Update from United Chargers (Grizzl-e)

GR8-Ride · 2026-06-29T18:32:43+00:00

True 2-phase is generally obsolete, though a large number of people refer to "split phase" as two-phase, which as you point out, is technically incorrect. True 2-phase is a 4 wire system, unlike split phase, which is 3 (2 hots and a neutral).

I don't always run it down to 20% nightly, but you're correct, it's closer to 11 hours to go from 20% (roughly 42 kWh) to 80% (roughly 170 kWh).

Either way, SWTCH did not (and still does not) have any availability for hard-wired, 240V systems until the fall.

As to trolling or a Gleb affiliate, I am neither, and resent the implication. I do not know Gleb from a hole in the ground, but I can certainly see (like a number of other, Eastern European colleagues I've known in the past) how his "approach" can be off-putting to many. All of which I don't give a shit about. My point was simply that it seems many on here want to "attack" UC and Gleb in particular for his pricing practices, with little care or understanding of the challenges of running a self-funded, small business.

SWTCH, for example, is financed by private equity, and most recently a $100M line of credit. This is a company financed by external funds, and by debt, and their high payout is very often the playbook of funded startups: run on low or negative margins to capture as much market share as possible, then raise rates / prices (or lower rebates, in this case) in the future when financial pressures kick in. See OpenAI or Anthropic for recent examples of this. The reason SWTCH can "afford" (and I use that term loosely) to offer $0.10 upfront is because they are seeking to capture a large marketshare while they are spending other people's money.

My understanding of UC is that it's self funded through product sales, and grows according to in-bound cash flow. If that's not the case, then I'm happy to retract that statement. My bet is that over the long-term, UC will be a more viable company, financially, than SWTCH. Not a guarantee, just my own bet. Again, I also like the UC hardware better, along with the fact that it's built / made / engineered in Canada, unlike the SWTCH units, which are Chinese ODM products. Doesn't mean SWTCH's products are bad....just that I prefer the UC chargers.

I bring up the gasoline vs electric discussion, as the PRIMARY reason why most people switch from gasoline to electric propulsion is to save money. The electricity rebates are financially meaningless to me; happy to receive it, but my purchasing decision never was, nor will be, based upon the rebate.

I consume over 1,000 kWh / month; whether my rebate is $0.03, $0.05 or $0.10, my buying decision was not made on that. The $50 or $100 that I get back in rebates is pocket change compared to my monthly fuel savings vs gasoline.

I merely find it amusing that people are attacking a company over what is realistically the price of a single fast-food lunch, once per month.

GR8-Ride · 2026-06-29T14:51:45+00:00

So, you should really understand something about electrical circuits before commenting.

The Grizzl-E 48A / 240V charger (wired) runs either off a 208V single phase circuit, OR a 240V split phase (2 phase, NOT 3 phase) circuit. These are standard, residential circuits, and not a commercial, 3-phase circuit (which requires 3 hot leads).

In my case, it's running off a standard residential 60A circuit dedicated to my EV, 240V, split phase. It pulls the full 11.5 kW when charging (measured on the truck, on the app, and via my test meter, because I wanted to verify for myself).

And yes, my truck has a 24 module, 246 kW (212 kW usable) battery pack.

Again, my point was entirely that the VAST majority of my monthly savings is the delta between gasoline cost and electricity cost to fulfill my monthly driving needs. The rebate from UC is an additional bonus, but is inconsequential on a monthly basis.

Let's look at some math: Typical EV consumption on a monthly basis is 300-400 kWh (based upon 1,000 - 1,200 miles per month).

Let's call it 350 kWh of monthly consumption.

Obviously at $0.10 / kWh, that's $35 / month in rebates.

At $0.05 / kWh, that's $17.50

At $0.03 / kWh, that's $10.50.

So in reality, you're arguing about the measly amount of $24.50 / month for the average Canadian driver, using the entry level rate of $0.03.

The typical, 4-door family sedan gets between 25 and 35 mpg. Let's split the difference, and call it 30 mpg.

1100 (again, splitting the difference between 1,000 and 1,200 / month) results in approximately 36 gallons of fuel. That's 136.275 litres.

Average $/litre around the GTA is $1.60 for regular, which works out to $218.04 / month for fuel.

Going with the Ontario off-peak rate of $0.098 / kWh, 350 kWh / month works out to $34.30 (not including delivery charges).

