Pila August 2025 Update
A note from our founder
I’ve written before about how my early experiences with backup power influenced my career, and ultimately shaped the Pila mission.
Last Friday was the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting my hometown. For me, this felt like the right time to reflect on themes that feel just as real today as they did in 2005:
…How do we power on when our core systems fail us?
…What does real resilience look like?
…How do we use the tools at-hand to build stronger systems today?
Thank you for following & supporting Pila. Our vision is Energy Independence for Everyone, and we couldn’t be doing any of this without you.
— Cole
“Only in New Orleans would you turn the stench of rot and loss into a punchline”
🛠️ Product Development: De-risking, Delivering and Ramping
Our engineering team is off to the races… and Pila is powering up fast! Over the past month the team’s been hard at work testing and refining the core systems that make Pila unique: high-power backup, smart energy management, intelligent plug-and-play setup, tailored insights into your essential appliances, a responsive touchscreen display and companion app, and the ability for multiple units to seamlessly “mesh” together across a home.
Through weeks of lab testing and real-world trials, we’ve proven how Pila seamlessly takes over when the grid goes down — keeping fridges cold, Wi-Fi online, and home offices humming, then automatically recharges from solar and grid power to stay always-ready. All of this paired alongside monitoring, control, and instant cellular-backed alerting at your fingertips with the Pila App.
For those of you who pre-ordered, you’re not just getting backup power — you’re among the first to experience a whole new way to think about home energy. We are so thrilled for you to experience Pila in your home soon. And for those of you who haven’t yet …
End-to-end testing ensures all interfaces work seamlessly together. Pila includes an ultra-responsive control scheme that quickly manages actions from users, home assistants, local automation, grid signals, & more.
No need for that huge laptop brick charger! Working directly with our chip manufacturing partners we’ve pushed high-power USB PD to its limits, delivering you rapid 100W device charging… and a few exciting future use cases to be announced soon!
Conversations we’re having
We joined the Essential Ingredients podcast to talk about building resilient energy systems that are both accessible and beautifully designed.
The episode explored how we’re rethinking home backup power — moving beyond camping batteries and whole-home systems — to create modular solutions that fit renters, multi-family homes, and the realities of a changing grid. Give it a listen!
We also had the opportunity to appear on Solar Academy to talk about how we’re making solar power simple and accessible for everyone. This conversation gets in the weeds about pricing, and how our mesh technology turns each room into a nano-grid.
📆 Upcoming Events
🔗 Everything Electric Conference (Vancouver — Sept 7)
We’ll be demystifying home battery technology in a talk titled “Home Batteries Demystified!” aimed at consumer education and adoption.
🔗 Tulane Energy Forum (New Orleans – Sept. 10-12)
We’re leading the “Power and Energy Storage on the Edge” panel, bringing Pila’s mission full circle to the Gulf Coast — highlighting decentralized, renter-friendly resilience solutions for storm-prone cities.
🔗 TEDx Milpitas (Milpitas, CA – Sept. 28)
Our founder, Cole, is taking to the TEDx stage to share a talk titled “Powering a Resilient Future,” exploring the intersection of design, equity, and decentralized energy under the broader event theme of Resilience.
🔗 DERVOS (NYC – Oct. 17)
This one’s for the energy nerds! We’re excited to join the conversation. The theme “Plug-in DERs Don’t Need Your Permission” echoes our work on frictionless deployment that doesn’t require permits — an idea gaining momentum after our DER Tast Force podcast appearance.
What we’re reading this month
The Electric Slide from Not Boring
We love the articulation of [energy + intelligence + action] as foundational economic drivers. Energy storage + capable compute at the edge… That’s what we’re all about!
Plus :
📖 Utility Dive: Booming Solar and Storage are Propping up Puerto Rico’s grid
📖 New York Times: Big Tech is Driving Up Utility Bills for Everyone