Kill switch for new electric charger

[ACCYSTAN]

Good afternoon,
Sorry if this has been covered before and I couldn’t find it in the search.

Planning to have one of the octopus energy electric chargers installed later this month, a few questions

1. Is it possible to as the electrician to put a kill (on/off) switch inside the house to the charger? The reason I ask is there have been a few recent instances of neighbours finding random strangers pulled up on their driveways charging cars.

2. Which is the best of the electric chargers that Octopus offer to install?

3. Am I doing this the right way round? Having the charger installed before buying the electric car? I just don’t want the hassle of public charging points and want to avoid them as much as possible.

[ACCYSTAN]

Forgot to add, these are the octopus options

https://octopus.energy/get-an-ev-charger/

I don’t have solar and not getting solar, quality and reliability is more important than price when it comes to the options so which is the best?

[frisbee]

I've got an Ohme charger on Octopus. It has a screen and buttons but you can control it fully through the app, you can lock out the screen and configure it to confirm every plug in on your phone.

I've never even used the screen or buttons.

If you get Octopus to install it and you have an external meter they will install an external fusebox and connect the charger to that. I don't know how they handle internal meters.

[ACCYSTAN]

It is an internal meter.

Thanks for the feedback

[timberman]

I'm sure you could get a trip switch fitted without too much trouble,

The electrician sent by Octopus to connect up one of our chargers installed a trip switch due to some issue when fitting it, but on the outside above the charger, so to stop people switching it back on I'd have to lock it with a padlock

I've got both the Myenergi Zappi and the Ohme home pro

on the Ohme home pro it was initially set up so a charge wouldn't start without me authorising it via the app on my phone,

and on the Zappi I think it was set up where I had to enter a pass code on the unit itself

I got fed up with doing that so altered both to just needing to connect the plug

I haven't had any issues with people pinching our electric, but if it did happen I would probably revert back to needing a pass code again

[Rough101]

You can certainly fit an isolator inside, but the charger sits online and is controlled through an app, you and people you’ve invited through the app need to turn it on and off, and let’s face it, you’ll main,y be using it for scheduled charges only via the timer, or enabling an intelligent thing.

I’ve never to meet anyone who has witness driveway charger unauthorised use, it’s always a second hand tale. Commercial yes, domestic no.

[sahajesh]

This seems bizarre.

Any good charger should have a lock function on the app (or RFID?), so even if someone plugs in during the scheduled window while you're not there, the charger wouldn't work.

Never heard of random people using a domestic charger though.

[charltjr]

It’ll be on it’s own circuit so just flip the breaker in the fuse box, but as others have said I don’t know of one that you can’t lock out through the app.

[BlindedByTheLights]

You can control it in the octopus app and in the charger app such as pod point so a random cannot charge

[Mikebentley]

sahajesh said:

This seems bizarre.

Any good charger should have a lock function on the app (or RFID?), so even if someone plugs in during the scheduled window while you're not there, the charger wouldn't work.

Never heard of random people using a domestic charger though.

This was my first thought. My Charge point is locked when in use and not in use. A random couldn’t just rock up and use it. Is this really a thing?

[GT6k]

I don't believe this story, but this being pistonheads there must be lawn/sausages answer. A big capacitor linked to the signal pin would do the trick. You could then charge rent for the collection of bricked cars parked on your property.

[chrisch77]

Ohme and Zappi chargers are the octopus compatible ones. Note that Ohme uses a mobile connection (at least for the Go version I have) and Zappi connects to your wifi so consider that if you live in an area with difficult mobile signal.

[samoht]

ACCYSTAN said:

3. Am I doing this the right way round? Having the charger installed before buying the electric car? I just don’t want the hassle of public charging points and want to avoid them as much as possible.

The other option is to start with a three-pin charger (~£150 if it doesn't come with the car). Downside is it charges slower, but still likely ~70 miles in 12 hours overnight. You just need a decent quality socket accessible to the driveway. That's an option that you can obtain quickly to start with, and then look to get a fixed charger installed in due course.

I'd only wait for the car until a charger was installed if you had a long daily commute, so you were absolutely needing to replenish a lot of miles every night.

[TheDeuce]

This story has to be made up. Neighbours (plural ) parking on someone else's drive and plugging in... On the off chance the charger doesn't need authorization to start charging...?

[ACCYSTAN]

Hi, I can confirm the story is not fabricated.

It caused a big stand off with the person who was using the charger unauthorised.
The wife returned home to find a delivery driver on their driveway charging his van and called her husband who turned up in an angry manner.
Surprisingly the electricity thief did not drive off when caught by the wife, then again maybe they didn’t have enough charge to leave?
The joys of living on the edge of a major city centre.

[Sheepshanks]

TheDeuce said:

This story has to be made up. Neighbours (plural ) parking on someone else's drive and plugging in... On the off chance the charger doesn't need authorization to start charging...?

Daughter has an Ohme Pro and I think if you didn't lock out the buttons you'd be able to just plug in and charge.

[TheDeuce]

ACCYSTAN said:

Hi, I can confirm the story is not fabricated.

It caused a big stand off with the person who was using the charger unauthorised.
The wife returned home to find a delivery driver on their driveway charging his van and called her husband who turned up in an angry manner.
Surprisingly the electricity thief did not drive off when caught by the wife, then again maybe they didn’t have enough charge to leave?
The joys of living on the edge of a major city centre.

Ok, that's one weird story a delivery driver caught stealing from a customer whilst at work, yet hangs around? Anyway, you said there had been a 'few' incidents of neighbours (plural) finding strangers (plural) charging.

I assume the other examples must be even more bizarre if you chose to lead with the already unlikely sounding delivery driver incident. Please do share...

[TheDeuce]

Sheepshanks said:

TheDeuce said:

This story has to be made up. Neighbours (plural ) parking on someone else's drive and plugging in... On the off chance the charger doesn't need authorization to start charging...?

Daughter has an Ohme Pro and I think if you didn't lock out the buttons you'd be able to just plug in and charge.

I know, and we leave ours set to charge in demand too. My point was anyone looking to steal the power would need to get parked up on a strangers drive and plugged in to even find out if a charge was possible. That's a lot of risk and exposure given that these days every second house has a ring doorbell recording you doing it.

[blank]

I effectively have 2 switches in the "fusebox" that I can switch the charger off from. A main breaker and an RCBO. I'd imagine that's pretty normal.

My charger is set to just charge without any authorisation. Never worried about some randomer turning up and plugging in although I guess they easily could.

[Sheepshanks]

TheDeuce said:

I know, and we leave ours set to charge in demand too. My point was anyone looking to steal the power would need to get parked up on a strangers drive and plugged in to even find out if a charge was possible. That's a lot of risk and exposure given that these days every second house has a ring doorbell recording you doing it.

Maybe chargers are commonly left open?