MG4 Trophy + Ohme Home Pro + Intelligent Octopus

[ukslim]

(Not sure whether the fact it's an MG4 is relevant, but it asks you to plug the car in while it tests, so maybe...)

I bought an Ohme Home Pro charger from Octopus themselves, specifically so I could have Intelligent Octopus.

Then I got a standard Octopus account and am currently on the Flexible tariff. As I understand it you do that, then switch tariff in the app.

I went through the setup in the app, authorised Octopus to use my Ohme account. All seems to have worked, and the Ohme app says I'm with Intelligent Octopus and stuff is greyed out because of it -- to Octopus has obviously successfully used an Ohme API to tell it.

Next step is the charge test. Plug the cable into the car. Car isn't fully charged. Tap "continue". App says it's testing and it should take under a minute. I left it for about half an hour, and it never succeeded.

Now the Octopus app says I'm still on the Flexible tariff, but in "devices" knows I have an Ohme (but has no setup options or way to repeat the test)
And the Ohme app says my tariff is Intelligent Octopus, and has "avoid peak charging" disabled because of it.

I see others are using Intelligent. Did it work smoothly for you? Are there any things you have to do to nudge it?

Octopus haven't answered an email since I got the account, either , except an automated one (a week ago) saying "don't worry, we're busy, but we got your question and we'll get to you".

 

[mg4mc]

That doesn't sound right. I'd contact Octopus.

 

[ukslim]

I’ve switched to IO and it’s showing in both OHME and Octopus apps. Every time I plug car in it seems to start charge straight away despite my schedule set to end at 05:30 each morning.
Example tonight I plugged in tonight at 5pm and it says at 9pm my charge will be complete (+100 miles). The Ohme app says estimated cost £9.95 which is obviously more expensive than 7.5pkwh. I’ve turned all price cap settings etc off and just have 1 schedule everyday to finish by 05:30. Is it really only charging me 7.5p/kWh for all this as it has happened multiple times this week?? I thought you’d only get the cheap smart charging once or twice in the month out of the normal overnight hours? Seems to be every time I plug it in ???
I’m tempted to enable the price cap “never charge over 7.5p/kWh” but this kinda defeats the whole point of the “intelligent” part. But I certainly will be if they have charged me full price for all these charges this week , when I get my next bill.

Contact Ohme. Their support is really good.

You ought to get a notification from the Ohme app when you plug in, which says something like "We've calculated a schedule for your charge, and here it is", followed by a list of slots.

And yes, you'd expect to see the Ohme app showing you cheap charges.

Out-of-core-hours slots are more common than you've said you expect. Any time it's especially windy and demand isn't high for other reasons.

 

[Koomi]

I’ve switched to IO and it’s showing in both OHME and Octopus apps. Every time I plug car in it seems to start charge straight away despite my schedule set to end at 05:30 each morning.
Example tonight I plugged in tonight at 5pm and it says at 9pm my charge will be complete (+100 miles). The Ohme app says estimated cost £9.95 which is obviously more expensive than 7.5pkwh. I’ve turned all price cap settings etc off and just have 1 schedule everyday to finish by 05:30. Is it really only charging me 7.5p/kWh for all this as it has happened multiple times this week?? I thought you’d only get the cheap smart charging once or twice in the month out of the normal overnight hours? Seems to be every time I plug it in ???
I’m tempted to enable the price cap “never charge over 7.5p/kWh” but this kinda defeats the whole point of the “intelligent” part. But I certainly will be if they have charged me full price for all these charges this week , when I get my next bill.

I thought the same, but as it has been both sunny and windy this week, all cards seem to be off the table.

After the charge has finished - has your estimated cost been reduced to something more reasonable?

Contacted both Octopus and Ohme, and they said if there are no charge plans set that would override the IO planning, then it should be good.

Awaiting bill at the end of the month to see the graphs, and if they are all ok, then will not worry in the future.

 

[pomegran]

I thought the same, but as it has been both sunny and windy this week, all cards seem to be off the table.

After the charge has finished - has your estimated cost been reduced to something more reasonable?

Contacted both Octopus and Ohme, and they said if there are no charge plans set that would override the IO planning, then it should be good.

Awaiting bill at the end of the month to see the graphs, and if they are all ok, then will not worry in the future.

I'm in the same boat exactly, so I think it's just new user worries! I'm new to this, and just let the app set the charging for me - but like you it seems to start immediately everytime! My Ohme app gives me the right charges under the "charge stats" menu the following day but I'll see the charges at the end of the month on my bill. Although my in house smart meter is now pretty much redundant for electricity costs as the intelligent costs are not reflected there.

Best of luck! I'm sure all will be fine.

 

[prospectivebuyer]

Yeah so weirdly enough on the OHME app all the price for that charge is now at £2 instead of nearly £10 when it was charging on the day.
No idea if that reflects the true price .. waiting till the end of the month too to see what they’ve charged me

 

[john3van5]

There is an excellent facebook group called 'Ohme EVSE Integration with Intelligent Octopus Go Tariff Group' it has all of the answers to all of the questions raised here. I have followed the advice on the 'must read featured posts' and it works well and i get the cheaper 7.5 p rate in the daytime when it is available.

 

[Surfdog]

For the past couple of weeks my Ohme on I.O. has been charging my car outwith off peak hours which it only occasionally did in past. The app still says "Smart Charging". Maybe it due to surplus energy in grid, being windy now were in Autumn. My Ohme app initially quoted me full price rates for charging during peak hours but when I checked charging history a day later it was fully charged at 7.5p rate. Today, Saturday, for example I plugged in about 12 midday and asked for 45kwh by 0530hrs Sunday. It started charging right away and was scheduled to finish about 1930hrs. Being savvy, this is a good time to do all your power hungry household chores such as cooking, washing clothes drying etc and it's all at 7.5p. Just need to be careful you don't overload fuse.

 

[Koomi]

I've just had my bill through from Octopus for the day that the car decided to charge all day, rather than at night... and nothing to be worried about, the off-peak times were recorded correctly, and applied as the Ohme schedule said it would be.

One thing I do find annoying, as once a schedule has been set, there is no way to see what the "plan" is once the notification has been dismissed.

 

[mg4mc]

I've just had my bill through from Octopus for the day that the car decided to charge all day, rather than at night... and nothing to be worried about, the off-peak times were recorded correctly, and applied as the Ohme schedule said it would be.

One thing I do find annoying, as once a schedule has been set, there is no way to see what the "plan" is once the notification has been dismissed.

Good, I sent Ohme a message from the app suggesting just this, that you should be able to recall the latest schedule - which may also be different from the initial one when you plug in.

I have my Ohme set to require approval of plug-ins, if you approve this from the notification rather than the app, the schedule is also sent as a notification, and you can recall it later from the apps notification history.