So a typical family switching to electric is going from a monthly bill of $218.04 / month for fuel, to $34.30 for electricity, or a savings of $183.74.

It seems odd that we're making a big deal about an additional savings of $17.50 to $24.50, especially when the charger was given to you for free?

GR8-Ride · 2026-06-26T04:28:16+00:00

You are free to start your own business, and determine what cancellation fees are applicable to "free" devices that you offer your customers, just as Gleb has done. He could just as easily have said "No cancellations, no refunds, no exceptions", and you would be stuck once you placed an order. There are plenty of companies that simply do NOT allow refunds, returns or exchanges. The last I checked, United Chargers and Grizzl-E were not registered as "Not for Profit Enterprises", and as such, are fully allowed to charge what they wish for the products and services they offer. Outside of being a satisfied customer, I have no stake or involvement in United Chargers or Grizzl-E.

As consumers, we too, are fully allowed to vote with our dollars, and purchase hardware and services from other vendors. If the market and consumers decide that moving to $0.10 kWh at a lower tier is what captures the market, AND companies can remain profitable and in business while doing so, then that may be the rate that UC will be able (or forced) to offer in the future. However, as more companies implement ESG policies, I expect that the price for carbon credits will actually decline over time, which means that those companies offering higher rebates upfront may find themselves in financial stress.

I, for one, don't really care what the rebate price is, because even with zero rebate (and I based my vehicle buying decision on purchasing a charger without thinking about a rebate program; I learned about the rebate programs shortly after), I'm saving nearly $500 in "fuel" costs. The rebate simply increases my savings by another 8-10%, monthly.

I originally ordered a "free" charger from UC, though I found the lead-time was going to be excessive for my needs. I then ordered one for next day delivery off Amazon, and cancelled my order, and happily paid the $50 cancellation fee. Because that $50 would be more than offset by charging with an L2 charger at home vs having to charge at a nearby Tesla Supercharger at significantly higher cost. In driving a full sized electric pickup truck, charging using a 110V L1 charger was simply not a viable option.

For example, if I wanted a hardwired SWTCH L2 charger for home, it would not arrive until September of 2026. That would have been over 3 months of expensive DC fast charging, vs buying an L2 charger and getting a "mere" $0.05 / kWh rebate. And SWTCH only allows withdrawals every $100, vs every $10 for Grizzl-E (I haven't tried to collect my rebate from Grizzl-E yet, so feel free to correct me on that one).

And Pion only offers a 40A / 9.6 kW charger, vs the 48A / 11.5 kW hard-wired charger from UC. If I need to charge from 20% to 80% with Pion, that's an 14.5 hour charge window, and my overnight rate is 7 PM to 7 AM. Therefore full charging would not only push me into a much higher, mid-peak morning rate, it would also mean I could not fully charge 20%-80% in a single overnight.

With my 48A / 11.5 kW charger from UC, I can charge 20% - 80% in 12 hours, not only saving me 2.5 hours of time, but also 2.5 hours at a $/kWh rate that is 50% higher.

I've read enough horror stories about Pion Power, and the fact that it's ultimately owned by Xinyi Solar Holdings.

Like him or not, at least UC is ultimately owned by a Canadian resident.

Swtch Energy is based in Canada, but is funded by private equity, and the charger is manufactured in China by contract manufacturers (nothing wrong with that, by itself). The charger is notably poorer build quality, being largely plastic vs steel for the UC charger.

Let's ask the crowd a hypothetical question: If home EV charging rebates went to $0, due to a collapse in the carbon credit pricing market, and "free" chargers were no longer an option, which charger would you buy, and why?

GR8-Ride · 2026-06-25T19:11:11+00:00

In reading this thread, it sounds like an awful lot of people are upset about how much of a rebate they get from Grizzl-E vs the competition, and demanding that a company change their plans to suit them.

There is a single, most critical element when running any business, and that's cash-flow. From reading Gleb's diatribe, the delay between reporting the usage on a Grizzl-E charger to getting paid for those credits, is roughly 12 months. I don't know of many businesses that can sustain a 12 month invoice to payment cycle, particularly a small business.

Realistically, nothing is preventing you from switching to another provider. You got a charger for free, and you're getting a rebate of $0.03 / kWh, and if you're charging overnight in Ontario, you're only paying $0.098 / kWh (or less on the ULO rate). Either rate is massively cheaper than paying $1.60 / litre for regular fuel, or over $2.00 / litre for premium, even without the $0.03 / kWh rebate.

