Wiki Everything you wanted to know about Intelligent Octopus But Were Afraid To Ask

Why write this post?
A lot of people are starting to get interested in IO. I don't think Octopus do a very good job of spelling out the benefits in their website. They have some FAQs, but the same questions keep coming up over and over on the forums.

What is it?
In a nutshell, IO is a split tariff that gives you a cheap off-peak rate for charging your EV and other electrical items in the household, including home batteries.

Isn’t that the same as Octopus Go or Go Faster?
The principle is the same, but in exchange for some benefits which we’ll explain, you allow Octopus to control the timing of your EV charge, so they can choose low carbon intensity and/or cheap wholesale priced time slots.

So I’m not in control of my charge? I don’t like the sound of that!
Well yes…and no. You’re in control of how much to charge and when you want the car to be ready, just like you would be normally. Within those parameters, you’re allowing Octopus to control which half-hour slots the car chooses to get to that target % charge. And you can always override IO if you want to “bump charge” through the day.

OK, but what are the benefits you mentioned for this trade off?
First of all, you get a larger guaranteed off-peak window for using household appliances and charging home batteries, etc. It’s six hours between 23:30-05:30. Go, for example, is a fixed 4 hour window.
In addition, when IO schedules your EV charging slots it sometimes creates schedules that fall outside of the fixed, six hour window. If that happens your EV charging and all your household use in these extra-slots is also charged at off-peak rates.
I have frequently had schedules give me seven or more hours of off-peak rates. On one occasion, I had a total of ten hours of off-peak rates.

Am I eligible?
You need a smart meter and a compatible car and/or charger. Since you’re reading this here, I assume you’ve got or are thinking of getting a Tesla. IO works with the Tesla API to create the charging schedules. The advantage of this is that IO will work with any* home charger. If you have a charger with smart features, you need to disable them so that the charger acts as a dumb switch. IO will control everything via Tesla’s API to start and stop your charging.
*Even your granny charger - but you need to tell IO what the max throughput is when you go through setup so that it can work out your schedules properly.

Some of this sounds too good to be true.
Phantom drain caused by having smart charging enabled in the Octopus app has been fixed as of 30th August 2022. One small side effect appears to be that schedules sometimes take longer to appear in the app after plugging in.

Further questions (to be updated in the main thread body once the edit timer on this post expires)

I have two EVs, can I charge the other while on IO?
Not with IO scheduling the charging, but you can charge any other car in the fixed 23:30-05:30 off peak window or at any other time at peak prices.

What are the rates etc?
Octopus do a decent job of explaining the peak and off-peak rates along with contracts etc. Head over to their pages to discover that.

I asked for a target % of x, but I got less than x.
There are two or three reasons for this.

The first, most common reason, is that Tesla reports battery % differently depending on where you look. The API (that IO uses) reports the gross battery %. This is generally fixed but can fluctuate very slightly. The Tesla app shows usable %. Apps like Teslamate and Teslafi can display both. Quite often, there is a delta of 2-3% which may be down to battery temp or other factors. This usable % will often be recovered as the battery warms up during a drive.

Some users have reported charging % being way off, perhaps 10% or more. This could be down to an error in the onboarding process. Some of the charger database entries incorrectly assume the charger you are onboarding is the 11kW version, without actually saying so in the charger description. The Andersen A2 was an early example of this. If you suspect this may be the case, the easiest thing to do is go through the on-boarding again and choose "Generic 7.4kW charger". It won't affect your functionality on IO in any way.

Lastly, it has to be mentioned that occasionally IO just craps out. It may be down to a comms error, a server error at Octopus' end, or just reasons. IO is a beta product and it's wise to expect one or two quirks from time to time

 

[WV72]

Either way, after getting the message in the Tesla app that a virtual key had been set up the process would fail after trying to do the test charge.

This was resolved by deleting the virtual key in the car itself, from the lock menu.

So, just a heads up that if for some reason you need to reconnect with a new virtual key, check and delete any previous one from within the car first before going through the process.

I already thought this was the solution to my IOG connection problem. However, no. I do everything according to the instructions. I get the schedule but I don't get smart charging.

 

[Pete UK]

That’s interesting, thanks.

