If your car is at 50% why have you set it to ADD 100%?
You need to change the add level before you plug in to add the amount you need.
As long as the car is actively charging then you get cheap slots.
You won't know if they change them.

 

I didn't realise I needed to go in to the app each time I plugged in. The default evening schedule under "Charge Schedules" in the app was at 100%. I just let it with the default assuming it would know what to do.

Do I need to do the calculation each time before I plug in, if so what is the point of the default schedule (as Octopus say to setup a schedule)?

What is the consequence of just leaving it as it is at the moment and letting the car stop when it gets to 100% if the charger is controlling? I'm at home today so wanted to see what happened if i plugged in the day time.

 

I've been cross checking my bills against the charging history and its clear that when Octopus gives me a time slot outside if the usual 23:30-05:30 cheap rate window they charge me the full peak rate, I've seen this consistently, occasionally I am allocated an additional cheap rate slot ot 06:00 or 06:30 which is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard as my car will have completed charging by 05:30. I now check the settings I'm allocated after plugging the car in and manually adjusting them to ensure the car only charges in the cheap rate window.

Unfortunately you have to wait until you receive a bill to check so it takes a lot of effort to check.

 

Oh deary dear. Not so smart after all is it. Sounds like a nice bill for me is coming .

Do you use something other than the Ohme? I have seen on some videos that non-Ohme users get the interval schedules allocated in the Octopus app. That would make much more sense. The Ohme app is terrible. I mean why isn't there even basic information like is the charger charging.

 

You NEED to authorise every charge ... There's a setting in the app, and you must do it from within the app - not the notification that pops up when you connect the car.
It will then show the times scheduled and put the car to sleep.
You can try to finagle the time slots to exploit cheap rate, but don't forget on intelligent go you ALWAYS have cheap rate 23:30 to 05:30 on top of those slots, so plan washing etc for those hours.

 

When you say authorise, is this something in the Ohme app? The Octopus FYI video said not to select "Approve Each Plug In". Is this the option you are referring to.

 

Are you adding 100% or asking for 100% using the cars API info. Basically have you signed into the bluelink via ohme. The car should communicate with ohme charger therefore know what the state of charge is and schedule to 100% from 50% .

 

Just realised I didn't answer this. I have not linked Bluelink to Ohme. Didn't want to risk as already having 12v issues and cannot get in to Hyundai for analysis and battery replaced until end of the month.

 

Are you adding 100% or asking for 100% using the cars API info. Basically have you signed into the bluelink via ohme. The car should communicate with ohme charger therefore know what the state of charge is and schedule to 100% from 50% .

I’ve just left it to the default schedules in the Ohme app.

To be fair I didn’t notice it was what saying what I wanted to be added I thought it was charge to 100%, but guess not. Who knows in advance what they want added to their car if their journeys are not regular. Seems an odd way of wording it as you could never add 100% to the car unless you rolled it on to the drive flat 😄

 

All charging done by ohme/ Octopus outside the normal 11.30pm -5.30am window is charged at same 7.5p. always since I had ohme charger installed in aug last year.

 

That's re-assuring. How did you know which slots they had chosen, was it retrospectively? Or could you see when plugging in?

 

What charger do you have that only charges at 2.4kw?

 

Ohme Go 3 pin 2.4kw lead

 

Also you should only set 1 charge schedule on.

 

The slots should show regardless to be fair.
As for your original questions about your charge, leaving it as adding 100% from charger thinking car has 0%. The charger will continue to charge to what it thinks is around 50% then ap will complain saying the car is charging slower than expected . The car will be at 100% so can't take anymore charge. That's all that will happen. You will gain cheap energy up to the point the car stops charging if before 11.30pm cheap rate

 

The slots should show regardless to be fair.
As for your original questions about your charge, leaving it as adding 100% from charger thinking car has 0%. The charger will continue to charge to what it thinks is around 50% then ap will complain saying the car is charging slower than expected . The car will be at 100% so can't take anymore charge. That's all that will happen. You will gain cheap energy up to the point the car stops charging if before 11.30pm cheap rate

I feel like I am being proper thick here. What do you think I should I set the "Add x" to in the mandatory schedule if I am going to plug car in on a night and each day I do different miles from 20, to 150. On Bluelink I got around this by setting a maximum limit, however Octopus said this must be disabled.

 

I leave my Ohme set to “add 50% by 8am” and only plug-in when the car is below 50%. That saves me needing to edit the schedule each time.

 

Cheers, good idea. It would seem sensible for Ohme to pop-up something when you plug in asking to select a figure if someone, somewhere is getting their knickers in a twist if there's a mismatch.

