MG4, Zappi and Octopus Intelligent Go

[aardvark5]

This is a heads up for anybody with the above gear but I also know it's happened with other cars and maybe other chargers used with Octopus.

A month ago a neighbour with identical gear as us had a problem, his car wouldn't charge for 2 days and he had no schedule.
It took quite a while of rebooting, trying his car on my charger, my car on his charger before we realised his Octopus App was set to Charge To 40%.
He swore neither him or his wife changed it.

Last week I had exactly the same thing happen, messed about a bit before I noticed the Charge To was 40% and I know 100% me or the wife hadn't changed it.

I put this info on another forum where 3x users confirmed exactly the same thing happened to them and gave reasons why it happened, basically Octopus not wanting you to keep getting cheap Kw for the house during the evening (maybe).

So basically when you plug in and get your Schedule up on iGo, just check that Octopus hasn't set your Charge to 40%.

 

[Rip Van]

This is a heads up for anybody with the above gear but I also know it's happened with other cars and maybe other chargers used with Octopus.

A month ago a neighbour with identical gear as us had a problem, his car wouldn't charge for 2 days and he had no schedule.
It took quite a while of rebooting, trying his car on my charger, my car on his charger before we realised his Octopus App was set to Charge To 40%.
He swore neither him or his wife changed it.

Last week I had exactly the same thing happen, messed about a bit before I noticed the Charge To was 40% and I know 100% me or the wife hadn't changed it.

I put this info on another forum where 3x users confirmed exactly the same thing happened to them and gave reasons why it happened, basically Octopus not wanting you to keep getting cheap Kw for the house during the evening (maybe).

So basically when you plug in and get your Schedule up on iGo, just check that Octopus hasn't set your Charge to 40%.

In my experience on the Octopus App, it's the amount of charge to ADD, not to charge to. Never had a problem with respect to that.

 

[aardvark5]

In my experience on the Octopus App, it's the amount of charge to ADD, not to charge to. Never had a problem with respect to that.

Set it to 80% and the car charges to 80%.
Set it to 40% and it won't charge because it may already be higher than that, ours is always higher around 60% so adding 40% charge should take it to 100% but those two times set to 40% it acted as though it was unplugged..
If it was to add 80% I'd always wake up with a 100% charge.

A simple experiment:
Look at how many % you have and ADD 10%, it won't add 10% and it will act unplugged.
Both me and the neighbour and others on another forum have tried it.

 

[Martinonline]

@aardvark5, as far as I know the Octopus App does not know the charge level if the MG's battery so cannot stop charging when the MG's battery reaches the level specified in the Octopus App.

Have you checked what the car's charging limit is set to? If it is set to 80% then setting the Octopus App to higher than that should not add any (or possibly a minimal) charge to the car?

 

[GaryMG4]

I'm at 47%, at lunchtime I plugged in and asked for 40% to be added by 8am, a schedule has been created to run after midnight but it did a half hour slot 15:30 now just waiting.
Oddly enough my attempt to charge over Friday night failed with Octopus supposed to be adding 60%, the car sat 'connecting', Zappi sat 'waiting surplus' but nothing happened. In the morning I tried to bump charge, no response. Ended up 10mm spanner reset on car and reboot the Zappi now working fine.

 

[aardvark5]

OK apologies.

After testing, the ADD TO CHARGE is definitely how much charge you want to add on and not what I thought it was.
eg If you're at 49% and you want to charge to 80% you can put it on 31% like I did last night however I'll just leave it on 80% as usual.

So with my neighbours problem not only did the Octopus App change it to 40% which meant it still should have charged but he did need a Zappi reboot to get it going.
In my case all I saw was the Octopus App now saying 40% which I've never set it to.

So even though I was wrong, if you are a big user of electric and need it charging make sure you look at that CHARGE TO ADD to make sure Octopus haven't changed it or else you might not have enough when you wake up.

 

[Rip Van]

OK apologies.

After testing, the ADD TO CHARGE is definitely how much charge you want to add on and not what I thought it was.
eg If you're at 49% and you want to charge to 80% you can put it on 31% like I did last night however I'll just leave it on 80% as usual.

So with my neighbours problem not only did the Octopus App change it to 40% which meant it still should have charged but he did need a Zappi reboot to get it going.
In my case all I saw was the Octopus App now saying 40% which I've never set it to.

So even though I was wrong, if you are a big user of electric and need it charging make sure you look at that CHARGE TO ADD to make sure Octopus haven't changed it or else you might not have enough when you wake up.

Further to that, if I'm at 49% and the MG app is in health mode (80%), I would set the Octopus app to add more than 31%, probably 40%, then it will do an 80% balance after it reaches 80%.

 

[aardvark5]

Further to that, if I'm at 49% and the MG app is in health mode (80%), I would set the Octopus app to add more than 31%, probably 40%, then it will do an 80% balance after it reaches 80%.