The time I tried stopping the charging in the Tesla app played merry hell with the whole thing but maybe something else was going on. I’m going to ring Octopus again tomorrow and try to get to the bottom of it…it would be nice to just plug it in and forget about it, knowing it’s just going to work!

Hi,

Top tip:

If you have a normal 7kW charger and the IOG integration is with the Tesla and want a hassle free 80% every morning;

1) Set the “off peak end time” in the TESLA app to 05:30. (And 80% or more)
2) Set the “ready by time” in the OCTOPUS app to 05:30. And 80%.

Doing this stops the car from charging straight away when plugging in on IOG !

No need to mess about, I don’t even look to see if it’s generated a schedule. It just works.

So you can just plug in when you get home, no need to stop it charging straight away as it doesn’t do this and all becomes “plug and play / set and forget”.

For us, If we get home with <23% in the car (Model Y) we likely get an extra slot before 23:30. But on those very rare occasions it’s manageable and I just modify the home batteries to start charging at the same time.

If we need more that 100% (which is rare also) we just modify the numbers if it looks like we need to ADD more that 63% to the car. (So in most cases it’s not required).

That should solve the problem for you.

 

[JetWash]

Thanks. I got almost nowhere with Octopus support who have been surprisingly useless, a shame as I’d heard good things about them.

Various things have happened though and a I’ve no idea what, if any, of them are coincidental.

1) I had previously had a single successful plug-in and charge, and recalled I had the vehicle set to 100% and the IO app to 80%. When I was on hold (for over an hour which I eventually abandoned) I did the same thing and within a minute had a smart schedule appear. I believe this is the recommended setup. I also stopped the charge with the Tesla app as soon as it hit 7 kWh and that didn’t cause an issue
2) The edit I’d made to Google Maps for our address has taken effect and the Tesla app now shows the car’s location correctly and no longer that it’s parked at the neighbours
3) I ran a charge last night with this setup which worked perfectly except the battery charged to 78% and not 80%. I suspect this is the IO app not knowing the correct size of the battery. When I set the tariff up it offers the options of a ‘2023 Model Y’ or a ‘2022 Model Y Performance’. I have a feeling this time I set it to the first option, whilst the previous time it successfully charged it was set to the latter and overshot the 80% setting. I’m tempted to set it up again and request a vehicle integration for the 23/24 Model Y Performance. The other option is to play with the sliders in the two apps to nail the number I’m actually asking for.

The upshot though is things are better than they were a couple of days ago but that is in spite of Octopus rather than because of them.

 

[Drew57]

No need to mess about, I don’t even look to see if it’s generated a schedule. It just works.

....we likely get an extra slot before 23:30.....I just modify the home batteries to start charging at the same time.

Yes, telepathy is a very useful attribute!

 

[Pete UK]

Thanks. I got almost nowhere with Octopus support who have been surprisingly useless, a shame as I’d heard good things about them.

Various things have happened though and a I’ve no idea what, if any, of them are coincidental.

1) I had had a successful plug-in and charge once, and recalled I had the vehicle set to 100% and the IO app to 80%. When I was on hold (for over an hour which I eventually abandoned) I did the same thing and within a minute had a smart schedule appear. I believe this is the recommended setup. I also stopped the charge with the Tesla app as soon as it hit 7 kWh and that didn’t cause an issue
2) The edit I’d made to Google Maps for our address has taken effect and the Tesla app now shows the car’s location correctly and no longer that it’s parked at the neighbours
3) I ran a charge last night with this setup which worked perfectly except the battery charged to 78% and not 80%. I suspect this is the IO app not knowing the correct size of the battery. When I set the tariff up it offers the options of a ‘2023 Model Y’ or a ‘2022 Model Y Performance’. I have a feeling this time I set it to the first option, whilst the previous time it successfully charged it was set to the latter and overshot the 80% setting. I’m tempted to set it up again and request a vehicle integration for the 23/24 Model Y Performance. The other option is to play with the sliders in the two apps to nail the number I’m actually asking for.

The upshot though is things are better than they were a couple of days ago but that is in spite of Octopus rather than because of them.

Have you got LFP batteries in your MY performance? Or are they Lithium Ion (same as my 2022 LR model Y? (I suspect they are Li Ion still, same as the earlier MY LR). LFP batteries have a pretty flat voltage over the usable range, so it’s hard for the BMS to know an exact % figure without fairly regular visits to “100%” and “0%”.

