AmpEase is an open-source Level 1 electric vehicle charger. These are much easier and cheaper to deploy than the level 2 and level 3 chargers you may be familiar with that require more than a regular 120V outlet. You likely have an outlet like this on the exterior of your building, or in a parking lot. They can charge an electric vehicle such that they recover 3-5 miles of range per hour, making them great for stops where they driver will be there for a longer period of time such as offices. shopping centers, and hotels. You can register your new charging station on services like PlugShare, making your business a destination for EV drivers!
AmpEase uses an off-the-shelf smart plug and toggles the power automatically based on if the customer has paid. You plug it in behind a locking outdoor outlet cover. While these plugs often have an external button, our software checks the status of the plug and toggles it on and off to ensure that a user hasn't tampered with the plug to get a free charge or disable charging for a paying customer. The required hardware can be acquired online or at a hardware store. The accounts needed to deploy our open-source software are free.
- Any regular outlet at your home or business you want to make an EV charging station
- A Square developer account
- A TPLink outdoor smart plug (model KP401 is known to work)
- A TPLink Kasa account
- A Render.com account
- A locking outlet cover
- A padlock
Follow our getting started guide here! This details the software setup and physical assembly of an AmpEase charging station.
For development or local testing, install Python 3.11 then clone this repository and navigate inside. Run these commands:
python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt
uvicorn main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000
Now, open your web browser to http://localhost:8000 and fill in the setup form! Information about what information you need for this form can be found on our getting started guide which also has screenshots!