The Powerwall fix I can't explain
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Our brand-new three-battery system worked for exactly two hours, then went silent for a week. If you've been following along: we added a Powerwall 3 and Expansion to our 2023 Powerwall 2, the beta compatibility firmware brought all three alive for one glorious couple of hours, then the whole lot sat down and refused to move a single watt.
For that week the house ran fine on solar and grid, but the batteries just hung there, state of charge frozen. I could bully them by hand — force a charge with max-backup, force a discharge through the Amber app — but it was brute force, far too fiddly to live on. I knew this was a beta install, so the teething trouble didn't worry me; the quiet did. An update only ever came if I went chasing it, from both Sapphire and Tesla. Nobody oversold the tech — everyone was upfront it was bleeding-edge, the general rollout not due until June — but a site sitting dead for days could have used the odd status update.
The fix, when it came, was fast and baffling. On Thursday 14 May Jacob came back, late afternoon and into the evening. We were out for pizza at Brunetti's on Lygon Street; I checked the garage camera to see if he'd finished, so I could shut the door remotely — probably the most 2026 sentence I'll write all year. He'd brought a replacement Gateway, so I assumed that was it — except afterwards the unit on the wall looks like my original one. A firmware change from Tesla's end? Wiring? Some combination? They're still monitoring and haven't said, and I can't tell you what fixed it. Whatever it was, by the time he left the app showed flow again — the numbers moving for the first time in a week.
It's kept working since. The automation is back, all three — Powerwall 2, Powerwall 3, PW3 Expansion — pulling together: 40.5 kWh of storage and 15 kW of sustained output, enough to run the air con, heat pump and EV charger right through a grid outage. It's still strange to glance at the app, see 50% charge, and remember that across three batteries that's 150% of the single Powerwall we were living on a few weeks ago.
Sapphire were honest about what this was and came back after hours to make it right. Early adopter tax, paid in full; receipt unclear. To the Powerwall 2 owners who've messaged me about doing the same upgrade — yes, but pick an installer you can trust to see it through.
Anyone else been an unwitting beta site for new home-battery gear?
Related Posts
- Previously — the beta firmware that lasted two hours Tesla Powerwall 2 Compatibility Beta 7 May 2026
- The install day — two new Powerwalls by lunchtime Two new Powerwall batteries, installed by lunchtime 13 Apr 2026
- Where it began — Tesla makes PW2 and PW3 compatible Adding a second battery 20 Mar 2026
- Part 4 — what the fix actually was Powerwall puzzle answered 22 May 2026
- Part 5 — the 100 W parasitic rumour, checked against our data The 100 W parasitic rumour, checked 23 May 2026
We have the original Gateway 1 so would need to upgrade that too to “add” a PW3 to our PW2. Effectively really starting again with a new PW3 system & adding on the PW2. (Just adding for others considering the change).
Thanks for being at the bleeding edge 🩸. And thanks for sharing your experience.
Our take aways are:
1 we’d need to at least double our 5kW solar system to 10kw to support additional storage.
2 That sized solar/battery/grid system size is really required to go fully electric since continuing to add appliances, hot water, heating, car charging, cooking, etc begins to stretch what power is available on single phase.
3 It is important to get a good installer as you note. (We have the original Gateway 1 & PW2 from 2017. Over that period we are on to our third battery from Tesla under warranty. The last replacement we had to find another installer as the original one had been dis-accredited by Tesla, & it took months to resolve, not weeks).
4 Since our first PW2 install in 2017, technology has moved on very quickly & a system can become outdated in just a few years.
Thanks again for sharing & best of luck (use) with your extended system.
https://www.facebook.com/Tesla.Tripping/posts/10612584701…