I just presumed if i set at 100% then it wouldn't be a problem if the charger reached it early as it would just cut off and any future slots would be voided.

 

I feel like I am being proper thick here. What do you think I should I set the "Add x" to in the mandatory schedule if I am going to plug car in on a night and each day I do different miles from 20, to 150. On Bluelink I got around this by setting a maximum limit, however Octopus said this must be disabled.

I leave my Ohme set to “add 50% by 8am” and only plug-in when the car is below 50%. That saves me needing to edit the schedule each time.

Officially you should edit the schedule before plugging in. The reason for this is rescheduling can fail. That being said I have my standard schedule set to add 30% as I tend to drive the similar amounts each day. However, on those days where I know I need more (or plans change after plug-in) I have almost always had success with the 'Change Target' function. When it fails it just goes into the boost mode which turns the app screen red, right away. The only real downside is you don't get a new slot app notification and have to read everything off the graph. Supposedly a new version of the app is about to be released that gives you more slot information.

 

I wonder why Ohme/Octopus don't mention the need to check the schedule each time, talk about confusing. In their "how do I setup" (linked below) they say you only need to setup a schedule at the initial linking process and then the app will push a message with the slots and you just need to "peek" at it.

[legacy] How do I set up Intelligent Octopus Go?

Integrating your Ohme account with the Intelligent Octopus tariff will ensure you get super cheap electricity for any Smart Charging.

ohme-ev.com

It appears it's only the Android app that shows slots within Dashboard screen. Might explain the mismatching experiences discussed above as iOS is only on the notification screen (outside the app in the core OS). Make more sense to just make both apps consistent. I am not a fan of iPhone notification screen as once you click they are gone for good.

 

Yeah, it would be good if the Ohme app gave more feedback. As you say, exact cheap slot times [outside core 23:30 > 05:30] and communicated changes via app notifications.

I don't let the Ohme login to the car's API to keep life simple. Being a Leaf it needs to get to 100% anyway and I believe the API has recently been turned off for my MY.

Issues include...

Octopus billing charging at peak rate even though the Ohme was working as expected. Briefly, I had to supply the Ohme's charging logs to create a bill. If you don't push for this they will bill you at standard/tracker rate which could cost you hundreds.

Stay on top of billing by requesting a bill every month. If not auto produced as this usually indicates an issue of missed 30min slots which you do not want building up as resolving it...

Always best to phone in these circumstances as if you email etc you could get caught up in AI Bot nonsense.

Cheers!

 

@Gary333 My suggestion is that as a starter, you set thing up in a way that works consistently, as expected. Then modify that incrementally if you want. At first, this may not entirely match you expectations for how it ideally should work, but at least it involves no surprises/disappointments.

So to that end, here is how I do it with my 'dumb' e-208 EV and using the Ohme App as the sole point of control:

1. General stuff to set up only once

1.1 'Dumb' th EV & EV App

The EV should be 'dumb' and just charge immediately as soon as it's plugged in. Don't set anything in the EV App especially don't use it to set schedules. In my MyPeugeot app here is where I set it to IMMEDIATE CHARGE - and that's it:

1.2 Basic setting for the Ohme

My Charger / Price cap = Disabled
Approve Each Plug-in = Disabled
Lock charger buttons = Disabled (just in case there's an issue with comms to the Ohme or the app has a problem)

1.3 Create a Charge Schedule (in this example, called 'Peugeot e-208)

Manage My EV - Charge Schedules:

1.4 Set up the fixed settings

Manage My EV - Charge Schedules - 'Peugeot e-208'

Weekdays, Weekend, Mo, Tu, We, Th, Fr, Sa, Su = Enabled
Preconditioning = Disabled
SAVE

Then for each Charge Session set the charge% to be added and the completion time:

2. Settings for the Next Charge Session

2.1 Add Range & Departure Time

Manage My EV - Charge Schedules - 'Peugeot e-208'

(In this example, it's ~10am and I'm adding 40% for completion by 3pm)

3. Plug-in

3.1 Notification of Slots

I would get a notification from the Ohme app almost immediately listing the individual slots I've been given for the 15:00 departure time.

