Ohme home pro and Intelligent Octopus

[Abadgermac]

I’ve recently got a tethered home charger after 3 years of granny cable charging.
Is it normal for the Ohme to stop and start during a charging session and also for the delivered current to vary between 30A & 7A?

[sidehaas]

On IO, yes.

[steviebabes]

On Octopus Intelligent the session is split into several half hour charges. I often get 3 or 4 notifications during a charging session. I use the car to connect to Octopus, not the charger and it has been 100% reliable for over a year. I've not noticed the current varying.

[Abadgermac]

Ok, thanks. Additionally why is it not preferentially using the 23:30-05:30 cheap period?

[steviebabes]

I'm not sure why this is but as long as you are only paying the off peak 7.5p during the 05.30 - 09.01 slots I wouldn't worry. You may as well take advantage of it and use some high power stuff like washing machine or dishwasher during this time.

[g320y]

I have a similar set up. Irrespective of the times chosen by IO (mine are normally in the cheap period but often starts early at 11pm) you should be billed at 7.5p/kwh. Whan you get an IO bill you get a daily electricity pricing page which shows price per 30 minute period - when the charger is delivering this should show 7.5p - eg on attached bill you can see I was on the chaep rate from 7-8am.

io bill extract.pdf

(29.6 KiB) Downloaded 34 times

[sidehaas]

Ok, thanks. Additionally why is it not preferentially using the 23:30-05:30 cheap period?

It will schedule charging whenever energy is cheap for Octopus and as long as it's set up correctly you should get 7.5p/kWh during that period. It often seems for me to be in the morning like you have there (our car is set for 8am so it's often cheap in the 7-8 period).
Maybe it's because Octopus now have so many cars charging overnight, who knows. I was surprised too but it's a good thing as I can do stuff cheap first thing.

[Abadgermac]

Thanks to all for the clarifications!

[Heskie]

I am in a similar situation of not being too sure if everything is set up correctly, I am hoping someone else has a similar setup (Project EV charger, Intelligent Octopus Go and ID.3 - which we've only just go, had a Nissan Leaf before and the charging came on and off according to the timer set by me in the Leaf).

So - sometimes if I connect the charging cable, I get the green light by the connection on the car and assume all will be well later, and sometimes I have had a couple of kWhrs. Last night after watching the Scotland v Namibia T20 cricket (which was a really exciting ending) I was going to bed later and so within the Octopus lower rate time from 23.30. I plugged in and got the green light at the car. This morning I can see a little charge took place, the car getting about 3 kWhrs, with the battery now on 93%. (I think I have it correctly set in the car to go up to 100% on AC charge).

The Project EV charger used to use their app, it now uses Electric Miles, not sure if there could be a bit of an argument going on between Octopus signals, Electric Miles setting/Signals and the car settings).

I'm obviously still learning, has anyone trodden this path before me please?

[sidehaas]

I am in a similar situation of not being too sure if everything is set up correctly, I am hoping someone else has a similar setup (Project EV charger, Intelligent Octopus Go and ID.3 - which we've only just go, had a Nissan Leaf before and the charging came on and off according to the timer set by me in the Leaf).

So - sometimes if I connect the charging cable, I get the green light by the connection on the car and assume all will be well later, and sometimes I have had a couple of kWhrs. Last night after watching the Scotland v Namibia T20 cricket (which was a really exciting ending) I was going to bed later and so within the Octopus lower rate time from 23.30. I plugged in and got the green light at the car. This morning I can see a little charge took place, the car getting about 3 kWhrs, with the battery now on 93%. (I think I have it correctly set in the car to go up to 100% on AC charge).

The Project EV charger used to use their app, it now uses Electric Miles, not sure if there could be a bit of an argument going on between Octopus signals, Electric Miles setting/Signals and the car settings).

I'm obviously still learning, has anyone trodden this path before me please?

I don't have any experience with the ProjectEV, but if you have set up Octopus Intelligent to schedule via the car, then it's important that the charger has no smart functions or schedules set and will act as an always-on socket. As long as that is the case you should just be able to set your required battery % and departure time in the Octopus app, make sure you have an equal or higher SoC limit set in the car, and plug in. Octopus will set a schedule to suit them, send it to the car, and you'll get cheap rate electricity whenever it is charging on that schedule. The schedule often has breaks in it for example it may do half an hour soon after plugging in, then finish off in the morning, this is normal. It may also vary the charge rate below 32A. Can you see your schedule in the Octopus app after plugging in?

