Intelligent Octopus

[dmsims]

Ohme for a happy life

duff said:

I’m looking at moving to Intelligent Octopus as we have a second EV coming in a few weeks. The car isn’t compatible so as I understand it I need to get one of their compatible chargers, however I think it needs to be a WiFi enabled charger as the signal here is terrible and presumably that’s going to cause issues.

That leaves just the Wallbox Pulsar as my only option, unless I’ve missed something? Just want to make sure I’ve got this right before going ahead.

[Road2Ruin]

duff said:

I’m looking at moving to Intelligent Octopus as we have a second EV coming in a few weeks. The car isn’t compatible so as I understand it I need to get one of their compatible chargers, however I think it needs to be a WiFi enabled charger as the signal here is terrible and presumably that’s going to cause issues.

That leaves just the Wallbox Pulsar as my only option, unless I’ve missed something? Just want to make sure I’ve got this right before going ahead.

All chargers are WiFi enabled. They will connect to your router at home and transmit data to Octopus that way. As mentioned the Ohme is probably the best with Octopus.

[Blockbuster]

Zappi is working as well now as of a few days ago.

[oxnop]

I’ve been on IO for a long time. My Pod point charger has been perfect throughout.

[carl_w]

Road2Ruin said:

All chargers are WiFi enabled. They will connect to your router at home and transmit data to Octopus that way. As mentioned the Ohme is probably the best with Octopus.

Ohme doesn't connect via WiFi. I presume it has a SIM.

[dmsims]

Well despite the incorrect assertion that it uses Wifi it does actually have a 4G Sim

carl_w said:

Road2Ruin said:

All chargers are WiFi enabled. They will connect to your router at home and transmit data to Octopus that way. As mentioned the Ohme is probably the best with Octopus.

Ohme doesn't connect via WiFi. I presume it has a SIM.

[Road2Ruin]

dmsims said:

Well blow me down. I wouldn't get it then. Who knows what will happen to the phone network.

[duff]

Thanks for the replies - I need to look into this a bit more. I assumed the only chargers that work with IO were the ones on their website as I can’t see a list anywhere online but obviously that’s not right if people are using Podpoint etc with no issues.

I live in a mobile dead spot and have problems connecting to my Leaf via the Nissan app which means I can rarely pre-condition and have to go out to the car to check battery levels. Therefore I really want something that can use my WiFi. Tbh the Wallbox charger looks ok so for simplicity I may just get that through Octopus.

[Road2Ruin]

duff said:

Thanks for the replies - I need to look into this a bit more. I assumed the only chargers that work with IO were the ones on their website as I can’t see a list anywhere online but obviously that’s not right if people are using Podpoint etc with no issues.

I live in a mobile dead spot and have problems connecting to my Leaf via the Nissan app which means I can rarely pre-condition and have to go out to the car to check battery levels. Therefore I really want something that can use my WiFi. Tbh the Wallbox charger looks ok so for simplicity I may just get that through Octopus.

No, not all chargers work with IO. Our podpoint doesn't, but our car does, so that's how we use it. Octopus must be able to control a charge and they test this when enabling the tariff, so you MUST make sure you have a compatible car or charger.

[dmsims]

If only Octopus had that information:

[PF62]

duff said:

I’m looking at moving to Intelligent Octopus as we have a second EV coming in a few weeks. The car isn’t compatible so as I understand it I need to get one of their compatible chargers

Is the existing car which will be retained compatible?

If so then just use that to connect to sign up to the Intelligent tariff and then charge the new car using the default off-peak of 23:30 to 05:30 using the car's charging timer.

[PF62]

duff said:

Thanks for the replies - I need to look into this a bit more. I assumed the only chargers that work with IO were the ones on their website as I can’t see a list anywhere online but obviously that’s not right if people are using Podpoint etc with no issues.

You either need a car that is compatible *or* a charger that is compatible. The Intelligent tariff will work fine with a dumb charger if the car is supported - and realistically you only need to get it connected once, despite what the T&Cs say.

If both car and charger are compatible then there are pros and cons as to whether you use the car or the charger as the thing that does the controlling.

If the charger is compatible then with some cars the charger will 'talk' to the car using the car's API to see what the state of charge is and it is managed that way - you tell the charger to say 'charge to 80%' and the charger chats to the car and they work out what is needed to get it to 80%.

