Don’t buy an Ohme Charger

Faults and Technical chat for the Volkswagen ID.3
sidehaas
Posts: 1774
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2021 7:04 am

Post by sidehaas »

The other night I just wanted to charge from 65% to 80%, as I have the Tour we are talking somewhere in the region of 11.5 kWh. So it was simple to charge that amount in the 4 hour window you would think. No the Ohme only managed 7.3 kWh in that time and this is how it delivered this.

kW Start End
0.114 00:00 00:30
1.041 00:30 01:00
0.116 01:00 01:30
0.087 01:30 02:00
0.108 02:00 02:30
0.673 02:30 03:00
2.000 03:00 03:30
2.003 03:30 04:00
1.992 04:00 04:30
0.101 04:30 05:00
I'm not sure now if we have the same problem. I just looked up my half hourly energy usage on the Octopus website for Wednesday and Thursday nights (I did a long trip on Thursday so charged a decent amount both nights.) On the Wednesday it did the 4kW thing and so took until 530am to get the charge I needed, costing extra. On the Thursday it worked perfectly. You can see that in both cases the usage was fairly consistent at the 4kw/8kw rate respectively. Yours was less consistent. However one thing the same on both my failed charge and yours, but not my successful one, is that the Ohme stopped the charge (intentionally, at least for mine) after a short initial charge at 0030, before restarting it later. I wonder if that's contributing to the problem?

Screenshot_20220423-093315.png

Screenshot_20220423-093251.png

ID.3 Family Pro Performance (Jan 22), Makena Turquoise / East Derry alloys. Ohme Home Pro charger.

TimF
Posts: 201
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2021 6:41 am

Post by TimF »

sidehaas wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 8:30 am
TimF wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 8:24 am My Ohme Home Pro (installed by third-party, which seems to be standard, as Ohme don't have an installation workforce?) appears to be a reasonable piece of kit. Ohme's support is not. Communication can be slow and/or poor, there's no feedback on fixing problems/annoyances, the customer service people don't always know what their own kit/apps look like or operate. At least now they updated the charger so that its green lights weren't glaring away all night. The Android app took a while to be integrated with my VW account, even after the integration was said to be operational, but it's still not working completely smoothly (last charge to 80% claimed the car had halted charging prematurely - it hadn't). Minor point on the app for Octopus customers: it uses Octopus' current charges (as offered to new customers or those changing tariffs) to produce "cost" figures. For those on fixed-term contracts those may be different, even very different. I've certainly not had any problems of the charger failing to deliver full rate.
You can select your exact tariff in the app, surely? I definitely did that. Or do you mean that if you sign up now, only new tariffs are available to select? There used to be lots of them.
Yes, select tariff, but app then uses whatever Octopus charges for someone starting on that tariff now. I'm on a 24-month fixed tariff, where the charges aren't what someone taking up that tariff today will pay, but it's that latter figure which Ohme uses in the app. Ohme doesn't ask when you started on a fixed-price tariff.
sidehaas
Posts: 1774
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2021 7:04 am

Post by sidehaas »

I just checked and mine is still showing the correct tariff that I selected when first getting the charger, even though that tariff is no longer available for new or renewing Octopus customers. However it was still available when I first signed up for Ohme.
ID.3 Family Pro Performance (Jan 22), Makena Turquoise / East Derry alloys. Ohme Home Pro charger.
billybobb2019
Posts: 85
Joined: Thu Aug 26, 2021 11:01 am

Post by billybobb2019 »

ItshardtobuyId3 wrote: Fri Apr 22, 2022 11:53 am Ohme emailed me to apologise for closing the support ticket without checking with me first and have reopened it.

It being escalated up so there is hope after all. I feel a bit bad about this thread and the snotty response I gave to the email yesterday but I was really very unimpressed!

Fingers crossed fellow intermittent Home Pro 4 kWh charging crew!
poor customer service needs pointing out and i’m glad you did - tbh as said i’ve not really noticed the issue before but oddly it did as you described was expecting a charge to 80% as it reliably done in the past but only got to 61% i don’t know if it’s relevant or not but the car ‘turned on’ as were headlights on rear lights on as the car started to charge and when it stopped as it does when you walk up to it with the keys -i am sure it’s never done this before as we have a ring cam and it triggered it for the first time - hope your tenacity gets a good result for all of us
Newfie
Posts: 540
Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2021 7:09 pm
Location: East Yorkshire

