Just had email from them about it (currently on Octopus GO).
Looks like you need to upgrade to latest firmware (which I haven't done yet)

 

I have recently switched to IO and I have not updated any software in the car since I purchased it new in Feb 2021. I did have some issues getting the test charge to work - details below. Of course it may just be luck that the fifth try worked but it least it shows a way the can work.

Details of attempts to do test charge

The login to Kia worked as expected and I got to "Test connection". I had the screen "Testing your connection now... not long to go" for some minutes and it reported that it had failed.

I had logged myself out of Kia Connect before I tried this as other people on the forums had suggested this may be helpful.

I then l logged back in and confirmed that I could indeed start and stop charging manually via Kia Connect although the car was scheduled to charge from 00:30 to 4:30. I could see the green light on the charger come on, the charge indicator on the car and the power go up on the home energy display so I know it worked.

This confirms to me that intelligent octopus ought to be able to do the same thing.....

Second test charge also failed

Logged out of Kia Connect and tried again

Third test charge attempt started at 23:19 ended at 23.26 failed again

Removed scheduled charging from the car - now it is charging when IO tries to do test.

Fourth test charge attempt started at 23:30 (Charging on expensive electricity) ended at 23:37 failed again

Logged back into Kia Connect and manually stopped charging - so now schedule is not set on car, car is definitely able to receive external start and stop commands

Fifth test charge attempt started at 23:39

This time finally something happened as I saw the charge start and then stop via my home energy monitor

HOORAY It finally worked

 

It's good news.

However, with solar panels Octopus Flux makes more sense, especially during the summer months, because you get at least 5 times the 4p/kWh export price you get with the other Octopus tarrifs.

 

It's good news.

However, with solar panels Octopus Flux makes more sense, especially during the summer months, because you get at least 5 times the 4p/kWh export price you get with the other Octopus tarrifs.

Surely that depends on you Use/Export ratio doesn't it?

 

I exported 3kwh last month

 

I exported 265kWh last month and am already up to 43kWh this month as it's started off well for solar and I've not yet needed to charge my Niro EV.
But for me and my setup/usage profile, I will use Flux for the 'better' 7 (hopefully 8) months of solar. After which I'd move to either Go or IO depending on what looks best in late October.

It is good that Kia is back on IO (noting Hyundai is not which is a bit weird) but also that I'm expecting Zappi to also be integrated in the not-too-distant future which would mean for me either car or charger should be okay by the time I need to make a decision one way or the other.

 

It took a while to get it linked up using the smartcar service but managed to get a test charge sorted and it’s scheduled a charge overnight.

 

It took a while to get it linked up using the smartcar service but managed to get a test charge sorted and it’s scheduled a charge overnight.

Can you kindly share results showing this worked, as that may give others the confidence to consider a move to IO.

If you per-chance have a BM2 type monitor then a view on how often it polls and hence hits the 12V battery would be the icing on the cake for anyone considering this. We should hopefully see this at 75 minutes now.

 

I guess this won't work with the EV2 (and not an Ohme charger)?

 

If you use Intelligent Octopus with "car" integration then it has to have connectivity which the Niro EV '2' spec does not. Without the Kia Connect, you cannot use this.

If you have a charger that works with the service, such as Ohme or indeed a few others that are upcoming over the next couple of months, then it should be fine as the intelligence happens at the charger level. There's no requirement for any specific capability at the car end in that scenario.

Octopus have been open about their intent to support more chargers, and things like the MyEnergi Zappi are due imminently.

 

I would say, this is not a great fix. I would not consider switching my Eniro to IO knowing it will still wake up the car remotely every 75 minutes 24/7, no matter where ever it is parked. Even so when not even plugged in! It seems so pointless. Peter.

 

You can just turn off the Smart integration from the Octopus app when you have no need to charge at home and then there will be no polling at all.

I've just moved to IO and of course I do have the BM2 installed, so I'll see how it all behaves over the next week or so and report back...

 

Part of the ask about monitoring the 12V battery is whether they've also fixed the issue related to the location of the car.
If your car is at home, and the car knows it is at your home, then once the IO connection is made and schedules set there should be no need to reconnect every 75 minutes.

There's an explicit ask/requirement in the Octopus App that the car is enabled for location setting, as well as the need to be on the latest software/firmware.

I am sort of hopeful that if it knows the car's location, and the car has not been disconnected from the charger, then there is absolutely no need to reconnect to the car at all outside of any rescheduling activity.