(In this example, it's probably around 11:15 for a 14:00 departure time)

3.2 Charge Curve Display

In the Ohme app / Dashboard you should see the estimated charge curve for the session

4. Post-session Information

4.1 Charge Stats

Once the session has ended, and the car has been un-plugged, then the correct costings should appear in a new entry in the Ohme > Charge Stats : this is your first opportunity to double-check that you've got the 7.5p rate by dividing the charge cost in pence by the kWh:

In this example, 61 / 8.1 = 7.53

4.2 Billing

Subsequently, the final confirmation of the rate should appear in the monthly billing statement from Octopus:

In this example, the charge session ran from 11:30-14:30 at the lower 7.5p rate.
____

As mentioned, you can then start to adapt this to suit your on approach, such as setting up +10% / +20% / +30% schedules. Or perhaps having separate weekday vs weekend schedules. It all depends on what works best for you.

Bear in mind you can estimate how long it takes to add x% charge, which can be useful when setting a day time session. For example, my e-208 has a 50kWh battery so for [2.1] adding 40% means adding 20kWh. My charger is 7kWh so that's just over three hours.

 

@Gary333 My suggestion is that as a starter, you set thing up in a way that works consistently, as expected. Then modify that incrementally if you want. At first, this may not entirely match you expectations for how it ideally should work, but at least it involves no surprises/disappointments.

So to that end, here is how I do it with my 'dumb' e-208 EV and using the Ohme App as the sole point of control:

WOW! That is one awesome right up. Thankyou!!!

On a side note. Do you know why does Octopus doesn't want you to plug in before 5pm and not set the leave time after 11am? On a lot of my working from home days I'd rather just plug in at lunch time after I've been out in the morning?

 

You can plug in, but if you've set the departure time to be that afternoon, they may not give you the cheap rate. But if you plug in at lunchtime with a departure set for after 5:30am (i.e. the day after) then it will be fine. There have been cases with people plugging in at lunchtime and setting a departure for say 5pm and not getting a charge schedule as there are no cheap slots available, it's to stop people gaming the system.

If you really need a charge early then you can override it, but it will then charge at the standard rate.

BTW upto Dec last year (23) we were plugging in around 5pm and getting a cheap session straight away, but that stopped in mid Dec and charging was deferred until the cheap rate kicked in.

 

It’s worth emphasising that there are two ways that Octopus participates in a charge session:
1. where the Octopus app manages the charge and
2 where the Ohme manages the charge.

This can lead to some confusion around responses to questions.

And even within (2) I’ve no idea why I always get a day time cheap charge session and other people don’t. And that’s for a history of doing 7 daytime to 5 nighttime sessions over a year.

My understanding is that people on Octopus Go (as opposed to Intelligent Octopus Go) and those that log into their EV App account (1) get the more restricted situation. And it’s only those that isolate their EV from any integration like me (2) who get ‘on-demand’ day time cheap slots. But this is only based on forum posts not a systematic survey.

If you have API integration then the EV manufacturer and Octopus have collaborated so their software can talk to each other. This means that Octopus can ask the EV what its SoC is. All you then have to do is specify the charge% target (typically 80%) and plug in. The charge point doesn’t have to do much other than some basic monitoring.

But if there’s no such integration - as with my Peugeot - then with an Ohme it’s the Ohme that handles everything. And because the EV is ‘invisible’ to both the Ohme and Octopus then all you can do is specify the charge% to be added, as described.

 

I’ve no idea why I always get a day time cheap charge session and other people don’t. And that’s for a history of doing 7 daytimes to 5 nighttime’s over a year.

My understanding is that people on Octopus Go and those that log into their EV App account get the more restricted situation. And it’s only those that isolate their EV from any integration like me who get ‘on-demand’ day time cheap slots. But this is only based on forum posts not a systematic survey.

I have to do this because there’s no integration between Peugeots and Octopus. I’ve no choice. But some people opt to isolate because they want the more flexible situation.What these owners lose is the convenience of setting their default maximum (usually 80) and thats it - they can just plug in don't have to set a ‘charge% to be added‘ figure.

As I said above, you aren't supposed to tell it to add 100% every time - you are supposed to adjust the schedule to tell it to add what you need. But yes, you can cheat the system by doing that such that it gives you cheap rate as soon as you plug in.
I've only signed up recently and have been finding it usually starts charging at 1030, often pauses in the middle of the night for a while and then restarts to complete the charge in the morning (the departure time being 8am), so we get cheap electric for breakfast etc which is nice.

 

It's worth separating the two issues of a) individual use cases and b) contradiction over day-time, cheap charge sessions.

re (b) Clearly, different people are getting different reactions from Octopus when they ask for a cheap, day-time slot. I always get one; other people never do; others sometimes. There are lots of variables between consumers, like location, model of EV, charging pattern etc. But no one really know why there's this difference.