Anyway, despite all that, it’s important that the correct car and charger are selected and the car charging power is set to full, otherwise the IOG schedule created will be wrong and you won’t reach the target.

Also, ‘people’ are finding that despite setting a target of 80%, sometimes it’s only at 79% or 78% in the morning. This may be due to a number of factors; how long ago it finished charging and has been sitting idle, if sentry is “on”, if the car didn’t sleep, if the BMS decides to do a re calculation etc. But probably it’s predominantly because IOG stops the charge as soon as 80% is seen, rather than natively, where the car charges itself to 80%+ and sits there.

ie IOG might stop the charge at 80.0%, which soon goes to 79.9%, whereas natively, it might charge (without IOG) to 80.5% or 80.9%.

I think all the upcoming fiddling you’re about to embark on might drive you mad. You may just have to accept that you’ll have 78 or 79%. Or go for 85%.
Although another option that may work is selecting a generic 7kW charger.

I think it’s likely that the point 2) - the geo-location update, that you mentioned above fixed it.

Try my suggestion above for settings and see
how you get on. It’s much easier than having to remember to stop the change every time you exit the car. Just get out, plug in and go inside and forget about everything else. It’s worked flawlessly for me for over a year. It doesn’t make a difference if the car target in the Tesla app is at 80% or 100%.

 

[Pete UK]

Yes, telepathy is a very useful attribute!

Haha.

Yep, well I don’t need telepathy if the car is over 23% when I arrive home, which is 99.5% of the time. I only need apathy, which I’m excellent at.

The other 0.5% of the time I admit I look and make adjustments

I find it works really well, especially for the wife, who is 0% interested in the technicalities and just wants to have guaranteed juice in the car and drive off. As a solar+battery owner I’m interested in not dumping the solar batteries into the car (even for half an hour) and maximising solar export though.
I’ve achieved 99-100% off peak usage over the last year which I’m exceptionally pleased
with. Only a couple of kW peak used on the odd day in Dec/ Jan and during calibrations (which I’ve had many of due to some dodgy equipment)

Of course it’s different for everyone, especially if you do a lot of miles, don’t have a “proper?” (Don’t hate me for saying that!) 7kW charger, don’t have solar and home batteries etc.

Setting the Tesla ‘off peak end time’, and Octopus ‘ready by time’ to 05:30 works exceptionally well for us and is hassle free, so
Just ‘sharing the love’ with the OP who ‘wished he could just plug in and not have to stop the car charging straight away’.

The above settings suggestion is the solution.

Which of course might not fit in with everyone’s needs. But works.

 

[Adopado]

Have you got LFP batteries in your MY performance? Or are they Lithium Ion (same as my 2022 LR model Y? (I suspect they are Li Ion still, same as the earlier MY LR). LFP batteries have a pretty flat voltage over the usable range, so it’s hard for the BMS to know an exact % figure without fairly regular visits to “100%” and “0%”

I appreciate what you’re getting at but I can’t let this designation pass without comment… LFP batteries are lithium ion batteries. The other types are NCA and NCM. It’s not the “ion” that makes the difference, it’s the iron.

 

[Pete UK]

I appreciate what you’re getting at but I can’t let this designation pass without comment… LFP batteries are lithium ion batteries. The other types are NCA and NCM. It’s not the “ion” that makes the difference, it’s the iron.

Yes they are.

Was simply asking if they were the new LFP type or the older Lithium Ion type.

Probably, I should have said “the older Li Ion type” to be crystal clear. But you’ve very helpfully cleared it up.

 

[Adopado]

Yes they are.

Was simply asking if they were the new LFP type or the older Lithium Ion type.

Probably, I should have said “the older Li Ion type” to be crystal clear. But you’ve very helpfully cleared it up.

Yes, I was just being a tech pedant and not actually taking issue with the issues raised in your post. Think of it like the kW or kWh that trips us all up from time to time ... you've just got to point it out!

 

[Steerpike]

Thanks. Are you in the CB postcode?

Yes.

 

[Js1977]

you've just got to point it out!

Not always... it like home/AC chargers but I think most have given up on that technicality... sometimes we all know what the OP meant to say and trying to be the clever dick means you are the dick