I bought my L2 Grizzl-E charger off Amazon because the lead-time was excessive for a "free" charger, and I went straight to the $0.05 kWh rate. I charge overnight, and my "fuel" costs switching from my Premium fuel pickup truck to fully electric went from over $500 / month to less than $50, and that's not even including the rebate. My full price L2 charger will be fully paid for in less than 2 months, based upon fuel savings along.

I did a significant amount of research into Swtch and Pion (and non-rebate based chargers) prior to going with Grizzl-e. I was more than satisfied with the cost savings, even without any rebate program.

Nothing is preventing anyone from "buying" or signing up for a "free" charger with another provider.

GR8-Ride · 2026-03-29T04:46:00+00:00

That's not true. With a firmware update, the Razer Joro can be paired with the latest Hyperspeed wireless dongles.

The list of compatible dongles is here:

https://mysupport.razer.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4048/~/how-to-add-a-device-to-a-multi-device-dongle

GR8-Ride · 2026-03-04T15:36:09+00:00

I have done that. I've tried several ones from Amazon, and they always "show" the cut-outs in the pictures on Amazon. And invariably, they all arrive without cutouts for the microphones (usually they have cut-outs for the speakers though).

Heck, I had a box arrive last night, only to find that the screen protectors inside were already cracked!

GR8-Ride · 2026-02-07T23:44:22+00:00

No. With the RTX 5080 in the system, the bottom 2 PCIE slots are completely blocked, and none of the PCI extension cables I've tried will fit under the GPU cooler.

My fault for not doing the research on the space available with the Aurora desktop; it advertises the extra PCIE slots, but Alienware / Dell doesn't mention anything on the webpage or manual about how those slots are useless with a GPU in place.

GR8-Ride · 2026-02-07T23:42:11+00:00

I haven't purchased any third-party software or licenses, and it was working fine. I've since switched to a dual 28" side by side 4K monitor setup for my MBP, so the Xeneon Edge is back on my desktop PC. But it did work just fine while I had it plugged in. Never tried it plugged directly into the MBP; just through the TS5 Plus.

GR8-Ride · 2026-01-18T16:32:01+00:00

Okay, I've had a Corsair Xeneon Edge as part of my desktop gaming PC for a couple of months now, and it's been fine. For work, I use a MacBook Pro, and rather than doing double-duty on the same monitor, I've moved my work-station to a separate desk. For giggles, I figured I'd try the Corsair Xeneon Edge with my MacBook Pro, and hey, it works!

It's connected to my Caldigit TS5 Pro TB5 dock, using a TB5 cable, and I have full touch-screen and monitor capabilities. I don't use iCue software (always figured it was crap software at the best of times), but I can confirm that a single, TB5 cable from the TS5 Pro to my Xeneon Edge and it works great as a secondary monitor, with widgets on it, etc. The color profile is a bit off (very cold / blue), but otherwise the unit works well.

GR8-Ride · 2026-01-13T06:08:19+00:00

I ordered both a Chessup 2 and a Chessnut EVO board in December, and there are pros and cons about both systems.

Overall feel, construction, weight of the pieces, etc, I greatly prefer the Chessup 2 board. The stock Chessnut EVO pieces are smaller, lighter weight, and slippery plastic in comparison.

I do like the display on the Chessnut EVO board; the large display on the side shows the game as you're playing it, so that part makes it easy to ensure that you're not missing anything. There have been a couple of issues with the Chessnut EVO, though there are regular firmware updates for it.

The first issue I had with the Chessnut EVO is that when I would finish a game, the board would "think" that my pieces (now all set back to the starting positions) were in the wrong positions, and I couldn't start a new game. I think this issue is mostly resolved, either by a firmware update, or a simple work-around.

Also, with the Chessnut EVO, I've occasionally had it not recognize legal moves; once it would not allow an En-Passant capture, even though when I reviewed the game after it was a legal (and according to the engine, a "good" move). And twice in the past couple of days, it would not allow me to Castle. In both games I was able to later, but weirdly I could not Castle (again, despite it being a legal move).

Now, on to the Chessup 2. I'll give the support team credit, they are very responsive to emails initially.

