Now works with my Wallbox charger. Needs a small bit of effort to setup the Wallbox charger using the OCPP settings in the Wallbox app but it's all working now. Octopus support helped with the setup.
Hi Danny, I’ve recently bought an IX1 and a Wallbox charging point (compatible with octopus, for now at least) and I’m trying to wrap my head around the charging. If I use my BMW or Wallbox app to set a timer (i.e 23:30-05:30) will this override the octopus app and charge during these times at the lower rate? Also, the octopus app mentions only having one car added as a device, if I am to get another car would I be able to use the Wallbox app and still claim the lower tariff?
If you're on the Intelligent Octopus tariff, then ideally you'll use the Octopus app for all your scheduling and not use the car or Wallbox app for this. The main benefit of this, other than Octopus taking care of the charging schedule, is IF Octopus decided to charge your car outside the normal off-peak window then it will apply the off-peak rates. Aside from that, however you decide to carry out the scheduling, any charging completed during the standard off-peak window will be charged at the off-peak rates. And this is how you're able to use two EVs. We have a Tesla which we charge via the Octopus app and let them handle it all - but we also charge our Nissan Leaf (which isn't compatible without specific chargers) using the in-car schedule and just set this to be during the off-peak rates. Works fine!
10 месяцев назад+1
@@SmartHomeCharge I also have an iX1 and a BP Pulse charger (bought through BMW two years ago). Intelligent Go just assigns random times over night but will never charge to full. You are supposed to tell the iX1 to charge immediately and let Octopus do the rest. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work properly, so I’ve gone back to manually setting the charge from 23:30 to 05:30 Octopus are supposed to be looking into it, but the BMW forums are full of i drivers for whom Intelligent Go doesn’t work.
Hi Danny, great video. On the Ohme Pro. I have one question please. On Intelligent Octopus, if my Kia Niro EV battery is empty and I would like 100%, which will take 10 hours to charge, what would be the setting to only charge during cheap rate over 2 nights. As I will not necessarily require 100% by the first morning. Would Octopus automatically add peak rate charging during the first night to ensure the battery was 100% by the next day or charge over 2 nights to ensure only cheap rate electricity is used? Many thanks for your help.
@99Tonygm thanks for watching. In the scenario you describe, you'll need to charge over two nights. That is one trade-off perhaps for the simplicity of the IO app, which is you can't tell it to only charge during the off-peak hours. Still, six hours off-peak is a lot of charging and would (very roughly) add 180 miles of range. And it's probably unlikely you'd be arriving home with a completely empty battery and need 100% too - though I don't know your driving patterns ;) ! Worth double checking with Octopus, but I'm pretty confident that's what you'd need to do. Danny Morgan - Editor, Smart Home Charge
I have a Tesla, an MG5, a Zappi and solar, and Intelligent is one name I wouldn't use for the tariff!!! Basically it doesn't work if you have solar. . What they don't tell you is how much of the "cheap" tariff is actually during the day so if you have solar it tries to charge the car from the grid when you want to charge from the sun for free. . I've emailed Octopus to tell them and their eventual reply (two weeks I think it took) was "ah okay turn off smart charging" so I have; permanently. Now I just use the five hours cheap rate at night if I need too.
So that's really helpful, then! Thanks for mentioning this one. Looks like Otopus isn't necessarily doing this to save customers money, but to reduce their costs and interaction with wholesale electricity pricing on the grid. The time it took you to get a response from Octopus is noted, too.
I have a vw id3 and a vw Multivan eHybrid, my wall charger is from hypervolt but when I do a test connection on the octopus app I get a spinning octopus after 10 minutes or so it fails to do anything. I have contacted octopus they basically said follow the instructions which I have but no luck. Could it be my charger is not compatible?
It's tricky because the compatibility list changes frequently and quickly. Rumours are that Ford has suddenly decided to drop support for third parties wanting to connect to their vehicles. According to our tool - www.smarthomecharge.co.uk/cost-to-charge/ - the ID.3 should work but the Multivan isn't compatible at the time of checking. I'd go back to Octopus and advise that your ID.3 should be working but isn't. Looks like the Multivan isn't compatible though. Ohme charge points enable all vehicles to work and is arguably a more reliable method of accessing Intelligent Octopus.