My advice to the OP is to give day-time, on-demand charging a go, at leisure, and see what happens. If it works most of the time it may suit their circumstances and anyway, is useful to master in case they need it sometime. If it doesn't then they know where they stand.

re (a) Some people just want to 'park-and-plug' rather than faff-around setting stuff in an app every time. And for some this works perfectly well. But others are happy to tailor their charging sessions to their use pattern and like me, feel 60 seconds spent setting their charge session parameters is worth the effort. Horses for courses.

To the 'park-and-plug' users I'd say it seems that Octopus and Ovo are working on new tariffs that will reward people for doing exactly this: plugging-in as soon as they park at home, even if they don't have an immediate need to recharge. They'll do this because the longer a car is connected the more scope the energy supplier has to adapt to the grid demand. If people just plug-in the evening before they need the car charged, then the providers have less scope to adjust and balance the supply.

 

Thanks for everyone’s input.

I’ll have a play around and see what happens with different times, percentages and departure times.

I plugged in just now and asked it to put 20% in for 5pm tonight and it’s popped this message. As 5% takes c.1 hour at this speed it is indeed timing the electric to cheapest times based on Agile pricing.

 

A good while back I did consider one of these Shelly EM + 50A Clamp | Shelly Store UK | Smart Home Automation and clamp it to the charger cable to do some automations but for £57 I don't really have a good enough reason atm.

 

Well right on queue at 11:30 it's kicked in to action.

 

Reading all this malarkey, I'm glad I have a PodPoint and not an Ohme charger. Octopus just controls my car directly (with no schedule set in the PodPoint so it acts dumb). The charge level I want is set in the app (80% and I rarely need to change this), just plug in and leave Octopus to do its magic.

 

Its not as complicated as it sounds... Ohme for some reason cant get manufacturers APIs working, but its reliable once setup without that.

 

If your car has Octopus API integration it’s the same for an Ohme as a PodPoint: the EVSE is just a passive on/offf switch with the EV and Octopus managing the charge session.

Where the Ohme has the advantage is if your EV doesn’t have Octopus integration - you can still get advanced functions like on-demand, day time, cheap charging as well as the fixed 6-hour night time window.

At the moment, even though my Peugeot has integration with nothing, I get the above plus get paid to plug in even if I’m not charging that night (as part of the Crowdflex trial). Because of this, my charging is currently costing me £0. All possible because I have an Ohme.

 

Where the Ohme has the advantage is if your EV doesn’t have Octopus integration

...and it'll charge any EV. The only gripe I've had with OHME is when I needed to charge at peak rate. I had heck of a game trying to get it to force charge, and not stop charging. The APP is so difficult to comprehend.

 

Certainly, the app is not the best. Some of it is non-intuitive and other elements are misleading e.g. if it knows you’re on IOG why does it even display the option to enable a price cap? The two are mutually exclusive. And it doesn’t make it clear to a new user that the only reason for going through the process of identifying the vehicle model (protracted for models with many variant models and year spec’s) is to get the battery size. Aren’t most owners going to know that?

 

So I plugged in at 5pm like Octopus say they would prefer, and set 50% charge for 10am tomorrow and it’s still giving semi peak slots.

Just to confirm. If it has a 15 minute slot at 19:30-19:45 will this mean the 30 minute interval is charged at 7.5p as from a billing perspective the resolution is only down to 30 minute intervals?

 

So I plugged in at 5pm like Octopus say they would prefer, and set 50% charge for 10am tomorrow and it’s still giving semi peak slots.

Just to confirm. If it has a 15 minute slot at 19:30-19:45 will this mean the 30 minute interval is charged at 7.5p as from a billing perspective the resolution is only down to 30 minute intervals?

Yes.

The overnight off-peak has a strong correlation to when Octopus assigns charging slots, but their system is dynamic and will charge whenever it’s cheapest/greenest without regard to that window.

Octopus can even earn extra money by helping to balance the grid: Octopus customers take part in trial to balance grid with EVs

It was that extra income that allowed Octopus to change their policy and allow IOG customers to sell solar at the full Octopus Outgoing 15p rate, previously they’d limited them to the lower 4.1p SEG rate.

 

Yes. So you’ve effectively got the low rate from 19:30 to 05:30, except for

20:00-20:30
21:00-21:30

and at 21:30 the cheap 7.5p rate runs through continuously to 05:30. The cheap rate applying to all your domestic electricity consumption, not just the EV charging. So if, for example, you realise that gym kit really needs to be washed before your session tomorrow morning, you could put a light clothes wash on in one of the half-hour slots or after 21:30, and take it out to dry overnight.

 

I'm happy with octopus . Car was pretty much 0%

to start with.