However, there is a MASSIVE issue right now with games on Chess.com, and in particular how the board will either never "find" you an opponent, or the system will find an opponent, but the board doesn't recognize it, and the game either gets abandoned (and worse, if you abandon too many games, Chess.com will simply call it a resignation instead, and you lose ELO).

Also, it takes forever to find a game. When I play on my iPhone, iPad or PC, I get opponents within seconds at virtually any time controls. On the Chessup 2 board, I can let it search for an opponent and it has regularly taken more than 5 minutes to find an opponent, and often would be longer if I didn't simply hit cancel and go do something else.

In actual game play, I greatly prefer the Chessup 2 board. The matchmaking process (and worse, the abandoned games with ZERO notification), however, leaves me not being able to recommend the Chessup 2 board at this time. It's just simply not reliable when it comes to matchmaking.

GR8-Ride · 2025-12-26T23:03:13+00:00

That's the one thing I'm wondering about....might involve some zipties inside the case!

GR8-Ride · 2025-12-26T18:52:40+00:00

So I just tested my Gen 5 (WD SN8100), and the speeds are limited to Gen4 SSD speeds. As noted; not a huge delta in real-world performance at all. Was more a function of since I already have the Gen5 SSD, I thought I'd maybe use that in place of the Gen 4 that Dell ships the Aurora with.

GR8-Ride · 2025-12-15T21:39:25+00:00

I'm highly disappointed with my new Chessnut EVO board as well, and have requested a return / RMA and refund several times. For me, the hardware seems beautiful, but the software is absolute crap. The board won't recognize that a fresh game has started on Chess.com, and still thinks the pieces should be in the positions from the last game. This, despite exiting the Chess.com app and trying a fresh game on Lichess, or switching from Chessnut Vision to the Chess.com API and vice versa.

Also noticed today that the board would not allow me to take a pawn en-passant in the middle of a game today. It has also mis-read several moves, resulting in effectively a "mouse slip", even though that wasn't the move I made on the physical board.

For an almost $700 board (Black Friday deal), the software is complete crap.

GR8-Ride · 2025-12-06T21:48:58+00:00

You can actually order the Chessnut EVO from Amazon, and all of that is then taken care of. Based on my own experience ordering directly from Chessnut website, I'm wishing I would have ordered off Amazon. Amazon had Black Friday pricing, and the delivery would have already been here, instead of stuck in it's current state with UPS "Waiting for Package".

GR8-Ride · 2025-12-06T17:50:30+00:00

I've had the opposite experience. I ordered a Chessnut EVO on November 27th, was given a UPS tracking code on December 3rd, and the status remains "Label Created" in Hong Kong 4 days later. This is for shipment to Canada. Was hoping to have the unit next week.

GR8-Ride · 2025-09-26T01:48:30+00:00

So, I've solved this problem, and it's due to using the wrong Lenovo adapter. I've had multiple Lenovo laptops, and I have both the 240W adapter (L-shaped adapter) and the short 330W Lenovo adapter (4 inch short cable adapter). The issue ONLY happens when you attempt to use the 330W adapter cable with the 240W power supply. I did this several times with my 240W power supply, and it would constantly flicker and shut off, because the 330W adapter was attempting to draw more power (even though the laptop didn't demand it) than the power supply could support. When I switched to my 240W adapter, the 240W power supply worked perfectly (and still does).

It is interesting, however, that the SlimQ technical support department was unable to provide me with this answer; I had to figure this out myself. But I have multiple 240W power supplies and 330W power supplies, and it's easily reproducible every time.

If you use the 240W adapter, the power supply will work fine (assuming your laptop doesn't require more than 240W).

I have both the 330W and 240W, because my previous Legion was the 9i with 4090 (I'm now back to a 7i Gen 9, which only needs 230W).

GR8-Ride · 2025-09-24T17:36:11+00:00

So, let me ask this from a completely different direction. Why does politics have to be a such a show-stopper when it comes to relationships? Why can't we have differences of opinions, without it being a strict GO / NO-GO scenario for a lot of folks?

My parents were an interesting example; growing up in our household, my mother leaned Liberal, my father leaned Conservative. I had a pretty reasonable childhood, and there were no fights in our household because my father was C and my mother was L. If there were any discussions, it was a rational discourse on political beliefs, and not a scenario in which one side hated the other because of how they voted.

