Yet another example of companies making irresponsible anti consumer choices. You should have to pay the piper if you want to start dancing to this tune. That or you should be forced to open source your proprietary works.
this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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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?
Open EVSE, but any charger that support OCPP in theory can be controlled by any software. I do not have an OCPP EVSE installed (or any EVSE yet), so no idea if it actually works.
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.
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!
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.