You cover the settings in the app where Octopus say the charge limit is set, but, from correspondence with other users, i believe this is incorrect, its not what your car would be charged to (say you set 80%) , its how much it would be added, eg it would add 80% (and thats why it wants to know what car you have). And i think that makes sense because i don't believe a home charger knows what percentage your car is at and if you want to limit the total % you'd set that in your car. So, as this video is 2 months old now, can you confirm that? (background, I'm just getting quotes for solar/battery right now inc from Octopus, and my plan is to go to IO from Go) My charger is compatible, my car isn't but i think in general you are better off doing it via the charger anyway)
Hi Joe, thanks for watching and your comment. I'm very confident it is the percentage the vehicle will be charged to i.e. set it to 80% and the vehicle will be charged to 80%. One of the reasons Octopus wants a compatible vehicle or charge point is precisely because it needs to know the current percentage charge of the vehicle, which is why Octopus can be so specific with the charging plan. For example, it may charge for 30 minutes between 12 and 12.30, wait a few hours before charging again at 4 and 4.30am. This is why only certain vehicles and chargers are compatible, due to allowing third party access to the vehicle's state of charge. I'm very confident this is how it works from a technical standpoint, but I'm extremely confident from a user experience point of view because I use IO - if it I set the target charge to 75%, that's exactly what I get. Hope that helps :) Danny - editor at Smart Home Charge
@@SmartHomeCharge I have a Wallbox Pulsar Plus. That has, AFAICS and Ive just been through all the controls in the app to double check, no way to set the charging limit. And a google search on it comes up with no way to set the cars limit % from the charger so I'm confident Ive not missed a setting. Also the Wallbox app is pretty good and that does not show me my vehicles % charge anywhere. What is your charger (or are you connected via your car?) ETA Wallbox Pulsar Plus is one of the supported chargers. Additional edit ... From the Myenergi website re the Zappi, which is also supported now I beleive ... "The Zappi has no way of knowing what the state of charge of the car battery is, so cannot charge to a set percentage"
Still waiting for Myenergy Zappi to come out of Beta testing for this to work, but will def give it a go when it does. Got 2 EVs so need to rely on the charger integration, not the cars.
I received a notification from Octopus Energy about a week ago telling me the Zappi is now compatible with Intelligent Octopus Go, so worth contacting them if they haven't already notified you.
Sadly Octopus will always give a reason for posting an enthusiastic video and then acknowledging that it only works if you buy everything from them. Even then, it probably doesn't work because they are not willing to expand OU to any other brands. With an EV, home battery, heat pump (installed by Octopus) they won't let me in.
@@lawrenceharris1819 Hi Lawrence, thanks for your comment. Not really sure what you mean about Octopus posting a video - this isn't a video made by them, so can only assume you're referring to something else? Are you trying to access Intelligent Octopus? Which EV and home charger do you have? Thanks for watching, Danny - Editor
@@SmartHomeCharge Well sort of. Octopus itself posted videos extolling the virtues of OI. I replied but their responses were of limited relevance. I have mostly posted to others who say how wonderful OI is and suggest that I request compliance with OI. I have twice made such an application but little (= nothing) results. Frustrating. I have a Hyundai Kona 64 EV and SyncEV charger. The latter is fully compliant despite OCtopus telling me that it can't be accessed by Octopus (rubbish because others use it OK). Etc etc.
So what happens if i plug in at 7pm with 10% and set it be at 90% by 7am. Lets say that means 8 hours of charging at 7kw, will it charge at peak rates as well, or will it just use whatever cheap rates it can and then present me at 7am with say 70%? Because I i would rather it charged only at the cheap rate even if it means i have only 70%. However as the cheap rates can vary, why should i limit myself to 70% when it might be able to charge more for at off-peak rates
I think we cover this in the video, but essentially it depends on whether there's enough off-peak hours to achieve your target or not. Octopus will prioritise reaching your target by the set time - if it can achieve all of that within the off-peak hours, it will, but if it needs to charge constantly through the off-peak and peak rates to achieve your target, then that's what it will do. Essentially, if you set a target of 90% etc, it's assuming that's your priority.
@@yitzele As long as you use the Smart Charging option i.e. let Octopus control the charging and not use the Bump Charge, then they should apply the off-peak rates only.
