000 v 600 - not a big percentage that warrants comments about wishing the company goes to the wall and people losing their jobs as Ive seen here. Plus I can find forum posts about PW2 just as easily where people are losing power and their Trustpilot score is even lower.

It was opposite for me £1300 cheaper to go with AIO over PW2 but then Ive seen some companies quoting 12k for a AIO so can believe it.

DreadorUK I'm sure there are people on here with genuine issues with their AIO installs and if it were me I'd be fuming about it also so I don't blame them for venting here. But yes the reality as with any product especially new to market ones is that the majority who have no issues don't make any noise.

It does seem like a higher number of these similar capacity issues than pure chance manufacturing defects might cause though so I do wonder if there is something systemic behind it that only effects a few installs.

For me the AIO install quote was several k less than equivalent PW2 plus the AIO is better (on paper when it works at least!) so that's why I went this way. Not many other options if you want a tidy single unit that does 5+kW in and out. SolarEdge were DC coupled (didn't work for my setup) and much more expensive.

Anyway +1 vote for "all working to spec here" to balance things for anyone reading this.

Interesting reading.
I am aware of a small number vs installed systems of SoC issues with the HV BMS on the AIO.

Additional resources have been allocated and we have already via beta testers made progress in the tracking of the charge. A bug found in the self calibration mechanism.

I'm tracking half a dozen systems on my bug reports, the noise in here suggests more.
Yet far less is reported.

Regardless of which. One customer issues, will get my attention. The fact I'm nott in here every day as I used to be, indicated the increase workload I have and the work towards EV charger launch. Which too has firmware and needs testing in as many scenarios as possible.

A new BMS is coming.

TheDragon (GivEnergy)
Thank you for the public confirmation, and for the update.

As a new user, I have not been told nor have I discovered how to report issues. This forum seems reasonably active and responsive (see, for example, the reaction yesterday to the app not working for most people), so is my first port of call with problems or questions.

My installer reported the issues I have with misreporting/disappearing charge, and I was emailed by second level support. (I was first told that I needed a calibration, then I was told that my system was mis-configured, then I was told 12 days ago that this was a known bug.) My ticket number is 69819, if it is not already on your list.

I am very happy to become a beta tester, if you are looking for more.

DreadorUK

12k 😮 we were quoted about £7-7.5k Inc VAT 😮

TheDragon (GivEnergy) My AIO is apparently down to 1.3kwh for a full charge, im currently doing a forced discharge and then letting it top back up on solar to see if that changes anything.

kram

Hehe yeah I know - online price - don't think they will get many takers.....

PianSom

If you would like to be a beta tester here is the email

betatesting@givenergy.co.uk

Also here is the complaints email

Complaints@givenergy.co.uk

Daveb01

Thanks. I will contact the beta email.

Not so interested in complaining. I find most organisations direct email complaints to /dev/null 🙂

Is there an email for support? And is it actually responded to by someone who does something?

PianSom There is but ive had no reply from them in I think at least a week after they told me my problem rectified itself lol

I also find it quite frustrating that the system will not comply with discharge limits I have set either.

EDIT
This was my last interaction with them, went from 10kwh capacity to 6.6 in from the below looks like in 2 days and now im down to 1-2kwh.

TheDragon (GivEnergy) many thanks for publicly acknowledging the AIO SOC issue. I have the issue and very much look forward to receiving some improvements. It is probably fair to assume that the majority of AIO owners probably don’t monitor their systems closely, this particular issue is probably easy to miss unless you expect to be using the full DOD advertised for AIO.
Thanks in advance.

I have just had a thought while walking the dog.

Let’s make the AIO a GE EV (Teslar) 😀

You charge the GE EV at night on the cheap rate to 100%.
You leave for work/day out
You get to work/location and you have 60%

If the GE EV says 60% battery you are confident you can get home
You leave work/Location and start the journey, your on the motorway and the battery indicates 58%.

Suddenly the car battery dies, you have to pull over in an emergency situation and have to call the AA/RAC. You may forgive GE EV once but if this happens once a week or once a month???

Would GE sell many EV’s in the future
If GE have sold 40,000 EV’s would there be a recall notice?
Would GE still be in business if there were 7 recalls and the issue was still not fixed?
Would GE be allowed to release the new (AIO) EV if the previous EV’s we’re found to have the same issue after many recalls?

