Octopus changing its mind.

[Rolfe]

Samsung Galaxy A34 5G. (I did Google it once. Power and volume down buttons at the same time, it said. Which is quite hard to do. And turns the phone off.)

The car is now happily charging away on off-peak electricity, and at least I know there will be no funny stuff as smart charging is off and Zappi is running the show.

 

[securespark]

You can set up gestures on some Samsung phones, where you swipe your hand across the screen from left to right to do a screenshot.

Go to Settings, Advanced features, then Motions and gestures.
Alternatively, you can use your voice via Bixby.

Similarly, with Motorola you can use Google Assistant to tell it to do a screenshot, or set up gestures and swipe three fingers across the screen.

Samsung Galaxy A34 5G. (I did Google it once. Power and volume down buttons at the same time, it said. Which is quite hard to do. And turns the phone off.)

I agree. The two button method is a right royal PITA...

 

[decrep]

I have an A21, and nothing worked, but I followed the instructions carefully, and it's a brief tap on both buttons simultaneously. That came up with an instruction to turn on samsung store, I think. Now it's working, but I can't remember exactly how I did it.

 

[Gomev]

If you have an Android phone, one way you can take a screenshot is by tapping the square symbol at the bottom of the screen, then tapping screen shot

Android screen shots are normally pressing the power and volume down buttons at the same time.

Taking screenshots differs by phone and the user interface that has been loaded on top of the stock Android.

You can set up gestures on some Samsung phones, where you swipe your hand across the screen from left to right to do a screenshot.

Go to Settings, Advanced features, then Motions and gestures.
Alternatively, you can use your voice via Bixby.

Similarly, with Motorola you can use Google Assistant to tell it to do a screenshot, or set up gestures and swipe three fingers across the screen.

Motorola is long press with 3 fingers for a screenshot, not swiping

 

[Rolfe]

I've just had a tweet from Octopus saying that once they've set a schedule they should stick to it. So we'll see. Maybe their social media person doesn't know how it works of course.

 

[securespark]

TBF, I don't know what I'm doing anymore re charging!

I got a message saying the system was changing and that I had to change settings in the Ohme app.

Now the car charges whenever the app says it will, not just the original 23.30 - 05.30 slot.

So now I just plug the car in whenever and OK the charge in the app and leave it to it.

Whether that's the right or wrong thing to do, IDK.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't know what to think any more. I have people on here scolding me for thinking the slots assigned in the Octopus app actually mean something, then not replying when I ask what the point of listing slots in the app is if they're just going to change them. I've got the Octopus customer service email replying to questions I didn't ask and not the question I did ask, then ignoring follow-up emails. And now the Octopus twitter account saying they should stick to the slots once they've set them.

 

[securespark]

Confusion all round.

Not good.

 

[Rolfe]

Nope. I'm certainly not the only customer who needs to set their home battery so that it won't discharge into the car while the car is charging, even though John thinks I'm nuts to be happy with this setup. It's set for the entire normal off-peak period so if Octopus gives me slots in that period then I don't need to do anything. At first that's what happened.

If they give me a slot in the peak-rate period, I simply have to set the battery accordingly. But when I did that, I then discovered that the car wasn't charging, because the schedule had changed. Not good. Then the following morning, quite unexpectedly, they stuck in a slot from 8.00 to 8.30 am. Fortunately for me the car only charged for about five minutes of that because it was already virtually full, but I still lost some home battery charge. It was a very dull morning and there wasn't enough solar to recharge the battery. If it had gone the full half-hour I could have lost enough charge for this to be a problem in the later part of the evening.

When I explained this in an email to Octopus I got this patronising reply saying that I misunderstood how it worked and that I should set my home battery to charge from 11.30 to 5.30. Which it is already set to do, obviously. I emailed them back re-explaining the issue, twice, but got no further reply.

 

[securespark]

Odd.

 

[decrep]

sounds like a left hand right hand situation.

 

[johnb80]

Nope. I'm certainly not the only customer who needs to set their home battery so that it won't discharge into the car while the car is charging, even though John thinks I'm nuts to be happy with this setup. It's set for the entire normal off-peak period so if Octopus gives me slots in that period then I don't need to do anything. At first that's what happened.

If they give me a slot in the peak-rate period, I simply have to set the battery accordingly. But when I did that, I then discovered that the car wasn't charging, because the schedule had changed. Not good. Then the following morning, quite unexpectedly, they stuck in a slot from 8.00 to 8.30 am. Fortunately for me the car only charged for about five minutes of that because it was already virtually full, but I still lost some home battery charge. It was a very dull morning and there wasn't enough solar to recharge the battery. If it had gone the full half-hour I could have lost enough charge for this to be a problem in the later part of the evening.

When I explained this in an email to Octopus I got this patronising reply saying that I misunderstood how it worked and that I should set my home battery to charge from 11.30 to 5.30. Which it is already set to do, obviously. I emailed them back re-explaining the issue, twice, but got no further reply.

Change to Tomato and all of these issues will disappear, you save 2p kWh off peak and 20p plus per day on standing charge. Job done

 

[Rolfe]

Might do, once you guys have ridden out all the beta testing!

 

[mg4mc]

I don't know what to think any more. I have people on here scolding me for thinking the slots assigned in the Octopus app actually mean something, then not replying when I ask what the point of listing slots in the app is if they're just going to change them.

Moi? It even says on the app "some slots may change to balance the grid" when you look at the schedule.

 

[Rolfe]

I didn't see that. If they're going to do that then I will simply have to do nearly all my charging using the Zappi schedule and just do the minimum smart charging to keep the IOG tariff.

 

[johnb80]

Might do, once you guys have ridden out all the beta testing!

No Beta testing, it just works just like it says on the tin.

 

[Rolfe]

I've been reading that thread!

 

[johnb80]

I've been reading that thread!

Which thread??

The only slight issues has been with MyWatts displaying your data, actual billing and data from Tomato has been 100%.

J

 

[Rolfe]

That's good then.

 

[Bam Bam]

Which thread??

The only slight issues has been with MyWatts displaying your data, actual billing and data from Tomato has been 100%.

J

It seemed like the lack of data and lateness in billing were causing anxiety.

But perhaps you remained cool throughout!