Post by Newfie »

sidehaas wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 8:40 am
I'm not sure now if we have the same problem. I just looked up my half hourly energy usage on the Octopus website for Wednesday and Thursday nights (I did a long trip on Thursday so charged a decent amount both nights.) On the Wednesday it did the 4kW thing and so took until 530am to get the charge I needed, costing extra. On the Thursday it worked perfectly. You can see that in both cases the usage was fairly consistent at the 4kw/8kw rate respectively. Yours was less consistent. However one thing the same on both my failed charge and yours, but not my successful one, is that the Ohme stopped the charge (intentionally, at least for mine) after a short initial charge at 0030, before restarting it later. I wonder if that's contributing to the problem?
I thnk the stopping and starting the charge does not help the situation.
Another thing I have noticed is if you are requiring more than what the 4 hour window can give at full charge it gets the extra charge before the 4 window. So whatever you set the time to as to what time you it to be ready at it will always end all charging at 04.30. This I find ridiculous, in other words if you want it to be charged too your requested SoC by 07.00 it will not charge between 04.30 and 07.00.
I have asked Ohme to look in to have an option within the app to only charge at full power. I know it has the option to charge at Max charge but that is only an instantaneous charge and you cannot schedule that.
ID.3 Tour 77kWh Pro S 204PS Manganese Grey S/W 3.2
On order Skoda Enyaq 85X Sportline Plus
ItshardtobuyId3
Posts: 258
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:53 pm

Post by ItshardtobuyId3 »

I’ve been asked to start using the API again while they investigate the issue. I’m gonna be for some pretty random charge session outcomes I reckon.

Then again it will probably behave flawlessly now it’s being watched. I’ve put it on charge for tonight and I’m actually willing it to go wrong so I should have a nice successful charge to 80% tonight lol
ID3 Life Pro Performance
Glacier White
East Derry alloys
Driver Assistance pack
[traded in for]
Cupra Born V1 with Typhoon Alloys - Aurora Blue - Tech pack L
User avatar
Splitty
Posts: 119
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2021 7:21 am

Post by Splitty »

Apart from some obvious software issues, what stopped me buying an Ohme were two things, mobile coverage (zero at home) so no chance of managing the thing and then after 3 years they want to charge £2-£3 per month for access when their mobile contract expires. I contacted support about the latter issue and they said they hadn’t decided yet, but that was most likely. So even if we eventually get a mobile signal we would have to pay to use the thing. WiFi is a much better option for many.
sidehaas
Posts: 1774
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2021 7:04 am

Post by sidehaas »

Newfie wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 11:43 am
sidehaas wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 8:40 am
I'm not sure now if we have the same problem. I just looked up my half hourly energy usage on the Octopus website for Wednesday and Thursday nights (I did a long trip on Thursday so charged a decent amount both nights.) On the Wednesday it did the 4kW thing and so took until 530am to get the charge I needed, costing extra. On the Thursday it worked perfectly. You can see that in both cases the usage was fairly consistent at the 4kw/8kw rate respectively. Yours was less consistent. However one thing the same on both my failed charge and yours, but not my successful one, is that the Ohme stopped the charge (intentionally, at least for mine) after a short initial charge at 0030, before restarting it later. I wonder if that's contributing to the problem?
I thnk the stopping and starting the charge does not help the situation.
Another thing I have noticed is if you are requiring more than what the 4 hour window can give at full charge it gets the extra charge before the 4 window. So whatever you set the time to as to what time you it to be ready at it will always end all charging at 04.30. This I find ridiculous, in other words if you want it to be charged too your requested SoC by 07.00 it will not charge between 04.30 and 07.00.
Mine doesn't do this. It always schedules the charge to finish at 0430 so the planned charge will be as you describe. However if it limits itself to 4kw, it continues after 430am to reach the target charge level.
It has done it again this morning - stuck at 4kw and carried on charging until about 6am before the car stopped it at 80% :(
ID.3 Family Pro Performance (Jan 22), Makena Turquoise / East Derry alloys. Ohme Home Pro charger.
ItshardtobuyId3
Posts: 258
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:53 pm

Post by ItshardtobuyId3 »

I need not have worried it might actually work. It only added 27% last night and was stuck at 4 kWh. I did wake up at one point and noticed but didn’t intervene so I had a nice unsuccessful charge for them to see.

My behaves the same as @sidehaas does if it needs to add a lot of charge like last night where it wouldn’t meet the target in the 4 hour window at 7.4 kW but more like as @Newfie is finding if it has plenty of margin and it goes all over the place with charge rates.