TheDragon (GivEnergy)
Is the new BMS a hardware change in a new version or new firmware for all existing equipment?

Given that after 2 years of promises the problems and promised solutions to the firmware issues on their other kit resulted in a firmware (3013)that actually bricked some people's kit, I wouldn't bet my house on the AIO problems being fixed that quickly.

I really, really, REALLY hope that I am wrong here as the AIO really looks like a superb solution. It should never have been released in this state.

Zakalwe

If the price was right and there were no SoC issues (for whatever reason) then it would be a competitor to the Powerwall.

If it’s only a small number of products with faults and most not, then that doesn’t suggest firmware to me.

So either it’s firmware and they’re all affected to some extent or there are only a small number affected and there should be hardware replacement as clearly there is something different/amiss that causes the issue to surface on this small number.

Of course if it is a small number then replacement with known good hardware would be cheaper than the repetitional damage or firmware teams costs.

Make of that as you will…

Daveb01 Not quite as fair of a comparison as you might think. EVs tend to sit around not moving for a few hours at a time which gives their BMS a chance to calibrate. I've seen graphs (you know who you are, share if you see this!) of a Tesla Model 3's SOC being tracked in Home Assistant. You can clearly see a SOC drop on that graph, yet when you look back at the history of the SOC in the Tesla app it appears to have re-written history and there's a smoother run to the correct SOC. Home batteries are different in that they're continuously in use so finding a break for the OCV to re-adjust itself is trickier.

Although I appreciate it's difficult, I will eat my hair (had it not already fallen out) if Tesla are redrawing 60+% drops people on this thread have had. Daily Mail would have something lasting weeks (that the Viagra company could only dream of!) if EV's were doing it on such a scale.

hoggy No we're talking 5% drops / gains there, but my point was more about the idle time of an EV battery allowing those more frequent small adjustments to take place in order to avoid larger drops over time, rather than any headline grabbing covering up of SOC drops. The BMS tweaks that GivEnergy have been making include improved ways to find those idle opportunities and suitable moments to re-assess the SOC in order to keep it on track.

However you spin it though, it doesn’t mean that a battery which experiences SoC drops because it’s hard is a usable battery for many people.

Tesla have been using LFP batteries for what 2 years. Anyone reporting that their car goes from 60% to zero? If they have, then I haven't seen it and I follow this stuff fairly closely.

TheDragon (GivEnergy) could you tell us, is the fix for the AIO running in parallel any nearer ?

TheDragon (GivEnergy) My AIO has just dropped from 40% SOC to 8% in less than a minute. System is a month in.
GE need to get a grip on this and fast. Launching new products while the existing ones are not fit for purpose, it not acceptable.

TheDragon (GivEnergy) My AIO regularly drops from 35% to 4%, at around 285v battery voltage. What's the best way to report it?

GaryS Next time it drops take the charge that gets put into the battery as a starting point then start adding/subtracting charge/discharge.

That is what I used to do and if you charge during cheap period you can plan for the SOC drops.

Have those getting this confirmed its a drop over a false high?

GE are working very hard to resolve the AIO's SOC issue. I am beta testing new bms and inverter firmware versions as mine has had issues every 10 or so days since install at the beginning of July. I keep a close eye on mine and could see that every day the gap between voltage and battery % remaining got larger and if it was saying I had 50% battery and the voltage was 290 I knew it would crash to zero pretty soon. Along with a few other testers mine was updated again a few days ago and some were installed with a full calibration and I chose not to calibrate as my battery was full and I wanted to see what would happen. Well last night I could see it operating differently, it was actually reporting less battery % but the voltage was up at 310+ so I knew it wasn't flat. It was dropping from 40% down to around 10% in around half an hour with an avg of 650w running the house. When the AIO reached 10% the graph flatlined levelling out and it held 10% as if the unit was actually trying to recalibrate and sort itself out, it took ages before it steadily dropped to 5% and went to idle with the voltage still up at 309v. We then started the calibration and it ran the house for another couple of hours before it started charging, it would probably have been a lot longer if it had held my output at 700w discharge that I had set but the new firmware automatically ramped up the discharge to 2.9kw as soon as it reached 3%, it then dropped it to 1400w when it reached 1% before finally dropping again to 500w when it reached 0.0% and continued at that for probably 20-30mins before stopping and recharging. It has never operated like this before and from what I saw I would say they are moving in the right direction. One of the other testers who's was calibrated appears to be working great so fingers crossed!!

