Alexa voice control & the energy briefing
SolDial for Powerwall is an Alexa skill. Ask about your battery, solar, savings and cars the way you’d ask a person, change three settings by voice with a read-back before anything moves, or say one line and get your whole morning: the energy briefing.
Setting it up
- Install SolDial and sign in with Tesla, so there is an account to link.
- In the Alexa app, search for SolDial and enable the skill, then tap Settings → Link Account.
- On your phone you’ll see one button, Open SolDial. Tap it: the SolDial app opens on an approval screen (you’re already signed in there), tap Link My Account, then switch back to Alexa. The link finishes on its own. On a computer, the same page asks you to sign in with Tesla and then shows the approval step.
- Say “Alexa, ask SolDial for my energy briefing.”
The very first request after linking sometimes comes back with Amazon’s generic “having trouble accessing” line while their side finishes setting up. Ask again and it answers.
The energy briefing
Most mornings you don’t want ten answers, you want one. The briefing runs through your day in the order you can act on it, and leaves out anything SolDial can’t work out honestly rather than guessing: no rate plan on file means no dollar figures.
- Anything wrong, first. Your system hasn’t reported since 2 AM. SolDial has lost its connection to your Tesla account. Storm Watch is active and holding a full charge. An automation didn’t complete overnight. On an ordinary morning this part is silent.
- Today. What your system has generated so far against what was expected by now, whether that is ahead of or behind pace, and where the day is tracking to finish. Then what you’ve imported and exported, what it has cost or credited you so far, and how self-powered you’ve been.
- Today’s prices, on Octopus Agile and hourly plans: the cheapest stretch and the priciest one.
- Tomorrow. The forecast and what it means for the panels, compared with where today is heading.
- Yesterday, then the billing period to date. Solar, grid in and out, the running cost or credit, and the self-powered percentage for each.
Here is a real one, asked on the founder’s own system at 8:40 on a September morning:
Today your system generated 4.7 kilowatt hours of an expected 68 kilowatt hours, tracking to finish near 66 kilowatt hours. You’ve imported 13 kilowatt hours and exported 2.3 kilowatt hours, a net import of 11 kilowatt hours, and it’s cost you about 3 dollars and 5 cents so far. Today so far you’ve been 14 percent self-powered.
Tomorrow looks rainy, high of 61, 71 percent chance of rain — expect around 25 kilowatt hours, roughly 61 percent below today.
Yesterday your system generated 62 kilowatt hours, imported 52 kilowatt hours and exported 38 kilowatt hours, a net import of 13 kilowatt hours, costing about 3 dollars and 78 cents. Yesterday you were 26 percent self-powered.
So far this billing period your system has generated 933 kilowatt hours of solar, imported 1,019 kilowatt hours and exported 515 kilowatt hours, a net import of 504 kilowatt hours, and it’s cost you about 143 dollars and 49 cents so far. This billing period so far, you’ve been 27 percent self-powered.
You don’t have to say “energy briefing”. “My briefing”, “my daily review”, “my energy recap”, “my morning report”, “catch me up”, “how are we doing today” — several hundred phrasings land in the same place. The briefing ends the conversation cleanly rather than waiting for a follow-up, which is what makes it work inside a routine.
Prefer it in writing? The same briefing, built from the same numbers, is available as an email each morning: Settings → Notifications → Daily morning briefing, with a time picker. It’s off unless you turn it on. See Notifications & alerts.
What you can ask
There is no fixed phrasing to learn. A few of the things it answers:
- Powerwall — charge level, whether it’s charging or discharging, your backup reserve, and which mode it’s in.
- Right now — what solar is making, what the house is drawing, whether you’re importing or exporting, and what the battery is doing.
- The grid — is the grid up, am I off-grid, how long will the Powerwall last at what I’m using right now.
- Solar — produced today or over any period, and the forecast for today and tomorrow.
- Savings — what solar and the Powerwall saved you today, this week, last month, this year, this billing period, or all time; and separately what SolDial’s own automations have measurably saved.
- Home, grid and self-powered — home usage, net import or export, and your self-powered percentage, any period.
- Price — what you’re paying per kilowatt hour right now, whether it’s peak or off-peak, and when the next window starts (live prices on Agile and other real-time plans).
- Weather — today’s and tomorrow’s forecast for your site, and whether Storm Watch is active.
- Automations — how many are running, which ones, what fired last, and whether Autopilot is on.
- Cars — charge level, whether they’re charging or plugged in, and their charge limit.
What you can change, and why there’s always a read-back
Three settings take voice commands: your backup reserve, a car’s charge limit, and the Powerwall’s operating mode (Self-Powered, Time-Based Control, or Backup-Only). Every one works the same way:
“Alexa, ask SolDial to set my backup reserve to sixty.”
“That will set your Powerwall backup reserve to 60 percent. Should I go ahead?”
“Yes.”
“Done. I set backup reserve to 60 percent.”
Voice recognition hears “sixteen” for “sixty” more often than you’d like, and the backup reserve decides whether your house has power at 9 PM in an outage. So nothing is sent to Tesla until you’ve heard the number and said yes, and every change you approve lands in your automation History alongside everything else that touched your system that day. Say no, and nothing happens.
Three tips that make it feel natural
- Say the name as two clear words — sol dial. Run together, Alexa sometimes hears “dial” and reaches for the phone.
- Keep talking. After every answer Alexa keeps listening, so you can go battery, then solar, then savings without the wake word each time. Say stop or that’s all when you’re done. (The briefing is the exception: it ends on its own.)
- One breath works too. “Alexa, ask SolDial what’s my battery at” gets an answer without opening the skill first. When she doesn’t catch the name, “Alexa, open SolDial” and then asking never misses.
What it won’t do
It won’t build automations, change your rate plan, or touch anything it hasn’t read back to you. Those live in the app, where you can see what you’re doing. It doesn’t replace Tesla’s own controls; it sits beside them, the way the rest of SolDial does.
Privacy
Amazon sends SolDial the words you said after the skill name and an anonymous account identifier; SolDial answers from the data it already holds for your account. No audio reaches SolDial. It keeps the text of what was asked in its own usage log, which is how new phrasings get added, and shares it with no one. Unlink any time from the skill’s page in the Alexa app; the skill’s access ends the moment you do. See Privacy & security.