[Heskie]

Thanks sidehaas, I shall look at the schedule on the Octopus app after plugging in.
I have, I hope, now set Electric Miles to "plug and charge" with no restrictions so that control lies just with Octopus and the car.

[Abadgermac]

So is it recommended by people on here to schedule via the car? Ohme sent me instructions to schedule IO charging via the charger, setting the targets on the Ohme app. I’ve tried both approaches. My current success rate is a solid 50%. I’m pretty disappointed so far tbh.

[sidehaas]

So is it recommended by people on here to schedule via the car? Ohme sent me instructions to schedule IO charging via the charger, setting the targets on the Ohme app. I’ve tried both approaches. My current success rate is a solid 50%. I’m pretty disappointed so far tbh.

I am using the Ohme because we have both an ID3 and an ID4. Using the Ohme without API connection means you can use it with two cars with minimal hassle. However I have found so far that it's unreliable with the ID3 (the ID4 has worked every time). Our ID3 has always had issues with Ohme scheduling if there is a significant delay before charging starts. When we first bought them in Jan 2022 we had to get Ohme to remotely change the car profile to get it to work properly and ever since we got software 3.0, before switching to intelligent, I have preferred to schedule via the car (which has always been reliable). If I was using Intelligent with just the ID3 then I would integrate Octopus with the car.

[Abadgermac]

So is it recommended by people on here to schedule via the car? Ohme sent me instructions to schedule IO charging via the charger, setting the targets on the Ohme app. I’ve tried both approaches. My current success rate is a solid 50%. I’m pretty disappointed so far tbh.

I am using the Ohme because we have both an ID3 and an ID4. Using the Ohme without API connection means you can use it with two cars with minimal hassle. However I have found so far that it's unreliable with the ID3 (the ID4 ha worked every time though). Our ID3 has always had issues with Ohme scheduling if there is a significant delay before charging starts. When we first bought them in Jan 2022 we had to get Ohme to remotely change the car profile to get it to work properly and ever since we got software 3.0, before switching to intelligent, I have preferred to schedule via the car. If I was using Intelligent with just the ID3 I would schedule via the car.

Thanks. Do you mean set the times physically in the car or link IO to the car and set via the Octopus app?

[sidehaas]

So is it recommended by people on here to schedule via the car? Ohme sent me instructions to schedule IO charging via the charger, setting the targets on the Ohme app. I’ve tried both approaches. My current success rate is a solid 50%. I’m pretty disappointed so far tbh.

I am using the Ohme because we have both an ID3 and an ID4. Using the Ohme without API connection means you can use it with two cars with minimal hassle. However I have found so far that it's unreliable with the ID3 (the ID4 ha worked every time though). Our ID3 has always had issues with Ohme scheduling if there is a significant delay before charging starts. When we first bought them in Jan 2022 we had to get Ohme to remotely change the car profile to get it to work properly and ever since we got software 3.0, before switching to intelligent, I have preferred to schedule via the car. If I was using Intelligent with just the ID3 I would schedule via the car.

Thanks. Do you mean set the times physically in the car or link IO to the car and set via the Octopus app?

I used to set times physically in the car before switching to Intelligent. If you are on Intelligent you shouldn't do that, you would need to link IO to the car.

[Abadgermac]

I am using the Ohme because we have both an ID3 and an ID4. Using the Ohme without API connection means you can use it with two cars with minimal hassle. However I have found so far that it's unreliable with the ID3 (the ID4 ha worked every time though). Our ID3 has always had issues with Ohme scheduling if there is a significant delay before charging starts. When we first bought them in Jan 2022 we had to get Ohme to remotely change the car profile to get it to work properly and ever since we got software 3.0, before switching to intelligent, I have preferred to schedule via the car. If I was using Intelligent with just the ID3 I would schedule via the car.

Thanks. Do you mean set the times physically in the car or link IO to the car and set via the Octopus app?

I used to set times physically in the car before switching to Intelligent. If you are on Intelligent you shouldn't do that, you would need to link IO to the car.

Thanks I will, give it a try. I’ll delete all schedules from Ohme.

[sidehaas]

Thanks. Do you mean set the times physically in the car or link IO to the car and set via the Octopus app?

I used to set times physically in the car before switching to Intelligent. If you are on Intelligent you shouldn't do that, you would need to link IO to the car.

Thanks I will, give it a try. I’ll delete all schedules from Ohme.

If you are using the car, make sure all the Ohme smart functions (save money, green energy etc and the price cap) are disabled in the Ohme app too.

[keysCroLe]

I dont think its in the app. The car is out at the moment so I cant check where the software version is. I would have thought in settings? I will check later when the car gets back.