Logically it should poll the car once, confirm the charge port is connected, confirm at home, send/adjust any schedules, and then not need to connect again unless the EV charge port is disconnected as that is a clear status change.
Because the car 'dials home' to send status to a central location, that is where any poll should be happening against the car's last status. Ultimately it's never going to be perfect due to current limitations and integration options. But it's still possible to make this work for >90% of normal day-to-day circumstances by targeting the correct logic to the correct location of status/data.

And let us not forget this is a beta product from Octopus. The fact that they're investing time and money in these sorts of solutions should be celebrated as very few others seem to be doing likewise.

 

So with the location set, if you're charging away from home, IO shouldn't stop the charge like it would if at home outside the IO time

 

Can't see how it could do, surely Octopus can only control via smart meters they know about

 

Tried to set mine up.
Followed instructions on app.
Entered vehicle ok, then when asked to pick charger I entered the charger type (SyncEV). It then went to request integration, which I entered, and it then returned to instructions page and wouldn't let me continue.
So assume you have to have both compatible car and charger.
<edit> Tried again, and on third time it seems to have worked! - test charge being undertaken now

 

I saw mention on a Facebook Kia Users Group, Intelligent Octopus is only compatible with models which use KiaConnect -> rules out E-niro 2(LR).

 

The process is done via the Octopus app.
Firstly disable any time constraints you have on existing charger and car, and also ensure that the AC charging limit is higher than current charge.
The app shows a series of steps, first is to choose car, second is to choose charger (in my case SyncEV), which then takes you to second page where the first option (which is not easy to see), is to choose the charger output . On that page there is a much more prominant "request integration" button, which you can ignore.
Once you have selected car and charger it returns to steps page and the next step is connect to your KIA account (and that's what caused me most trouble as it kept throwing an error). You must know your KIA account login and password.
Aftrer that you have to connect the charger and press test charge, and a few hours later it's all done.

 

Thanks, I think my set up couldn't include the car because of Kia Connect issues (see other thread), so is only connected Ohme. I'll have to try and find a way to reset it all once I've got Kia Connect working.

 

I’m trying like mad to connect to IO but my Kia Connect account is continuously not recognised by the smartcar account integration page. It worked one time, got to put my Kia pin in and then the blooming Octopus app gave the dreaded ‘something went wrong’ message. I’m now back at square one re-entering what I know is my correct Kia connect account info and it is continuously being rejected….is it me or is this to be expected? very painful process and just back from a 15 day holiday with limited time to get this up and running before going back to work.

 

That happened to me for about a day - and there's no way out of the Octopus app.

Then it miraculously connected, and then the octopus app had a go at connecting to the KIA, and hung for about an hour before I restarted the phone and started again. Once again Smartcar couldn't connect to Kia connect - and no way out. Eventuallly did connect and then eveything worked.

I think the problem with apps is they are written by "smart young things" without the experience in actually writing programs with proper user interface experience. When I was a software manager any program that could have a "hang point" also had an escape mechanism.

 

Thanks, at what point was your car connected to the EVSE ? Do I wait until I have passed all of the integrations then plug in? This is very very frustrating💀

 

It’s like buses! Try all morning to get IO to work, eventually admit defeat and ask for help from the good folk here….darn thing works in the middle of composing about it but only after repeated attempts and good hints and tips from others ( even if the tip was - yep, that happened to me ).
I seem to be on now but confused with the cars status lights a little. Before doing the test charge I plugged in and then stopped the charge remotely via the Kia Connect App ( as suggested by @Mark_T ) the green charge status lights did not switch on during the test charge from Octopus but the app returned a successful attempt. About 8 minutes later when I was pottering about I noticed the charge status lights on and steady at level 3 - the car did not appear to be charging though.

Question: is this expected behaviour? If I was to plug in on return from work at say 1800hrs, would the lights illuminate but no charging till 2330hrs ?

Lastly- I hope my ramblings and questions and frustrations help others doing same as I thought I was only one getting the reported issues. Once again, Speak EV community fantastic and many thanks again to all who replied. I was beginning to regret setting up IO the day after coming home from a relaxing holiday…tip for the masses, don’t start the set up unless you have a free day.

 

I would expect the lights to be on but not flashing if it isn’t charging.

 

Yep. No flashing. I’m going to run a test charge overnight to 80% even though I don’t go back to work till Wednesday - will be interesting to finally use my home EVSE and I’ll admit, will be great to not have to plan my day around what public EVSE is working. Now that Glasgow have a tariff on their EV charging, SWMBO is finally ‘allowing’ me to use the relatively expensive home unit now that it is cheaper than public!! 👀😜 and with IO it’s a no brainer.