Mine doesn’t carry on past 04:30 am though but I think I may have ended up using a departure time of 04:30 to stop that happening. I certainly have had it over run because I had an expensive charge once and couldn’t work out why and calculated that some of it had happened during peak rates.
ID3 Life Pro Performance
Glacier White
East Derry alloys
Driver Assistance pack
[traded in for]
Cupra Born V1 with Typhoon Alloys - Aurora Blue - Tech pack L
duckworthsj
Posts: 118
Joined: Thu Dec 23, 2021 4:07 pm

Post by duckworthsj »

I am not convinced this is just the Ohme charger to blame, but from what I have read in this Forum it might be good to make sure the charger has been set up to deliver maximum charge.
However, maybe the settings on your VW are over-riding the ones on the charger?

In my experience, the car setting (departure time) and amount of charge needed determine when the charging starts and stops. The problem of not hitting the target by planned departure time seems to be caused by a reduced charge rate … The charge rate curve versus % battery charge for the VW drops off fairly quickly.

I set the car with and artificial departure time of 0530 ( our off peak rate is 2330 to 0730). This means the car usually hits the target charge level (80%) at 0530 before our electric central heating system starts up ( avoids circuit breaker tripping); allows me to get 2 hours of charge into the second EV; and in case of a problem with the programmed charge for the VW to at least do a manual ‘charge now’ as an emergency.

The latter has happened rarely - but I don’t have full confidence in the VW software.
Hers: ID3 204ch Pro Performance Denim Blue Black Roof. East Derry alloys, Pack Comfort Plus, Pack Assistance Plus.
His: Mini Cooper S-Electric 184ch ‘Yours’ (UK Level 3) Chili Red, Black Pack, Heat Reflective Windows… And lots of fun
sidehaas
Posts: 1774
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2021 7:04 am

Post by sidehaas »

duckworthsj wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 4:11 am I am not convinced this is just the Ohme charger to blame, but from what I have read in this Forum it might be good to make sure the charger has been set up to deliver maximum charge.
However, maybe the settings on your VW are over-riding the ones on the charger?

In my experience, the car setting (departure time) and amount of charge needed determine when the charging starts and stops. The problem of not hitting the target by planned departure time seems to be caused by a reduced charge rate … The charge rate curve versus % battery charge for the VW drops off fairly quickly.

I set the car with and artificial departure time of 0530 ( our off peak rate is 2330 to 0730). This means the car usually hits the target charge level (80%) at 0530 before our electric central heating system starts up ( avoids circuit breaker tripping); allows me to get 2 hours of charge into the second EV; and in case of a problem with the programmed charge for the VW to at least do a manual ‘charge now’ as an emergency.

The latter has happened rarely - but I don’t have full confidence in the VW software.
For clarity I think we all know on this thread that it's best to make sure the ID3 has no charging settings in it apart from the max charge limit. The issue is more complex than that.
My charge last night worked fine despite WeConnectID reporting a charging error in the early part of it...
ID.3 Family Pro Performance (Jan 22), Makena Turquoise / East Derry alloys. Ohme Home Pro charger.
ItshardtobuyId3
Posts: 258
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:53 pm

Post by ItshardtobuyId3 »

duckworthsj wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 4:11 am I am not convinced this is just the Ohme charger to blame, but from what I have read in this Forum it might be good to make sure the charger has been set up to deliver maximum charge.
However, maybe the settings on your VW are over-riding the ones on the charger?

In my experience, the car setting (departure time) and amount of charge needed determine when the charging starts and stops. The problem of not hitting the target by planned departure time seems to be caused by a reduced charge rate … The charge rate curve versus % battery charge for the VW drops off fairly quickly.

I set the car with and artificial departure time of 0530 ( our off peak rate is 2330 to 0730). This means the car usually hits the target charge level (80%) at 0530 before our electric central heating system starts up ( avoids circuit breaker tripping); allows me to get 2 hours of charge into the second EV; and in case of a problem with the programmed charge for the VW to at least do a manual ‘charge now’ as an emergency.

The latter has happened rarely - but I don’t have full confidence in the VW software.
I’ve not got any scheduling set in the car itself as I’ve not needed to use it and I believe it’s completely broken anyway. I don’t have reduced AC Charging set in the car either. The charger will happily deliver 7.4 kW but only with very particular schedule settings or using ‘max charge now’. If I use the API it’s a lottery.