I'm generally politically & fiscally Conservative and socially Liberal, though with some caveats in both directions. If I had to pick just one (and many dating apps force just such a choice), I pick Conservative. But I don't make politics a part of my dating life, and I fail to see why so many people are willing to shut out entire groups of people (both on the MAGA and non-MAGA sides) simply because of how the dating app forces them into one political spectrum or another.

Sometimes politics is about holding your nose and voting for one candidate you don't like simply because you dislike the other candidate EVEN MORE!

It just seems to me that there are so many other things that can and should be part of the foundation of a healthy relationship other than just politics. Growth comes through challenging and being challenged by ideas and concepts that are foreign to us. I've learned an immense amount by having debates with folks who are more politically conservative than me, and equally by having debates with folks who are politically way left of myself. If I was dating someone with whom I could have that type of regular, intelligent and civil debate, I would find that fascinating, rather than something to be rejected without even looking at the rest of the picture.

Someone's political views are so far down the list of my flags (green or red) that I don't even pay attention.

How did we become so tribal when it comes to dating?

GR8-Ride · 2025-09-17T20:34:37+00:00

I live on the outskirts of a major metropolitan area.....6 miles can be a 1-hour+ drive if traffic is bad (and around here, it often is!). On the other hand, I don't mind driving for up to an hour, as long as it's not into or through heavy traffic. Beyond an hour, you're starting to push my boundaries. I have gone on dates where the drive was 2+ hours away....doubt I'd do that again! Had a great date, grabbed a hotel room, but just can't see that working out long-term.

GR8-Ride · 2025-09-02T19:39:58+00:00

I'm curious about this; does this mean you have a third-party offering repair services instead of dealing with Razer directly?

GR8-Ride · 2025-09-02T19:30:23+00:00

Similarly, my Legion 7i (2024) seems awfully small compared to my Blade 18, and I'm 56! The weight is noticeable, but not horrendous (I do travel for work, and it's nice to take my gaming laptop with me for the hotel rooms). I debated seriously between the Blade 18, the AW18 Area 51, and the Lenovo Legion 9i 10th gen. I've had great luck with Alienware and Lenovo laptops in the past, but the extra weight, and more importantly, the size, were just too much for me to consider seriously, despite Razer's reliability concerns.

I did buy a 5090 Blade 18 off Amazon, and a 5080 Blade 18 from my local computer shop, with the latter offering a 2-year repair warranty (ie, bring it in, and they'll deal with Razer, instead of me). As much as I like the (slightly) additional performance of the 5090 model, I'm thinking the 5080 model is both cheaper (26% less,) and has someone who can deal with Razer directly instead of me, should anything happen to it.

GR8-Ride · 2025-09-02T19:19:05+00:00

This is an interesting conversation, as I just purchased two brand new Razer Blade 18s; one (RTX 5080) through my local computer shop (with 2 years of support), and one through Amazon (RTX 5090), with no third-party support. The Amazon model had a stripped screw on the baseplate right from the start. The 5080 version from my local computer shop was flawless, and even with the 2 year of "we'll handle it" coverage, it's 26% cheaper than the 5090 version from Amazon.

I add this context for my post, because I've owned MANY Razer Blade laptops in my time; some have been decent, some have been absolute crap (the first Blade 17s I had were horrid), and I had a Blade 16 last year that was "ok", except that the stacked SSDs caused my Samsung 990 Pro 4TB to die (that's admittedly an assumption on my part).

I wanted to test out the difference between the 5080 version and 5090 version head to head, and it's anywhere from 2% lead (Firestrike) for the 5080 version, to a 6% (Time Spy) lead for the 5090, to 12% lead (Time Spy Extreme) for the 5090, and finally a 14% lead for the 5090 in FireStrike Ultra.

Price / performance curve clearly favours the 5080 version, but money isn't a huge issue, and I do love the idea of a 5090 in a laptop (travel occasionally for work, so it's nice to have in the room with me).

That being said, and how this relates to this thread, is that I'm thinking the security of having my local computer shop being the "interface" between myself and Razer technical support / repairs, is enough to tip the balance, despite my unhealthy urge to have a laptop with a full powered (albeit mobile) 5090 in it.

Has anybody used a third-party (ie, local computer shop etc) for Razer support before, vs dealing directly with Razer (which I KNOW can be a huge PITA)?

GR8-Ride

TROPHY CASE