Matt Ferrell's latest Undecided video asks whether a $1,499 battery that plugs into a wall outlet can stand in for a Powerwall. The product is Pila, a home battery the video says needs no electrician, no permit and no panel upgrade, and that moves with you when you move. Each unit stores 1.6 kWh and delivers 2,400 watts continuously, with a 3,600 watt surge and a 90 amp instant peak the video says is enough to kick on motor loads like a fridge compressor. Ferrell compares the design to mesh WiFi: instead of one big box, small units coordinate, and up to 64 can link into a single house-wide system. He discloses upfront that he is an advisor to the company, and installed three in his own house to fill a storage gap he could not close with his existing Enphase setup.
Worth stating plainly, because the video does: Ferrell is a paid advisor to Pila, so this is an enthusiast's account with a disclosed financial interest, not a neutral lab test. With that on the table, the category point still holds up. Whole-home batteries have largely been built for owner-occupied single-family homes, which leaves renters and apartment dwellers with no real option, and a plug-in unit targets exactly that gap. The catch is regulatory. The video explains that feeding power back into a standard outlet, the feature that would let these batteries shave peak demand, is not currently permitted under US electrical code. Ferrell notes that 28 states plus DC are weighing plug-in solar and storage rules, that Utah passed a balcony solar bill in 2025, and that a safety standard known as UL 3700 is still being written. He also points out that many utilities already pay homeowners through demand response programs, and that 34 states now run virtual power plant schemes, so some payback exists even before the code catches up.
On what it does today, the video walks through three modes: backup only, a time-of-use money saving mode, and a solar maximizing mode that Ferrell runs himself. He reports a 20 millisecond switchover during outages, fast enough that his gear does not register it, and a local-first design that keeps the units coordinating over a local network if WiFi drops, with Home Assistant control already supported and an onboard touchscreen that works without the app. He tours three units in three rooms: a desk setup he says gives more than 11 hours of backup, a network closet that he claims now rides through outages instead of dying after about ten minutes on its old UPS, and a living room running the home theater off stored solar. Together they add roughly 4.8 kWh, and he says the mesh now carries the house through the pre-dawn hours that used to pull from the grid. He is also clear about the limits. A single unit, or even a three pack, is not whole-home backup, and the video says it cannot run a Level 2 EV charger or a central heat pump. An expansion accessory due later this year is said to double each unit to 3.2 kWh.
Bottom line: Take the advisor disclosure seriously and this still reads as the first credible version of a home battery for renters and apartment dwellers, the people whole-home systems have always left out. At $1,499 a unit the math only works if you are buying for backup or time-of-use savings today, not for the grid-feeding features that current US code still blocks. Buy it for what it does now, a quiet, movable backstop for the gear you plug into it, and treat the bidirectional future as upside that may or may not arrive.
Commentary on a third-party video. Figures and claims are as presented in the source and have not been independently verified. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it.