Andersen EV charger support

[Rooster6655]

I'd be a little suspicious of this new company - only incorporated June 2021, and David Edward Simpson became director in April 2022 (along with the other directors). According to Companies House, David Edward Simpson is still an active director of Muller EV.
Companies House also list another David Simpson as director of Simpson & Partners, with a different director ID but the same month & year of birth (May '74) as David Edward Simpson.
It all smacks a little of "this company is buggered, let's start another one doing the same thing, but under a new name"

companycheck data is out of date if you used that, companies house has the more accurate data.

I do find it strange though that if he was brought out that under his agreement he was then allowed to go start up basically the same company under a slightly different design, who knows what really went on but seeing as sales of EVs have been increasing I assume they had some seriously flawed business model.

 

[tdingene]

I haven’t actually tested it yet but the Tessie app lets you set a charging schedule with start and end time rather than just a start time in the car which risks you going into peak time.

 

[interbear]

Damn. Shame for the employees and the company.

I bought my A2 in 2019, don’t use the app really so not bothered about that personally, I always set the charge start time in the car. Although I did use it to lock the charger when away for a holiday etc. My main concern is support / parts if something goes wrong with the charger itself. I don’t really want to be replacing it, it wasn’t cheap.

 

[Foucault]

There’s a bit more information on the Simpson & Partners website on why Mandy Simpson, one of the founders of Anderson with her husband, ended up leaving Andersen link to Simpson and Partners

 

[Billbrown1982]

The bigger problem is that most of these smart chargers all have proprietary back-end systems. The back-ends cost money to run and yet who would want to pay a monthly sub just so that their charge point kicks in at 12:30? I suspect there’ll be more manufacturers under pressure in the future. I have an EO Mini, but if/when it dies, I’ll be getting an OpenEVSE - it’s all open source.

The EO Mini as best I can tell basically is just a raspberry pi in a box, so part of my purchasing decision was IF they do ever go bust, someone smarter than me could probably hack the pi into being a smart, locally controlled, charger.

I haven’t actually tested it yet but the Tessie app lets you set a charging schedule with start and end time rather than just a start time in the car which risks you going into peak time.

Indeed! A fairly recent addition to Tessie that might come in very useful to some. Reckon he had some insider knowledge?

 

[Zakalwe]

You can set both a charging start AND end time in the Tesla app. No need to resort to third party apps.
Use the Charge page in the Schedule part of the app to set the charging start times and then select the Off-Peak end time in the Departure page.

 

[Cardo]

You can set both a charging start AND end time in the Tesla app. No need to resort to third party apps.
Use the Charge page in the Schedule part of the app to set the charging start times and then select the Off-Peak end time in the Departure page.

You can only set one at a time. So either charge start OR charge end. Not both.

 

[phil4]

You can set both a charging start AND end time in the Tesla app. No need to resort to third party apps.
Use the Charge page in the Schedule part of the app to set the charging start times and then select the Off-Peak end time in the Departure page.

If you do that by setting start charging, in schedule, and then go to departure, and set off peak charging, then go back to Schedule you'll see the start time has been disabled.
Or vice versa, if you start on departure and set off peak, then go to Charge and set start time, go back to Departure, and off-peak has turned off.
You can't set both a start and end time in the app.

 

[Stewpot]

I was gutted to find this out this morning after my model y stopped charging 15 mins into its schedule overnight. The Anderson is by far the best looking charger and my wife insisted on it due to the looks and cable storage. It’s so discreet that people didn’t know what it was until the car arrived.

I use octopus go overnight so think I have worked it out on the tesla app. Set charge to start at 0030 then set a departure of 0600 with no preheating (or any time that suits) and select off peak charge. It then gives the option to select and end off peak time which in my case is 0430hrs and I’ve selected all week. Hopefully this will work. I’ll find out tonight.

 

[Zakalwe]

If you do that by setting start charging, in schedule, and then go to departure, and set off peak charging, then go back to Schedule you'll see the start time has been disabled.
Or vice versa, if you start on departure and set off peak, then go to Charge and set start time, go back to Departure, and off-peak has turned off.
You can't set both a start and end time in the app.

So it has, I stand corrected.*
Thank you.






*

 

[Stewpot]

I was gutted to find this out this morning after my model y stopped charging 15 mins into its schedule overnight. The Anderson is by far the best looking charger and my wife insisted on it due to the looks and cable storage. It’s so discreet that people didn’t know what it was until the car arrived.

I use octopus go overnight so think I have worked it out on the tesla app. Set charge to start at 0030 then set a departure of 0600 with no preheating (or any time that suits) and select off peak charge. It then gives the option to select and end off peak time which in my case is 0430hrs and I’ve selected all week. Hopefully this will work. I’ll find out tonight.