@@yitzele To be honest, Octopus' own website isn't 100% clear on this. I'd be tempted to check with them directly, but as an IO user myself I've never been charged peak rates unless I've selected the Bump Charge option to charge now (in the evening for example).
Currently trying to set up an "Intelligent" link to Octopus, with a Tesla M3. Total faff so far. Tearing our hair out. Life's probably too short to be bothering with this - and getting shorter. Other tariffs with Octopus have worked in the past - but getting this one to work is a real pain. Maybe we can get it working - but we need better support than we've had so far.
Hi, thanks for watching. That is odd - I have a Model 3 too and switched using the Octopus app, and it all worked seamlessly. It should connect to the vehicle via the Octopus app. If that isn't happening, then of course there is some sort of issue that Octopus should help you with.
@@SmartHomeCharge Life is too short - and getting shorter - to try to get some of this technology stuff to work, or do alpha or beta testing for companies which should have checked options beforehand. Clearly some people have got this to work, but after spending most of a day trying to figure this out since we don't need a gas supply, we have switched to Tomato, which hopefully will be cheaper and at least work.
@@Dave-nm8uk Totally understand. It should work automatically and there shouldn't be any options for you to change, so if something isn't working then it sounds like an issue with Octopus being able to connect to your vehicle. There will be tens of thousands of customers using this tariff, but as I say totally understand that if it isn't working for you that you don't want to faff around with it. All the best.
@@SmartHomeCharge That's what we were hoping too, but it didn't work out for us. It was going to take too long to find out why not. Where the car is often parked also doesn't get a good signal for sat nav, but not knowing which links Octopus was actually trying to use to control the vehicle and the charging was an additional issue - so eventually we gave up. Turns out that there are also other options than Octopus which we didn't know before. Octopus is going to be good for many people - and has been for us - up to now.
Not really. I do state in the video you need a compatible car or charger, but there's quite a lot of vehicle brands eligible. Or if you don't have a charger at home yet, then the compatible charge point covers everyone 😇 Sure, there are some big brands missing but I imagine Octopus is working to change that. Our Switch and Save tool will state which cars are compatible: www.smarthomecharge.co.uk/cost-to-charge/ Thanks for watching Danny - Editor
All very strange. I have a Ohme Pro from you and Octopus Intelligent. When I click on the device button it says it is still in Beta and forces me to the Ohme app. Still works but not like you showed. Also it seems to be limited to 4kW per hour and that only puts 35% into the car in the 6hrs.
@lharris828 well, the Sync EV isn't an officially compatible charge point with IO. While it sounds like Sync may have thought of a workaround it doesn't seem to work. Only the Ohme range officially is compatible with IO, or you need a compatible vehicle. It's mainly to do with APIs with the vehicles which either Octopus can hook into directly or Ohme has already established. Danny - editor
@@dmorgsev Yes - officially. That just mans that Octopus agrees but does not want to acknowledge that they can do it! Shame. It's little enough software mod.
Seems that IO is too inflexible for lots of ev owners. Cant set charge times, cant easily handle more than 1 ev. Lots of people including me not keen to change from Octopus Go tariff and dumb charger.
Thanks for your comment. IO certainly isn't for everyone and Go is still a great option. Although, the point of IO is that you don't need to set a charge time - Octopus handles the charge scheduling for you and will only charge you their off-peak rate if you do so. I have two EVs and get on just fine with IO. But appreciate there might not be enough of an incentive for you to switch and if you're happy with Go, then that's super! Editor - Danny
COMPARE EV TARIFFS AND GET £50 FOR SWITCHING TO OCTOPUS ENERGY HERE:
www.smarthomecharge.co.uk/cost-to-charge/
Now works with my Wallbox charger. Needs a small bit of effort to setup the Wallbox charger using the OCPP settings in the Wallbox app but it's all working now. Octopus support helped with the setup.
Hi Danny, I’ve recently bought an IX1 and a Wallbox charging point (compatible with octopus, for now at least) and I’m trying to wrap my head around the charging.
If I use my BMW or Wallbox app to set a timer (i.e 23:30-05:30) will this override the octopus app and charge during these times at the lower rate?
