Intelligent Octopus and Ohme Home Pro

[Chrisr]

Hi all

Collecting my 60 very shortly. I will be on intelligent octopus and ohme home pro.

I have some questions which hopefully can be answered by one of you helpful people:

1. Am I best controlling charge from ohme app or octopus app

2. Am I better defaulting to 2330 - 0530

3. What settings will I need to change in my car ie. Location etc

I cover on average 170miles a day therefore it will be on charge every weekday night

Many thanks in advance

Chris R

[ComicGeek]

I have IO and the Home Pro. Make sure you set up the Home Pro charger to IO and not the car - then you don't have to faff around with the location and schedules in the car, the Home Pro is much more robust.

1) You can only control through the Ohme app, you can't control it through the Octopus app. You can log into your Skoda account inside the Ohme app so it will bring up battery level within it.

2) You set the schedule in the Ohme app to state what percentage charge you want the car to be at by what time. Ie 80% by 7am. You can also set the price cap on the Ohme app to only charge at maximum 7.5p/kWh but you will then miss out on extended charge periods - with your daily mileage you may find that you can't do the full charge within the standard 6 hrs. Just set up the schedule once, and then just plug in the car every time you get home - it will automatically work out charging requirements, send you a phone notification of any additional off peak periods and then just do it, really simple.

3) I don't have any locations or schedules set in the car, it's all controlled by the Ohme app, as long as you link the Home Pro with IO and not the car.

[Chrisr]

That's really helpful. Thank you so much. Are you saying don't set the price cap?

[ComicGeek]

If you only ever want to charge between 11.30pm-5.30am then set the price cap. But this will prevent you from getting any additional off peak periods through IO outside of this time.

At 170 miles charge each night, that would probably be 6-7 hrs charge each night at 7kW, depending on driving efficiency between 3.5-4 m/kWh. If you turn on the price cap then you may not achieve full charge by 5.30am.

So in your position I wouldn't set the price cap and just rely on the IO smart charging. This will still select the cheapest and greenest periods to charge. I only set up the schedule once, and I then just plug it in every few days and it works every time.

If you need it to start charging straightaway at any time, then you can press the max charge button on the front of the charger (easy to find than on the app!) and it will start charging straight away to the battery limit set in the car.

[Chrisr]

Thanks again. That's really helpful. I suppose everyone is a bit apprehensive to begin with.

[ComicGeek]

Absolutely, there will always an element of trial and error as well. That's why I never let the battery level get too low just in case it fails to charge one time.

Last night I plugged in my wife's Mache to charge, but it decided that it would only charge between 4.30-5am. I found after an app update yesterday it has defaulted to a time schedule within the car rather than relying on the charger to control it (bizarrely the time schedule within the car is actually 12-5am, but I've found that the Mache is not particularly good at time keeping, hence using the charger schedule instead!).

Fortunately it wasn't a problem this morning, still got enough battery for a few days and will try again tonight! I find that most things are still at an advanced beta development stage, so not going to work 100% of the time.

[ComicGeek]

Good news that the day rate for IO is dropping to 31p/kWh from next month! Although I hardly ever use during the day due to PV and home batteries, probably less than 1 kWh/day, but good news none the less.

[Decide]

Good news that the day rate for IO is dropping to 31p/kWh from next month! Although I hardly ever use during the day due to PV and home batteries, probably less than 1 kWh/day, but good news none the less.

Depending on region - we get 29.9p.

[Chrisr]

Successfully started charge at 2330. However hazard lights started flashing along with audible alarm. Any ideas please?

[snalbansed]

Successfully started charge at 2330. However hazard lights started flashing along with audible alarm. Any ideas please?

You didn't have an ODB dongle connected did you? The only time I've set my alarm off was when I had the "Car scanner" app connected to the ODB device whilst the car was locked.