The administrators biggest objectives are to either rescue the company, or get the best possible price for the company, either as a going concern or by selling off any remaining assets, to get the maximum return for its creditors. The needs of former customers of the company will be way down the priority list.
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Andersen EV charger support
- Thread starter Itidiot
- Start date
Could be done with a 2 tier system I guess. A really light core set of functionality guaranteed by a central body, manufacturers are free to do value add on top of that.
The problem is that to securely provide service you need a cloud inf that is maintained, and some way to do updates to the devices. Deviate on either front and you end up with botnets. If you don't have the minimum+ model, you end up with smart meters, which are also a mess.
My preference would actually to have speced some powerline into the smart meters and high consumption devices so they could communicate within the premises. This would have given chargers, heat pumps, battery systems information about unit cost that they could then act on as configured by the user.
But I digress. How do you find if you have an occp compatible unit, and what can talk to it?
I've read elsewhere from someone who managed to speak to some ex-employees on LinkedIn etc that OCPP 2.0 was never actually implemented. It is a closed source system that interfaces with particle.io.
From some very basic testing I've done the device is resistant to probing even on the local network. I presume Andersen have some sort of "secret handshake" to get access to the device over the internet, involving certificates, "knocking" on one port before connecting on another, etc. Without insight into that, it's going to be hard to do anything with it I don't think.
I’m sure I googled it once and read what it was all about but can’t remember lol.
Anyways My Wallbox has it and this amongst power sharing for multiple chargers was some of the reasons for the choice amongst being on the compatibility list for octopus agile and IO which sadly it no longer is at present. It’s a shame that octopus seem to have favoured a standard over what is supposed to be the standard unless there might be limitations.
Here is a couple of screenshots. On mine it’s under settings…
Proper cloud implementations all dial outwards and have no exposed ports. Only safe way. You'd need to tap the connection and have a listen in, but as you say, probably certs etc all over the place. As they were in the process of going into administration there is a reasonable chance there is some sort of vuln that could be leveraged to crack it open.
I haven’t tried sniffing the traffic yet, but I have previously played about with the app and disabling the charger takes effect in seconds (swipe on the app to red light on the charger), and works over the internet.
This would necessarily require either an open socket from the charger to the cloud services, very frequent status polling, or the cloud services being able to communicate with the charger. I would have assumed Andersen would need some level of access for remote diagnostics etc.
I haven’t set up any explicit port forwarding for it so I presume the device uses uPnP and tells Andersen wherever the internet facing IP changes.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out anyway. At least Andersen had the good sense to make the device failsafe to a dumb behaviour if it can’t access the command and control server.
Port forwards on end user equipment is the stuff of nightmares. The charger (or other decent iot device) calls home, authenticates you then forms a 2 way tunnel associated with your ID. Not actually a tunnel, more likely an open HTTPS connection with a keep alive and 2 way comms. But it works like a tunnel. It doesn't care about IP's and if that connection goes down it just creates a new one.
When your phone makes a request, the Auth details are matched and the command shoved down the pipe to the charger. This is why it takes 4 seconds, not less than 0.1. Also leads to the weird situation that even when you and the charger are on the same network any command still go to the internet and back.
If you have any devices that need or create a port forward, I would strongly recommend junking them. Honestly, most have been wormed these days and are likely participating in a botnet for someone.
I've had a bit of a nightmare charging at home since Anderson went bust after finding the app not working last Friday morning. I have followed the advice on here and disconnected from the internet and reset the device to make it dumb. I have then set the Tesla to start charging at 1230am to tie in with Octopus Go. However, the car seems to start around 1232am and keeps disconnecting at 1237am. This has happened 4 nights in a row now. Luckily I was awake for one and did start charge on the Tesla App and it charged for 4 hours. so it seems to be an issue with my model y and the charger being dumb. This afternoon I have reconnected the app to the charging unit. The app is working perfectly so I have scheduled for tonight to see if the car will charge as requested. If it does I wonder how long the app will keep going for before they switch off the servers.
On the plus side, if the charger isn't working / goes tech / cant provide the functionality it said it does on the tin, I found the credit card receipt so have S75 protection (I hope). Has anybody gone down this route yet or are you waiting for the administrators to call it a day?
On the plus side, if the charger isn't working / goes tech / cant provide the functionality it said it does on the tin, I found the credit card receipt so have S75 protection (I hope). Has anybody gone down this route yet or are you waiting for the administrators to call it a day?