Also, the octopus app mentions only having one car added as a device, if I am to get another car would I be able to use the Wallbox app and still claim the lower tariff?
If you're on the Intelligent Octopus tariff, then ideally you'll use the Octopus app for all your scheduling and not use the car or Wallbox app for this. The main benefit of this, other than Octopus taking care of the charging schedule, is IF Octopus decided to charge your car outside the normal off-peak window then it will apply the off-peak rates.
Aside from that, however you decide to carry out the scheduling, any charging completed during the standard off-peak window will be charged at the off-peak rates.
And this is how you're able to use two EVs. We have a Tesla which we charge via the Octopus app and let them handle it all - but we also charge our Nissan Leaf (which isn't compatible without specific chargers) using the in-car schedule and just set this to be during the off-peak rates. Works fine!
@@SmartHomeCharge I also have an iX1 and a BP Pulse charger (bought through BMW two years ago).
Intelligent Go just assigns random times over night but will never charge to full. You are supposed to tell the iX1 to charge immediately and let Octopus do the rest. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work properly, so I’ve gone back to manually setting the charge from 23:30 to 05:30
Octopus are supposed to be looking into it, but the BMW forums are full of i drivers for whom Intelligent Go doesn’t work.
Hi Danny, great video.
On the Ohme Pro. I have one question please.
On Intelligent Octopus, if my Kia Niro EV battery is empty and I would like 100%, which will take 10 hours to charge, what would be the setting to only charge during cheap rate over 2 nights. As I will not necessarily require 100% by the first morning.
Would Octopus automatically add peak rate charging during the first night to ensure the battery was 100% by the next day or charge over 2 nights to ensure only cheap rate electricity is used?
Many thanks for your help.
@99Tonygm thanks for watching. In the scenario you describe, you'll need to charge over two nights. That is one trade-off perhaps for the simplicity of the IO app, which is you can't tell it to only charge during the off-peak hours.
Still, six hours off-peak is a lot of charging and would (very roughly) add 180 miles of range. And it's probably unlikely you'd be arriving home with a completely empty battery and need 100% too - though I don't know your driving patterns ;) !
Worth double checking with Octopus, but I'm pretty confident that's what you'd need to do.
Danny Morgan - Editor, Smart Home Charge
I have a Tesla, an MG5, a Zappi and solar, and Intelligent is one name I wouldn't use for the tariff!!!
Basically it doesn't work if you have solar. . What they don't tell you is how much of the "cheap" tariff is actually during the day so if you have solar it tries to charge the car from the grid when you want to charge from the sun for free. . I've emailed Octopus to tell them and their eventual reply (two weeks I think it took) was "ah okay turn off smart charging" so I have; permanently. Now I just use the five hours cheap rate at night if I need too.
So that's really helpful, then! Thanks for mentioning this one. Looks like Otopus isn't necessarily doing this to save customers money, but to reduce their costs and interaction with wholesale electricity pricing on the grid.
The time it took you to get a response from Octopus is noted, too.
It does restrict solar charging. Which although no deal breaker, it is a shame.
I have a vw id3 and a vw Multivan eHybrid, my wall charger is from hypervolt but when I do a test connection on the octopus app I get a spinning octopus after 10 minutes or so it fails to do anything. I have contacted octopus they basically said follow the instructions which I have but no luck. Could it be my charger is not compatible?
It's tricky because the compatibility list changes frequently and quickly. Rumours are that Ford has suddenly decided to drop support for third parties wanting to connect to their vehicles.
According to our tool - www.smarthomecharge.co.uk/cost-to-charge/ - the ID.3 should work but the Multivan isn't compatible at the time of checking.
I'd go back to Octopus and advise that your ID.3 should be working but isn't. Looks like the Multivan isn't compatible though.
Ohme charge points enable all vehicles to work and is arguably a more reliable method of accessing Intelligent Octopus.
You cover the settings in the app where Octopus say the charge limit is set, but, from correspondence with other users, i believe this is incorrect, its not what your car would be charged to (say you set 80%) , its how much it would be added, eg it would add 80% (and thats why it wants to know what car you have).
And i think that makes sense because i don't believe a home charger knows what percentage your car is at and if you want to limit the total % you'd set that in your car.
So, as this video is 2 months old now, can you confirm that?
