u/Hot_Rescue

On the hottest day of the year, with 110F index under a heat advisory, my ESG is completely non-functional and I have lost my solar power because EcoFlow pushed a beta firmware update that I explicitly and repeatedly refused. While we were in the middle of troubleshooting an ongoing ESG instability issue, EcoFlow forced an untested update onto my active production system.

At least the grid is functioning right now, so it could have been even worse, but my solar setup and inverters are completely offline:

On June 22, 2026, EcoFlow asked:

"To address the unexpected AC shutdowns and the communication issues you've observed, our senior engineering team has prepared a beta firmware (version 7.0.1.98) for your Smart Gateway (SG). We would like to request your permission to push this update to your system remotely."

On June 23, 2026, EcoFlow responded:

"We completely understand and respect your decision to hold off on installing the beta firmware at this time. Ensuring your system's stability and avoiding unnecessary risks is our priority."

On June 24, 2026, I responded:

"I am not comfortable with untested beta firmware. Exactly what does this version address? Does it include debugging or an increased log?"

On June 24, 2026, EcoFlow responded:

"First and foremost, I want to address your concerns regarding the firmware. Please rest assured that we will not perform any firmware downgrades or upgrades on your devices without your explicit permission."

On June 24, 2026, I responded:

"Yes, I would like these features to be finalized and properly QA tested before trying the firmware update for the active inverter, especially DPUX. However, I can try installing it on one of my DPU that is currently not being used and swap that in for load-balancing if the update goes ok, but I feel that the load balancing issue is likely at the ESG's end, and I'm completely afraid to update a beta firmware on the panel."

On June 26, 2026, EcoFlow responded:

"We completely understand and respect your decision to hold off on updating the firmware for your active Smart Gateway and DPUX. It is a very reasonable choice to prioritize system stability, and we will not push any updates to your active equipment without your explicit consent."

On July 29, 2026, I reiterated my stance:

"Given my prior issue with the ESG replacement months' delay earlier this year, I am scared to be a guinea pig for the untested firmware update. I am worried that it might brick my system, and I may end up without any power. I would hope you'd release the new official firmware so that other brave souls will install it, and after several weeks with no issue reports, I'll then install the firmware."

On August 13, 2026, EcoFlow requested:

"As the next troubleshooting step, we would like to remotely update the firmware of your Smart Gateway 200A to version 7.0.1.98 so that we can continue investigating the unexpected mode changes and power switching behavior. Would you be comfortable with us performing this remote firmware update?"

On August 14, 2026, I explicitly refused:

"No, unless the engineers identified the issue through the black box logs or found the codes causing the problem, I don’t want to make the situation worse nor introduce more issues with a beta firmware. If your team feels confident then please release the version officially and I will install it after some monitoring."

To receive an email 8/15 today at 12:27 AM nonchalantly informing me -

"We would also like to let you know that we have now updated your Smart Gateway 200A, SN *, to firmware version 7.0.1.98. Please continue monitoring the system and let us know if you observe any further instances..."

- is absolutely maddening and a complete breach of trust.

I tried calling EcoFlow support, only to get an automated message: 'You have reached us after normal business hours...' Right, because today is Saturday.

Closing the EcoFlow Smart Gateway door and... crack. Tempered glass shattered out of nowhere. I'm baffled.

Caught these little strawberry thieves red-beaked this morning, raiding my prized Mara des Bois strawberries.

What habit do your chickens have that drives you absolutely crazy?

We experienced almost five hours without grid power yesterday after a power pole was knocked down, causing a widespread outage across my county. I have to admit, it was especially satisfying to have my ESG and EcoFlow DPUX/DPU inverters keep the house running. I've been self-powering through solar for months now, but this was the first real extended grid outage I've experienced while using grid-assisted EcoFlow.

One thing I found very odd, though, was that I experienced about a four-second power interruption, including my Wi-Fi dropping out, when the grid failed. I wasn't expecting that because the system was already operating in Self-Powered mode.

Earlier, at 11:06 am, the batteries had reached the required reserve level (20% above my backup reserve) through solar charging, so battery power was already active. When the utility power went out, however, there was a noticeable outage, including several minutes of the wifi modem reinitiating, which I normally never see during the routine transitions between grid and battery.

Looking through the logs, the ESG shows "Self-powered mode turned off" immediately after the grid disconnected, while the DPU and DPUX logs don't show anything unusual.

Has anyone else experienced this behavior during an actual grid outage?

It isn't uncommon for me to receive notifications and log entries showing "Grid power connected/disconnected" along with "The battery is currently powering your home" at the same timestamps. I assume these are triggered by brief voltage fluctuations or brownouts, but unlike this outage, they've never caused any noticeable interruption to power.