At the moment the most likely cause seems to be that the Ohme is scheduling something the car doesn’t like. It doesn’t always schedule whatever that is so it works on those occasions. My schedule where it add 45% in 4 hours without using the API pretty much always works.
ID3 Life Pro Performance
Glacier White
East Derry alloys
Driver Assistance pack
[traded in for]
Cupra Born V1 with Typhoon Alloys - Aurora Blue - Tech pack L
Newfie
Posts: 540
Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2021 7:09 pm
Location: East Yorkshire

Post by Newfie »

Currently my We Connect ID app is not updating. It was totally down yesterday. So had to remove the api and charge with a set % last night. I asked for more than what I needed to get to 80% and it charged successfully within the 00.30 - 04.30 window.
ID.3 Tour 77kWh Pro S 204PS Manganese Grey S/W 3.2
On order Skoda Enyaq 85X Sportline Plus
G43FAN

Post by G43FAN »

I've only got the Ohme granny as an emergency standby but given the 50:50 nature of the app connectivity (or car) in recent months I cannot see how this API work around is any progress.
sidehaas
Posts: 1774
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2021 7:04 am

Post by sidehaas »

To Newfie, itshardtobuyid3 and anyone else who has been having trouble getting the Ohme Home Pro to work reliably at full charge rate with their ID3 for scheduled charging (with the charge from 0030 often only running at 4kw until manually stopped/restarted):

I have now, touch wood, got a solution. I emailed Ohme after a couple of frustrating charges two weeks ago and they have applied a setting change to my charger remotely. This was their description of it:

"The team have created this setting to simulate the car being unplugged each time Ohme has delayed the start of the charge. This has been shown to help with some cars either failing to wake up for the delayed charge or refusing to accept the charge rate Ohme has scheduled."

Since this change was applied I have had three successful charges. I don't have the API link to the car set up (have never tried it) and I purposefully set these charges to add three different amounts (48%, 40% and 30% respectively, 48% is just slightly more than what the charger thinks it can add in 4 hours.) I'm pretty sure one or two of these would have failed before so I'm optimistic now that the change has worked.

My other settings are that 'save money' is selected but the options to be greener and protect the battery are off and the setting to never charge above £x is also off (instead, my charge is timed to finish at 0430 and as long as the charge works correctly this has the same effect). I don't know if having different settings would matter.

I hope this helps someone else. I would recommend emailing Ohme and describing the problem you have. They can remotely view the details of your recent charge sessions. They'll probably suggest the same change as above, but if not you could prompt them. I have generally found their customer service to be good.

It might be helpful to change the title of this thread so it indicates a solution has been found.
ID.3 Family Pro Performance (Jan 22), Makena Turquoise / East Derry alloys. Ohme Home Pro charger.
Newfie
Posts: 540
Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2021 7:09 pm
Location: East Yorkshire

Post by Newfie »

sidehaas wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 6:35 am To Newfie, itshardtobuyid3 and anyone else who has been having trouble getting the Ohme Home Pro to work reliably at full charge rate with their ID3 for scheduled charging (with the charge from 0030 often only running at 4kw until manually stopped/restarted):

I have now, touch wood, got a solution. I emailed Ohme after a couple of frustrating charges two weeks ago and they have applied a setting change to my charger remotely. This was their description of it:

"The team have created this setting to simulate the car being unplugged each time Ohme has delayed the start of the charge. This has been shown to help with some cars either failing to wake up for the delayed charge or refusing to accept the charge rate Ohme has scheduled."

Since this change was applied I have had three successful charges. I don't have the API link to the car set up (have never tried it) and I purposefully set these charges to add three different amounts (48%, 40% and 30% respectively, 48% is just slightly more than what the charger thinks it can add in 4 hours.) I'm pretty sure one or two of these would have failed before so I'm optimistic now that the change has worked.

My other settings are that 'save money' is selected but the options to be greener and protect the battery are off and the setting to never charge above £x is also off (instead, my charge is timed to finish at 0430 and as long as the charge works correctly this has the same effect). I don't know if having different settings would matter.

I hope this helps someone else. I would recommend emailing Ohme and describing the problem you have. They can remotely view the details of your recent charge sessions. They'll probably suggest the same change as above, but if not you could prompt them. I have generally found their customer service to be good.