 

I have been having problems at the stage where it tries to connect to Kia Connect so gave up and called the Octopus help line, where I have just been told they have suspended linking to Kia again -because the battery drain is still happening.

 

Well that was a short window of opportunity...

I think I agree with them though, from the very limited data I've collected since yesterday, whatever they are doing is triggering the 12V recharge feature at regular intervals for some reason.

Oddly though, the 12V voltage does not seem to drop as low as would be necessary to trigger the recharge under normal circumstances.

For now I've set HA to automatically turn off the smart charge at 05:30 so I'll just turn it on when needed and deal with any charging schedules that run past 05:30 as an exception.

 

I can see my BM2 graph is pretty busy since adopting IO yesterday. As I’m still getting my head around EV’s can anyone tell me what the risk of continuing this scenario is - other than potential flat 12v which seems to be getting recharged by the main EV battery albeit at regular intervals.

 

I can see my BM2 graph is pretty busy since adopting IO yesterday. As I’m still getting my head around EV’s can anyone tell me what the risk of continuing this scenario is - other than potential flat 12v which seems to be getting recharged by the main EV battery albeit at regular intervals.

I would suggest you turn off Smart Charging in the app, except when you actually want to charge the car...

With the Niro EV, the risks are less than with earlier Kia vehicles as the newer car does protect the 12V much better, but it isn't good for long term battery health.

This is my BM2 graph from today...

You can see the smart charging from 00:30 - 01:30 then an hour gap and the remainder of the schedule from 02:30 - 03:00.

There was a 12V charging session at 04:30 and then Home Assistant switched off Smart Charging at 05:30 and shortly afterwards at 07:00 there was another 12V charging cycle then all the other activity you see is normal driving for the rest of the day with no further 12V charging cycles.

 

Just because the 2nd generation Niro EV is better able to proactively protect the 12V battery, hammering it the way they seem to be and forcing additional charging cycles on the 12V isn't really what Kia designed those pieces of kit to do.

It's a shame that the only thing we've heard about the newly re-introduced IO for Kia is to adjust from 30 minutes to 75 minutes as the interval between polls.
It would have made much more sense to have greater logic as well as only polling the car if the car sends one of a series of defined status changes back to the central servers. Otherwise, use the cached data on the server end.

I appreciate there are only certain touch points available to Octopus, and hence their integration is hampered due to this. But even so, there doesn't seem any reason why between Octopus, Kia, and whatever common API/backend the server platform uses, they couldn't have made a better iteration on this 2nd attempt.

And I further appreciate that integrations are complex things. This is not me moaning, but rather lamenting.

 

Just because the 2nd generation Niro EV is better able to proactively protect the 12V battery, hammering it the way they seem to be and forcing additional charging cycles on the 12V isn't really what Kia designed those pieces of kit to do.

Agreed, and that is why I am only turning smart charging on when I am ready to perform a charge, and turning it off afterwards.

It would have made much more sense to have greater logic as well as only polling the car if the car sends one of a series of defined status changes back to the central servers.

That would be nice, but I suspect it is outside the current capabilities of the Kia system as it would require the Kia servers to actively request a response from Octopus. Certainly a better system, but perhaps a step further than Kia is prepared to go...

I very much doubt that Kia have made any changes on their end at all, this is the problem that Octopus face with car integrations as there is very little they can do to motivate the car manufacturers to make changes to their global systems to suit a supplier in one country...

Octopus can at least try to trade on their presence in several large Kia markets to get a response but I'm not sure how much luck they will have...

 

This ‘fixed’ incarnation of Kia IO is even worse news for the Eniro and its cousins as the 12V battery only gets the once a day 20 minute top up whilst parked up……. Completely irrespective of any 12V ongoing drain energy or SOC left in the 12V battery. Also, iirc even the daily top up ceases after the HV battery is below a certain SOC. It’s sure to still cause problems in some situations. As said, the car was never designed to be used in this way (constant repetitive waking up whilst parked). At best, the 12V battery lifetime will be reduced due to this nagging unexpected load 24/7. Peter

 

This ‘fixed’ incarnation of Kia IO is even worse news for the Eniro and its cousins as the 12V battery only gets the once a day 20 minute top up whilst parked up…….

The good news, such as it is, is that as long as you do not just leave smart charging enabled when you do not actually want to charge, then there is little to no impact from this, so it is manageable.