Yes mine is always set to 80% but I was shocked when it was suddenly on 40% and I know for a fact it has happened to quite a few Octopus customers and some of them are long distance users so need to wake up to 100% but were waking up to eg 60%...
My car never goes below 60% usually but was on 49% last might so 40% would still fill it to 80%.

 

[LenEV2016]

@aardvark5, as far as I know the Octopus App does not know the charge level if the MG's battery so cannot stop charging when the MG's battery reaches the level specified in the Octopus App.

Have you checked what the car's charging limit is set to? If it is set to 80% then setting the Octopus App to higher than that should not add any (or possibly a minimal) charge to the car?

You are spot on, MG will not share the cars API with ohme therefore it can't fully integrate with the car.

My relatives Renault is fully integrated with his ohme so the charger knows the cars state of charge and when he uses it he sets the level he wants the car to charge too rather than an amount.

 

[lordsofthewaun]

I have the exact same kit. I leave the octopus app set to 100% and then adjust the car percentage to what I want, depending on my needs for the week ie either 80% or 100%. I set that on the car dash. Haven’t had an issue so far.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm not sure Octopus like you doing that.

 

[Cool Grandad]

This is a heads up for anybody with the above gear but I also know it's happened with other cars and maybe other chargers used with Octopus.

A month ago a neighbour with identical gear as us had a problem, his car wouldn't charge for 2 days and he had no schedule.
It took quite a while of rebooting, trying his car on my charger, my car on his charger before we realised his Octopus App was set to Charge To 40%.
He swore neither him or his wife changed it.

Last week I had exactly the same thing happen, messed about a bit before I noticed the Charge To was 40% and I know 100% me or the wife hadn't changed it.

I put this info on another forum where 3x users confirmed exactly the same thing happened to them and gave reasons why it happened, basically Octopus not wanting you to keep getting cheap Kw for the house during the evening (maybe).

So basically when you plug in and get your Schedule up on iGo, just check that Octopus hasn't set your Charge to 40%.

I have Cyberster Zappi and octopus intelligent go. Not had these issues in fact I find what ever I set my car charge to 80 or 100 irrespective of the Zappi or Octopus intelligent go Apps settings it charges to my car settings. I have found that when there is free electricity it doesn’t always charge
Thanks for the warning though

 

[aardvark5]

Experimenting after making this thread I'll tell you something that isn't debatable for us.
If I put the exact amount of charge I want and plug the car in I get a really bad schedule and a couple of times it's said "from 1am".
If I put 80% on the App it will start from 8:30pm so we get cheap house electric.

 

[LenEV2016]

Experimenting after making this thread I'll tell you something that isn't debatable for us.
If I put the exact amount of charge I want and plug the car in I get a really bad schedule and a couple of times it's said "from 1am".
If I put 80% on the App it will start from 8:30pm so we get cheap house electric.

It's not a bad schedule in the sense that you are getting what you need/ask for and octopus are plotting the schedule to balance the grid

 

[Rolfe]

Experimenting after making this thread I'll tell you something that isn't debatable for us.
If I put the exact amount of charge I want and plug the car in I get a really bad schedule and a couple of times it's said "from 1am".
If I put 80% on the App it will start from 8:30pm so we get cheap house electric.

That's what Octopus doesn't like.

 

[dsr]

Experimenting after making this thread I'll tell you something that isn't debatable for us.
If I put the exact amount of charge I want and plug the car in I get a really bad schedule and a couple of times it's said "from 1am".
If I put 80% on the App it will start from 8:30pm so we get cheap house electric.

Please don’t do this. It is contrary to Octopus’s T & C’s and the more people that do it the more likely Octopus are to react to the detriment of all users. Ask for the percentage charge you car needs and be grateful for what is offered = 6 hours cheap electricity and if, occasionally, you need extra hours for a big charge, the bonus that is likely to be available.

 

[mikgle]

In my experience on the Octopus App, it's the amount of charge to ADD, not to charge to. Never had a problem with respect to that.

Yes, its Charge to add.. funnily enough Octopus had just asked me to delete my device (car) as it said it had lost control, plug in and add device again, which ive done.

 

[LenEV2016]

Yes, its Charge to add.. funnily enough Octopus had just asked me to delete my device (car) as it said it had lost control, plug in and add device again, which ive done.

Do zappis fully integrated with certain car brands that share their api's

 

[mikgle]

Only with cars that don't share their API, it's charge to with cars that allow full integration

OK, didn't know that. So which cars do what, do you know? All MGs don't share?

 

[LenEV2016]

OK, didn't know that. So which cars do what, do you know? All MGs don't share?

Ammended my post mate thought I was in the ohme thread, changed it to ask the question.
I have an ohme and two EVs and mg4 and a born, Cupra share the cars API so the charger is fully integrated and knows the cars state of charge etc, you just put in the what % you want the car to charge to. MG don't share their API hence you just put in an amount

Audi, BMW, Cupra, Hyundai, Land Rover, Kia,mini, nissan, Renault, Skoda, Tesla, Volkswagen, and Volvo. As far as I'm aware

I would imagine zappis will be similar