Hi i have submitted a section 75 for that reason as my built in car schedule is useless and really relied on the anderson app i am yet to receive any news regarding my section 75 claim if successful i will certainly post here.
SomeGuyWithaY
MYLR Red/Black/19
Been testing it every day since administration was announced and today was the first day it failed.
Woke up to an app that needed me to sign in and greeted with a big warning message of “Energy supply fault detected” with Reset being the only option.
Reset and disabled my schedule and now it’s charging…
Hoping this was just a one off…
Woke up to an app that needed me to sign in and greeted with a big warning message of “Energy supply fault detected” with Reset being the only option.
Reset and disabled my schedule and now it’s charging…
Hoping this was just a one off…
Is their biggest objective not to make money, their fees are eye watering. From being a unsecure creditor several times it's rare that there is any dividend left to distribute after they have been paid and the banks and secured creditors have their money. It's annoying the banks get their money first yet they know much more about the precarious financial status of the company than any supplier.
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Sorry to hear some having problems, but I must admit, I've not had any problems so far. Not logged out of app and Octopus seems to still schedule charges ok. I'm sure the plop will hit the fan and I'll end up getting frustrated by it all at some point......frustrating.
Sometimes you'll get that if you've one of the newer A2 units, with the solar feed ct clamp in place.Been testing it every day since administration was announced and today was the first day it failed.
Woke up to an app that needed me to sign in and greeted with a big warning message of “Energy supply fault detected” with Reset being the only option.
Reset and disabled my schedule and now it’s charging…
Hoping this was just a one off…
Usually if you're generating a fair whack of electricity, the unit will display this message if the volate goes above the operating thresholds.
Andersen have
From a mail from Andersen historically:
"The good news is there's nothing to worry about where the charge point is concerned.
The issue is with the supply voltage at the property. You'd need to contact your local DNO to address this as you could see potential disruptions with other appliances or even other properties in the area. When the voltage exceeds or drops below our operating range, you'll see the charge point enter this error state. We, as with other charge point manufacturers and electrical appliances, have an operating voltage range which is 207-253v. I can see the supply voltage spiking regularly to 255v. I've popped a couple of examples below (timestamp on left and readings in bold):
Jun 25, 2022 @ 12:33:12.260 255 0.01 0.4 -22.56 255.64
Jul 10, 2022 @ 13:49:08.645 255 0 0.36 -22.12 255.98
We have a snapshot of 6 months for everything 30 seconds of each individual setting, charging state, and energy meter reading. If you can think of it, we most likely have it unless we have an outage with our third party cloud servers, which would be unlikely."
Unlikely - ho ho ho
JupiterMan
Active Member
I've had this error (and that email from Andersen) a number of times over my two years with them. no other appliance in my house has ever had any problems... the Andersen unit just seems very fragile and without much tolerance to voltage variance.Sometimes you'll get that if you've one of the newer A2 units, with the solar feed ct clamp in place.
Usually if you're generating a fair whack of electricity, the unit will display this message if the volate goes above the operating thresholds.
Andersen have
From a mail from Andersen historically:
"The good news is there's nothing to worry about where the charge point is concerned.
The issue is with the supply voltage at the property. You'd need to contact your local DNO to address this as you could see potential disruptions with other appliances or even other properties in the area. When the voltage exceeds or drops below our operating range, you'll see the charge point enter this error state. We, as with other charge point manufacturers and electrical appliances, have an operating voltage range which is 207-253v. I can see the supply voltage spiking regularly to 255v. I've popped a couple of examples below (timestamp on left and readings in bold):
Jun 25, 2022 @ 12:33:12.260 255 0.01 0.4 -22.56 255.64
Jul 10, 2022 @ 13:49:08.645 255 0 0.36 -22.12 255.98
We have a snapshot of 6 months for everything 30 seconds of each individual setting, charging state, and energy meter reading. If you can think of it, we most likely have it unless we have an outage with our third party cloud servers, which would be unlikely."
Unlikely - ho ho ho
Rooster6655
Active Member
If the charger was in dumb mode then perhaps it was the car especially if you had to manually start the charge
I've converted my A2 to 'dumb mode'. I don't want my device connected to a server, the security of which may not being properly monitored.
I know I can add about 38% of charge in a 4-hour period so it's easy to use full use of my Octopus Go low-rate period by scheduling a start time in my car.
I know I can add about 38% of charge in a 4-hour period so it's easy to use full use of my Octopus Go low-rate period by scheduling a start time in my car.
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