If the charger is compatible but either the car doesn't have an API or the API is flakey (Kia and Hyundai) then you can set it up as a 'dumb' car and then you have to tell the charger how much charge to add - if you had 30% charge and you wanted 80% then you would have to do the maths as to how many miles/kWh to add rather than just being able to set 80%.

If you have two cars. one that is compatible and one that isn't then they will work fine with a charger that isn't - but only the car that is compatible will get the extra cheap slots, but the one that isn't will still get the default 23:30 to 05:30 cheap rate, so just use the cars' timer and charge settings.

If you have two cars that are both compatible and a charger that isn't, my understanding is that you would still only be able to sign up with a single car and the other would just get the default 23:30 to 05:30 cheap rate and with the second car to use the cars' timer and charge settings.

Whereas if you have a charger that is compatible you could use both cars to charge using Intelligent, but you would likely have to set it up as single 'dumb' car in the charger app and not use either car's API, so using the 'add to' option for the charge for both.

The benefit to using the Intelligent tariff to charge intelligently is not the 23:30 to 05:30 cheap rate, but the extra cheap rate slots it gives you during the day if you are charging your car *provided* you are allowing Octopus to control the charging because the cheap rate applies to the whole house not just the car.

Edited by PF62 on Sunday 19th November 12:25

[duff]

dmsims said:

If only Octopus had that information:

Excellent. I think I made that very clear in my original post, the new car is NOT compatible and that’s why I’m limited to chargers that are. My query was more about what chargers I can use, considering I can’t rely on a 4G connection, and wether there was a preferred option.

I’m not too concerned about using my Leaf on IO as it mainly gets charged at work although I’ll probably plug in occasionally at home.

Thanks to the other helpful replies though…

[dmsims]

Scroll through......

duff said:

My query was more about what chargers I can use, considering I can’t rely on a 4G connection, and wether there was a preferred option.

[Pedaller]

Hopefully I can keep the IO integration with my i-pace active and also get the Zappi working with IO too, as our Zoe ZE50 isn’t a compatible car. I really like the integration directly to the i-pace as you can set the target percentage. The Zoe is a little bit of a pain because its built in charge schedule only lets you set a start and stop time and not a charge limit. I understand with the IO zappi integration I would be able to select the number of miles to add, which would be awesome for the Zoe.

Edited by Pedaller on Sunday 19th November 16:12

[PF62]

A demonstration of the benefits you can get from using the Intelligent tariff fully and not just relying on the default 23:30 to 05:30 cheap time slot -

[325iMSport]

I'm looking joining Octopus but noticed there day time rate is higher at 30p compared to the standard day rate of 27p.

To make the sums work, I presume you have to switch some appliances to be used at the overnight cheaper rate?

Otherwise surely its better financially to Join OVO as there daytime rates are unchanged and you still get the cheap EV charging at 7p.

[Merry]

325iMSport said:

I'm looking joining Octopus but noticed there day time rate is higher at 30p compared to the standard day rate of 27p.

To make the sums work, I presume you have to switch some appliances to be used at the overnight cheaper rate?

Otherwise surely its better financially to Join OVO as there daytime rates are unchanged and you still get the cheap EV charging at 7p.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the 7p rate on OVO only applies to the car, when the rate is low on Octopus it's for the whole house.

[325iMSport]

Merry said:

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the 7p rate on OVO only applies to the car, when the rate is low on Octopus it's for the whole house.

I agree about OVO, the 7p is only for the car.

But on IO, I thought the cheap rate for the house is only between 23.30 and 5.30? And the EV charging is anytime when you have a schedule set.

Is this not correct?

[sjwb]

I have been with Intelligent Octopus for a few weeks.
My charge process is all over the place, not reliable and not I believe due to any wi-fi or compatibility issue.

Last evening:
I plugged in, with the car (i3S) set to charge immediately Some hours later, charging had not commenced and the IO software had changed my car setting to reflect a time slot of 19:28 to 20:28 with a departure time of 21:28. Incidentally, I plugged in at 22:26
I took the car back to ‘charge immediately’ Via the BMW app to allow the process to commence.
To add insult to injury Octopus then sent a text to say that it was unable to control my device!

IO has always set peculiar charge slots and this I understand and in the main has worked however, it always changes my car schedule from 'charge immediately' to 'charge in time-slot'.
Any advice or observation would be most appreciated.