It might be helpful to change the title of this thread so it indicates a solution has been found.
Thanks for this sidehaas. I was going to reply to Ohme today stating a couple a couple of failed charges over the last few days.
I'll let you know how I get on.
ID.3 Tour 77kWh Pro S 204PS Manganese Grey S/W 3.2
On order Skoda Enyaq 85X Sportline Plus
G43FAN

Post by G43FAN »

Are they suggesting it is more of a car issue still? There 'fix' seems to suggest they think it's the car not accepting the charge which I find highly unlikely. As others have said elsewhere, the car will 'take' what is offered. Rather glad I got the Zappi, 14 months in and the only time it fails to charge is when I forget to plug it in.
sidehaas
Posts: 1774
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2021 7:04 am

Post by sidehaas »

G43FAN wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 7:30 am Are they suggesting it is more of a car issue still? There 'fix' seems to suggest they think it's the car not accepting the charge which I find highly unlikely. As others have said elsewhere, the car will 'take' what is offered. Rather glad I got the Zappi, 14 months in and the only time it fails to charge is when I forget to plug it in.
It's an interface issue. The Ohme doesn't schedule a straight 7kw for a period of time, it purposefully schedules more complex charging routines involving stop/starts and variable charge rates. The simplest thing it does is gradually ramp up to the 32A rate, starting at 8A for a short period, then 16A for a period, then 32A. Sometimes it will start a charge for a period at 0030, then stop for a while before restarting when it needs to in order to finish by y 0430. This is by design, for good or bad. Apparently with most cars it works fine but some, including the ID3 will sometimes not like it, depending on what the exact schedule is and how long in advance you plug it in. The symptom seems to be that the car then prevents the charger from sending more than 16A.
Ohme would like to put the blame on VW but personally I think it's because the Ohme charger is trying to be overly-clever. Problem is, to me this is a pretty strong indication that there will be problems for people who sign up to things like Octopus Intelligent.
ID.3 Family Pro Performance (Jan 22), Makena Turquoise / East Derry alloys. Ohme Home Pro charger.
G43FAN

Post by G43FAN »

sidehaas wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 8:16 am
G43FAN wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 7:30 am Are they suggesting it is more of a car issue still? There 'fix' seems to suggest they think it's the car not accepting the charge which I find highly unlikely. As others have said elsewhere, the car will 'take' what is offered. Rather glad I got the Zappi, 14 months in and the only time it fails to charge is when I forget to plug it in.
It's an interface issue. The Ohme doesn't schedule a straight 7kw for a period of time, it purposefully schedules more complex charging routines involving stop/starts and variable charge rates. The simplest thing it does is gradually ramp up to the 32A rate, starting at 8A for a short period, then 16A for a period, then 32A. Sometimes it will start a charge for a period at 0030, then stop for a while before restarting when it needs to in order to finish by y 0430. This is by design, for good or bad. Apparently with most cars it works fine but some, including the ID3 will sometimes not like it, depending on what the exact schedule is and how long in advance you plug it in. The symptom seems to be that the car then prevents the charger from sending more than 16A.
Ohme would like to put the blame on VW but personally I think it's because the Ohme charger is trying to be overly-clever. Problem is, to me this is a pretty strong indication that there will be problems for people who sign up to things like Octopus Intelligent.
I'll admit, the Zappi doesn't really allow you to charge to a % it will charge until the boost period stops or the car says enough. But it works and the OHME system seems very over complicated. I have an OHME Granny charger (in case I needed a backup) and I tried it out when I first got it and even then it seemed very confusing to use.
robgarth
Posts: 82
Joined: Wed May 26, 2021 2:42 pm
Location: Wiltshire

Post by robgarth »

I'm really happy with my Ohme although there has been a couple of odd things since they got the VW ID API which I describe at the end. I understand some people's confusion because there are various factors that can be controlled by user i.e you can set it to charge environmental friendly, also for battery health. If you select these it will control the charge to meet the control requirement. You can have these controls set but also constrain it by setting the tariff charge. EG for my Octopus I simply input a max tariff of 5p per KW, this means Ohme will meet the charge required for best environment and battery conditions within the cheap rate time. I can simply bypass the tariff constraint if I need max charging at any time. In case you're wondering about the couple of issues I mentioned: the car always. Shows as plugged in even when it's not, and charge error if I set the car and the Ohme to 80%, I think this is because the car starts to slow the charge and Ohme interpretes this as car not charging as expected. I'm not worried about either, I get around the error by setting Ohme to 78% and the car to 80%.
Rob
Business Pro, 62KWh, 150KW, 2.1. White metallic. Wiltshire.
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