 

IO appears to use location services when you set it up and ‘knows’ when you are at home and charging. Interested to hear about other user’s observations when car away from home location and whether this has any affect on the 12v battery charge cycles. I don’t have enough info yet but currently 30 miles from home at workplace with smart charging still enabled on IO app ( will be switching it off after I get a feel for how it is behaving and only on when I’m about to charge ). Here’s my current BM2 data and a third pic from yesterday when car at home for 75% of day.

 

IO appears to use location services when you set it up and ‘knows’ when you are at home and charging. Interested to hear about other user’s observations when car away from home location and whether this has any affect on the 12v battery charge cycles.

I would hope they can retrieve the last known location from Kia without having to wake the car so with luck it will not do any polling until the location shows you are at home again...

 

Just adding an updated copy of the BM2 data for yesterday, and one showing the overnight charging...

Yesterday completed with no spurious 12V charge cycles, just the one at 07:00. turned on Smart Charging when I got home after a short drive in the car, that did not trigger a 12V charge either.

Smart charging began polling the car soon after turning it on and you can see the dip in the 12V leading up to 01:00 where the first 30 min charge began at 01:00.

The 2nd charge ran from 02:30 to 04:00, then a final short charge from 04:30 which brought the car up to the set target of 70%.

Smart Charging turned off via HA at 05:30, no 12V charging cycles triggered at all today so far...

Took the car to Sainsbury's where is was plugged in to their free 11kW charger from 08:45 for just under an hour which took it up to 80%, then drove home and plugged into Zappi in Eco+ mode to soak up the spare solar energy this morning...

All good, and I would have no problems staying on IO even with the 12V issues as it really is not an issue for me with just some very mild automation as a safety net.

Not likely to be charging again tonight though.

 

One thing about location settings on the Niro is that it seems to always show as "Away" and not "Home" when my car is parked up on the driveway. This is as per the API/HA integration, and I can see there is a 0.01 type difference in the GPS values.

I am thinking it may be because I have not set my actual address as Home in the SatNav for the general security reason that I don't want my SatNav to take whoever steals my car directly to my house - so it's set to a street away.

For anyone else using HA and the Kia integration, it is worth checking the attributes returned on the Data element to see if it shows your correct location, etc.
I have no idea if Kia and/or Octopus are concerned with the location, and to what level of accuracy they measure. GPS is normally to 6 decimal places to get a relatively accurate position, and the car seems to store it that way. But the measurement for Location is only 2 decimal places.

 

Has anyone with Ohme managed to set up Intelligent Octopus with their Niro EV (or any other car for that matter) but via the car rather than through the Ohme app. I want to be able to see and control charging through the Octopus app to be able to make sure IO is working correctly etc.

At the moment everything is set up and Kia connect is working/integrated I'm just stuck at the test connection phase. I've seen people with Zappis turn them onto dumb mode but don't seem to be able to do the same thing on Ohme. Just wondering what the setting need to be set on the car and Ohme to let Octopus do the test charge (Octopus are really not clear on this).

 

Just wondering what the setting need to be set on the car and Ohme to let Octopus do the test charge (Octopus are really not clear on this).

Have you tried ‘Max Charge’ mode on the Ohme?

 

Switched off Smart Charging on the Octopus app ( blue toggle button now greyed out ) then before initiating a charge session at home popped this back on ( blue toggle button now showing ). Car started charging but didn’t stop ( this was about 7pm ) and no sign of this happening after 30-40 mins. Aware I was maybe on full tariff I stopped the charge via the Kia Connect App and unplugged, tried same and numerous options but IO doesn’t want to control the car even after ‘Smart Charging’ is back to being enabled ( blue toggle switch displayed ).
Anyone had similar ? I think I might have to disconnect the device and restart the horrible set up process but wary that possibly Octopus have restricted access to set up for KIA now they are aware of continuing 12v battery issues.
Plan B would be to keep Smart Charging on and set the EVSE or car schedule.
From what I can see and experienced, toggling the Smart Charging option within the device settings menu of the IO app has not worked for me and integration has not been restarted.

 

Switched off Smart Charging on the Octopus app ( blue toggle button now greyed out ) then before initiating a charge session at home popped this back on ( blue toggle button now showing ). Car started charging but didn’t stop ( this was about 7pm ) and no sign of this happening after 30-40 mins.

Just hit ’stop charging’ in the Kia Connect app as soon as you plug it in and the charge starts.

it will sit there and wait for the IO schedule.

This has been working perfectly for me every time.

Note that you should not unlock the car again after hitting stop or the charge may restart, just plug in, lock the car and stop the charge.