[RivianPanda]

Doing a quick review on the Rivian Charger.

Unboxing... the charger seems to be of good quality. All the packing was nice and tight. The screws were a bit hard to find. The instruction manual was meh.. good enough.

Physical installing was simple. Instruction was easy to follow.

Connection to app via bluetooth was good. Getting it on WIFI was a bit difficult as the charger doesn't like wifi SSID with a space or special character in it... umm.... OK... no biggie got around it by setting up a guest wifi network dedicated to the charger.

Annoying things...

The F-ING LIGHT BAR!!!! When it's doing nothing waiting IDLE it pulses!!!
When it's charging the light bar is GREEN and pulsing lighting up the whole garage you can it from the outside. No way to disable the LED or change it so it's more subtle.... and doesn't scream come rob my house please!

Why did I add it to wifi... I can't control it remotely... FFFFFFF! Beside update and potential "future enhancement" wifi is basically useless.

The "interface" is basic like a 12 year old programed it... it's awhile away from Tesla...

When I use it to charge my Tesla it doesn't show power draw in the app. KW, and AMP is blanked out....

All in all I bought this charger cause I bought a Rivian Truck. No additional Integration...

If anyone else with the charger is doing something different and getting more value out of it please let me know!

 

[Livinginkaos]

Does the light bar not shut off when you lock the vehicle?

It's also reported that if you disable the dynamic lighting in the vehicle lighting menu that disables it as well.

 

[LindsayH]

There's a light bar on the charger too. Might be that he's talking about. Thanks for the SSID tip - my wifi wouldn't connect either. Now i know!

 

[lefkonj]

My juicebox was simple to setup and works with all sorts of app functions. You can schedule it, set the charge percentage and even link two off the same circuit. I balked at the Rivian charger once I heard it was hardwired only. I want a plug to save on the electrician costs.

 

[Livinginkaos]

The Rivian charger has 48amp potential, which is why it is hardwire as it requires a 60amp service. You could wire it with a plug if you wanted, but for that amperage it gets a little more complicated.

 

[DrBebo]

Does the Rivian come with a 14-50 plug? I have a NEMA 14-50 outlet in the garage already, unsure if worth upgrading to the Rivian charger (or buying the tesla charger and using the adapter?)

 

[Livinginkaos]

The Rivian Home charger does not come with a plug. It's meant to hardwire.

The included portable charger does come with the NEMA 14-50 plug.

 

[ipadl]

I have the charger also.

I put black electrical tape on the light bar to keep the light polution to a minimum. I left a small area untaped so I can still see if it's working. I also am annoyed that it's so bright and will try turning off dynamic lighting to see if that helps.

I use the app to show my charging history and keep track. I'm not sure that I could do this if it wasn't connected via Wi-Fi. Randomly I had a bug that showed it charged my R1T 528.9kwh in the course of a 5.5 hour period. According to my utility this is incorrect (phew!). Customer Service is pushing a new firmware upgrade right now to (hopefully) fix this. This is the first time I've seen a value that looks out of whack.

Mine originally had some of the same things - not showing power using, etc., but it seemed to clear in the first charging session. That said, it still labels my truck as "unknown vehicle". I'm hoping the firmware fixes that also.

I've otherwise been happy with it. I set my charging levels in the truck (app would be nice, though) and plug it in each evening. It is my first charger so I may not know (and please don't tell me) what I'm missing.

 

[racekarl]

FWIW, the ChargePoint Home Flex also has an always-lit LED light ring. They claim they will make it possible to turn it off at some point, but I'm going on 3 years with it and no sign of that feature in sight.

Also, the latest NEC makes a plug-in EVSE much less useful. It now requires a GFCI breaker on a plug for use with vehicle charging. Basically every EVSE already has a GFCI built into it, and these can interfere with one another and cause nuisance breaker trips. For all intents and purposes you should plan to hardwire any EVSE that requires new electrical work.

 

[sciencegeek]

FWIW, the ChargePoint Home Flex also has an always-lit LED light ring. They claim they will make it possible to turn it off at some point, but I'm going on 3 years with it and no sign of that feature in sight.

ChargePoint App: Home Charger > Settings > LED brightness

 

[racekarl]

ChargePoint App: Home Charger > Settings > LED brightness

Awesome, thank you! Have obviously not looked in a while... (I am kkemp on the i-pace forum, assuming you are the same sciencegeek from over there)

 

[sciencegeek]

Oh hey, good to see you over here!!

 

[Marc]

My wall charger is already installed so I’m not taking it out but, had I know of it’s limitations I wouldn’t have spent the money. So far it’s useless, other than the 48 amps, it provides no additional benefit, at least in my opinion.

 

[DrBebo]

Doubt this charger would work down the road in V2H applications?

Know would need a transfer switch installed on the side to take the home off of the grid.

 

[FirstStateR1T]

I cant get my Rivian charger setup. It will do the white pulsing, I make 3 attempts to connect to a great wifi signal (SSID has no spaces, just numbers and letters) and eventually I get a solid red lightbar. Rivian CS had me voltage check each line and verify dip switch positions. For the time being I installed a NEMA 14-50 receptacle and I'm using the portable charger at home and my Emporia Energy 48a unit at my office as my primary... I'm ready to sell this one and buy a second Emporia unit.

 

[Livinginkaos]

So you're getting it to connect via Bluetooth but not to your WiFi? You may need a separate 2.4ghz signal from your router - like using just the 2.4ghz guest said. However, solid red has nothing to do with connecting. I used mine for 3 weeks without getting it to connect. The solid red usually means there is something wrong with your input power.

 

[FirstStateR1T]

So you're getting it to connect via Bluetooth but not to your WiFi? You may need a separate 2.4ghz signal from your router - like using just the 2.4ghz guest said. However, solid red has nothing to do with connecting. I used mine for 3 weeks without getting it to connect. The solid red usually means there is something wrong with your input power.

Interesting... No Bluetooth connection either, sorry I should have mentioned that as well. They have not told me that yet regarding the input power. I have 122.4v & 122.8v on each leg of my 220v 50a circuit. This same circuit was setup for my garage welder/lift circuit and is presently now a NEMA 14-50 running the Rivian portable charger without issue.

 

[Livinginkaos]

Interesting... No Bluetooth connection either, sorry I should have mentioned that as well. They have not told me that yet regarding the input power. I have 122.4v & 122.8v on each leg of my 220v 50a circuit. This same circuit was setup for my garage welder/lift circuit and is presently now a NEMA 14-50 running the Rivian portable charger without issue.

The wifi part doesn't come into play until you are able to connect via bluetooth first. It uses that bluetooth connection to program which wifi and what your password to connect is. Once it is on wifi, it doesn't need the bluetooth connection. It took me 3 weeks to get the thing to pair with my phone and I still don't know that I did anything different when it did connect. Just stubborn I guess. I'm on android. I've heard those with iPhones have better luck.

 

[O. horridus]

@FirstStateR1T: There's an internal wire that connects the body of the charger to the faceplate - that needs to be connected as part of the install process. If it isn't, then people see symptoms similar to what you're experiencing.

 

[ipadl]

@FirstStateR1T: There's an internal wire that connects the body of the charger to the faceplate - that needs to be connected as part of the install process.

This was my problem as well.