(background, I'm just getting quotes for solar/battery right now inc from Octopus, and my plan is to go to IO from Go) My charger is compatible, my car isn't but i think in general you are better off doing it via the charger anyway)
Hi Joe, thanks for watching and your comment. I'm very confident it is the percentage the vehicle will be charged to i.e. set it to 80% and the vehicle will be charged to 80%.
One of the reasons Octopus wants a compatible vehicle or charge point is precisely because it needs to know the current percentage charge of the vehicle, which is why Octopus can be so specific with the charging plan. For example, it may charge for 30 minutes between 12 and 12.30, wait a few hours before charging again at 4 and 4.30am.
This is why only certain vehicles and chargers are compatible, due to allowing third party access to the vehicle's state of charge.
I'm very confident this is how it works from a technical standpoint, but I'm extremely confident from a user experience point of view because I use IO - if it I set the target charge to 75%, that's exactly what I get.
Hope that helps :)
Danny - editor at Smart Home Charge
@@SmartHomeCharge I have a Wallbox Pulsar Plus. That has, AFAICS and Ive just been through all the controls in the app to double check, no way to set the charging limit. And a google search on it comes up with no way to set the cars limit % from the charger so I'm confident Ive not missed a setting. Also the Wallbox app is pretty good and that does not show me my vehicles % charge anywhere. What is your charger (or are you connected via your car?) ETA Wallbox Pulsar Plus is one of the supported chargers.
Additional edit ... From the Myenergi website re the Zappi, which is also supported now I beleive ... "The Zappi has no way of knowing what the state of charge of the car battery is, so cannot charge to a set percentage"
Still waiting for Myenergy Zappi to come out of Beta testing for this to work, but will def give it a go when it does. Got 2 EVs so need to rely on the charger integration, not the cars.
I received a notification from Octopus Energy about a week ago telling me the Zappi is now compatible with Intelligent Octopus Go, so worth contacting them if they haven't already notified you.
What about if you have EV + Solar + Zappi? Which tariff then?
If you head over to our more detailed written review, we cover the solar aspect there: www.smarthomecharge.co.uk/reviews/intelligent-octopus-review/
@@SmartHomeCharge thank you.
Sadly Octopus will always give a reason for posting an enthusiastic video and then acknowledging that it only works if you buy everything from them. Even then, it probably doesn't work because they are not willing to expand OU to any other brands. With an EV, home battery, heat pump (installed by Octopus) they won't let me in.
@@lawrenceharris1819 Hi Lawrence, thanks for your comment. Not really sure what you mean about Octopus posting a video - this isn't a video made by them, so can only assume you're referring to something else?
Are you trying to access Intelligent Octopus? Which EV and home charger do you have?
Thanks for watching,
Danny - Editor
@@SmartHomeCharge Well sort of. Octopus itself posted videos extolling the virtues of OI. I replied but their responses were of limited relevance. I have mostly posted to others who say how wonderful OI is and suggest that I request compliance with OI. I have twice made such an application but little (= nothing) results. Frustrating. I have a Hyundai Kona 64 EV and SyncEV charger. The latter is fully compliant despite OCtopus telling me that it can't be accessed by Octopus (rubbish because others use it OK). Etc etc.
So what happens if i plug in at 7pm with 10% and set it be at 90% by 7am. Lets say that means 8 hours of charging at 7kw, will it charge at peak rates as well, or will it just use whatever cheap rates it can and then present me at 7am with say 70%? Because I i would rather it charged only at the cheap rate even if it means i have only 70%. However as the cheap rates can vary, why should i limit myself to 70% when it might be able to charge more for at off-peak rates
I think we cover this in the video, but essentially it depends on whether there's enough off-peak hours to achieve your target or not. Octopus will prioritise reaching your target by the set time - if it can achieve all of that within the off-peak hours, it will, but if it needs to charge constantly through the off-peak and peak rates to achieve your target, then that's what it will do. Essentially, if you set a target of 90% etc, it's assuming that's your priority.
@@SmartHomeCharge that's not good. They should give an option to use only off peak rates...
@@yitzele As long as you use the Smart Charging option i.e. let Octopus control the charging and not use the Bump Charge, then they should apply the off-peak rates only.