I too am a beta tester. I was installed and calibrated the day before yesterday (Tue), so yesterday was my first full day on it. (Hope I am not breaking any confidences here! I know that if I wasn't on beta I would be keen to know what was going on ...)

I haven't been monitoring voltage etc, just observing regular (probably daily on average; sometimes none, sometimes two) step-downs in reported charge. Typically from mid-high 20%s to 4%. This has happened pretty much since I was installed a month ago.

Yesterday I did have a step-down while on the beta. It was a typical Autumn day for me - charge to 100% overnight, a bit of solar top-up during the day (very little yesterday), then run down until the next nightly charge. The step-down happened at around 11.30pm, from 8% to 0%. So, a less consequential declared loss than before, but to a lower declared charge level. Close, but no cigar just yet.

One thing to note - I only had a "semi-calibration" on Tuesday - a charge up to 100% but not a discharge. So I wonder whether the floor of the reported charge was not being shown properly. Maybe if that was the case then I will not get a step-down tonight, if it has now reset itself. Today looks like it will be similar to yesterday - little solar coming in because of the rain - and I will try and burn through a bit more electricity to see what happens when the charge gets low.

As Kwaka says - fingers are very crossed!

Kwaka GE are working very hard to resolve the AIO's SOC issue.

How about not releasing kit that is clearly not fit for purpose, taking people's money and then expecting them to have to put up with months of fobbing off, missed promises and devices not working. it's not like GE didn't know that they have problems with their inability to accurately manage the SOC of their batteries.

Don't "carry water" for companies that charge full price for beta equipment.

Isn't it just a problem with AOI batteries. My 5.3kWh battery seems to know its state of charge accurately.

The AOI battery voltage is much higher, so they must have more cells in series and less in parallel. Perhaps that causes problems.

Anomnomnomaly oooh your one of those angry types with a dash of conspiracy theorist chucked in (you lost me at emerald mines 🤣).

I suppose my take a chill pill suggestion isn't going to go down well.

Better not mention the fact I drive a Tesla 😁

Kwaka If you want to know when exactly its going to tank rather than waiting for voltages take the initial charge and then +/- the charge discharge put in after and it will tell you how many kwh you have left, although it wont be exact due to portal having only one decimal place and rounding its pretty darned accurate unless something is hinky.

Jellybaby

Maybe they should add that to the user manual!

phoenix what user manual? I’ve never seen one from GivEnergy. It’s not difficult to figure out but there isn’t AFAIK

We got GivEnergy manuals for the inverter and battery in our handover pack.

https://givenergy.co.uk/resource-hub/

tomorrowman nope, not there

On that site (which doesn’t seem to give clickable links on my iPad) there is (that I could see):

• product glossy brochures
• installation manuals
• user guide for the AC coupled inverter for Australia

And that’s it

No user manuals for the app, portal, what the inverter or batter lights are, etc

Installation manuals cover some of this but not end user how-to’s

geoffreycoan

https://givenergy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/GivEnergy-App-User-Guide-FULL.pdf

Anomnomnomaly

A small UK company…
Go to companies house and have a look at the GE corporate structure, other companies that are owned by the same directors.

Perhaps investigate around a co.Ltd, probably in the shenzen area.

If you believe they’re a small British company, where only a limited amount of work is done by third parties in other countries, then I feel you might be disappointed.

Kwaka All good to hear they have an elected group of PAYING users trying to sort out this mess. This testing should have been done before the AIO was put on the market and they were happy to take my money for it.
So this thread's initial question was : "Steer clear from AIO?"
My experience is: ABSOLUTELY!
I actually told two people asking for references for my installer, to stay away from GE products today. The installer is fine, but they get near no support from GE either.

Daveb01 thank you, never seen this before

It’s not bad, but too much of a walkthrough of the screens and not enough details on how to use the screens, what the different settings do, how to use them in different scenarios and what you will see as a result, but it’s a user manual nevertheless

kram I wasn't the one calling them a 'small uk company', I was replying to the person who was.

Perhaps you missed the dripping tone of sarcasm throughout my post?

Anomnomnomaly

It’s easy to miss on text, so I clearly did 👍