Scrap that. Just seen the post above and it cancels each other out. Pox.

 

[phil4]

So it has, I stand corrected.*
Thank you.






*View attachment 863653

Don't feel bad, you were right, you can set it... and unless you go back to check you'd not see it's unset it. I can easily see how you'd think as you did.

 

[MrT3]

Scrap that. Just seen the post above and it cancels each other out. Pox.

All you can do it set it to start charging at 12:30 and manually adjust the end charge percentage to be about 35% greater than what it currently is, which will take about 4 hours to complete.

 

[Durzel]

Yeah, the benefit of the schedule on the Andersen itself is that you could make the charge point "lock out" at a certain time, regardless of what the car was doing and whether it had reached the target charge level or not.

My car is set to start at 02:30 (when my Octopus Go window begins) but as far as I know it will just keep on charging until it reaches the charge limit.

It was also useful for locking out the charger if you went away on holiday.

 

[up_north]

Yeah, the benefit of the schedule on the Andersen itself is that you could make the charge point "lock out" at a certain time, regardless of what the car was doing and whether it had reached the target charge level or not.

My car is set to start at 02:30 (when my Octopus Go window begins) but as far as I know it will just keep on charging until it reaches the charge limit.

It was also useful for locking out the charger if you went away on holiday.

It will so you need to know how much the charger will add in the Go timeframe. For my Model 3LR it was 10% per hour. More like 9% in my YLR. Then set the charge limit for that.

 

[Durzel]

Yeah. I typically only charge to around 60% at home unless I'm going somewhere, and I don't do many miles so don't typically have to do big charges on it. I've got a good feel for how much it can do, though. I do feel sorry for people who have only just recently got these chargers installed and/or rely on them for scheduling because their car can't do it.

 

[TomH0927]

Shame to hear about this. I had my Andersen installed early 2021. It sat on the drive unused for around 6 months waiting for my M3P to arrive! Like many others, I used the app to schedule the start and end time to match my Octopus Go rate. The charge stats were also another useful feature. I do remember a couple of instances when their servers went down however and the charger was virtually rendered useless as it relies on cloud connectivity. That being said I'm sure I read something about it would ignore any schedule or soft lock after a certain period of not being connected.

I've disabled the schedule on the app and set up scheduled charging in the car. My daily use requires around 2 hours of charging so not too concerned about the charge continuing into the peak. I wonder if anybody far more clever than me is going to be able to develop their own app and somehow enable local access so we can continue to set schedules etc. I guess the other concern is that the charger will now not be compliant with the new charge regulations such as delayed charging - I wonder if this will cause us any long term issues?

 

[Rooster6655]

I do remember a couple of instances when their servers went down however and the charger was virtually rendered useless as it relies on cloud connectivity.

FYI after 15m of no connectivity it goes offline, as the company is now bankrupt it's only a matter of time before the app goes offline, it could be taken over but no expectation of it being free and can't see the point in paying for it.

I wonder if anybody far more clever than me is going to be able to develop their own app and somehow enable local access so we can continue to set schedules etc.

I think the only way that would happen if the developers of the app helped out and gave us some inside knowledge of any safe mode or way to connect to the charger, in reality most people only used it for setting Octopus Go charging times.

I guess the other concern is that the charger will now not be compliant with the new charge regulations such as delayed charging - I wonder if this will cause us any long term issues?

The new regulations are for the manufacturer to stick to rather than the consumer and applies for installs from 1st July 2022 or later, for the delayed charging the consumer can also where software allows over ride such delays, so if you wanted to charge straight away you can.

 

[Durzel]

It really depends on what happens with the IP, I think.

The administrators will be looking to maximise the return on it, so will be trying to sell as much of it as they can as a going concern. in that context I doubt they'd just make it freely available.

From what basic research I've done, the device looks pretty well protected from idle "poking", with port/service level filtering/firewalling. The device would obviously phone home to tell their servers about what it's IP is (as IP addresses change all the time on consumer broadband), and there must be some kind of protocol for Andersen's servers to talk to it over the internet without being abruptly cut off (like I have been). Probably involves private keys, certificates, etc.

All of that is great when everything is all ok because it stops people making changes to your charger, but when stuff like this happens - and there's no documentation or official way of interfacing with the device, it complicates things.

 

[Zakalwe]

All you can do it set it to start charging at 12:30 and manually adjust the end charge percentage to be about 35% greater than what it currently is, which will take about 4 hours to complete.

Or use Intelligent Octopus which will handle the charging and make sure that it charges only in off-peak (even if it has to extend the off-peak times).

The only thing that i personally will really miss about the app is the ability to use excess solar during the day.