@@SmartHomeCharge sorry if I'm not understanding but your first and second answers contradict each other
@@yitzele To be honest, Octopus' own website isn't 100% clear on this. I'd be tempted to check with them directly, but as an IO user myself I've never been charged peak rates unless I've selected the Bump Charge option to charge now (in the evening for example).
Currently trying to set up an "Intelligent" link to Octopus, with a Tesla M3. Total faff so far. Tearing our hair out. Life's probably too short to be bothering with this - and getting shorter.
Other tariffs with Octopus have worked in the past - but getting this one to work is a real pain.
Maybe we can get it working - but we need better support than we've had so far.
Hi, thanks for watching. That is odd - I have a Model 3 too and switched using the Octopus app, and it all worked seamlessly.
It should connect to the vehicle via the Octopus app. If that isn't happening, then of course there is some sort of issue that Octopus should help you with.
@@SmartHomeCharge Life is too short - and getting shorter - to try to get some of this technology stuff to work, or do alpha or beta testing for companies which should have checked options beforehand. Clearly some people have got this to work, but after spending most of a day trying to figure this out since we don't need a gas supply, we have switched to Tomato, which hopefully will be cheaper and at least work.
@@Dave-nm8uk Totally understand. It should work automatically and there shouldn't be any options for you to change, so if something isn't working then it sounds like an issue with Octopus being able to connect to your vehicle. There will be tens of thousands of customers using this tariff, but as I say totally understand that if it isn't working for you that you don't want to faff around with it. All the best.
@@SmartHomeCharge That's what we were hoping too, but it didn't work out for us. It was going to take too long to find out why not. Where the car is often parked also doesn't get a good signal for sat nav, but not knowing which links Octopus was actually trying to use to control the vehicle and the charging was an additional issue - so eventually we gave up. Turns out that there are also other options than Octopus which we didn't know before. Octopus is going to be good for many people - and has been for us - up to now.
It only works with a small number of cars and chargers
Not really. I do state in the video you need a compatible car or charger, but there's quite a lot of vehicle brands eligible. Or if you don't have a charger at home yet, then the compatible charge point covers everyone 😇 Sure, there are some big brands missing but I imagine Octopus is working to change that. Our Switch and Save tool will state which cars are compatible:
www.smarthomecharge.co.uk/cost-to-charge/
Thanks for watching
Danny - Editor
As at Oct 2023 it works with 280 different EVs. Plus it works with Ohme and Wallbox chargers.
All very strange. I have a Ohme Pro from you and Octopus Intelligent. When I click on the device button it says it is still in Beta and forces me to the Ohme app.
Still works but not like you showed.
Also it seems to be limited to 4kW per hour and that only puts 35% into the car in the 6hrs.
I would speak to Octopus about that. That doesn't sound right to me. Should all be via Octopus app even with an Ohme charger.
Octopus is far too restrictive with IO. They have refused my wall charger because it is not one of theirs! No response to my queries about this😢
Interesting. Is it a compatible charge point? Which one is it?
Danny - editor
@@SmartHomeCharge Syncev which has a dummy mode for use with OI. I presume that Octopus does not like my car.
@lharris828 well, the Sync EV isn't an officially compatible charge point with IO. While it sounds like Sync may have thought of a workaround it doesn't seem to work.
Only the Ohme range officially is compatible with IO, or you need a compatible vehicle. It's mainly to do with APIs with the vehicles which either Octopus can hook into directly or Ohme has already established.
Danny - editor
@@dmorgsev Yes - officially. That just mans that Octopus agrees but does not want to acknowledge that they can do it! Shame. It's little enough software mod.
@@dmorgsev BTW the workaround is a routine minimal setting. It's not rocket science.
Seems that IO is too inflexible for lots of ev owners. Cant set charge times, cant easily handle more than 1 ev.
Lots of people including me not keen to change from Octopus Go tariff and dumb charger.
Thanks for your comment. IO certainly isn't for everyone and Go is still a great option. Although, the point of IO is that you don't need to set a charge time - Octopus handles the charge scheduling for you and will only charge you their off-peak rate if you do so.
I have two EVs and get on just fine with IO. But appreciate there might not be enough of an incentive for you to switch and if you're happy with Go, then that's super!
Editor - Danny