ev.energy app + Octopus Agile = Win :)

[Medved_77]

Hadn't heard about the ev.energy app until @Jeeves recommended it. I was looking for something to smartly control my car charging, making use of the best electricity rates for the day.

This seems to work really well. It connects to the car to understand the charge limit, you specify your energy tariff and the time of day that you want your car charged by and it manages the rest, ensuring that the car is charged during the cheapest possible times in order to reach the charge limit by your time of departure, even if that means charging for an hour, taking a break for a couple then resuming for another hour.

Works really well with Agile and there's a large range of other tariffs from Octopus and other suppliers that it'll connect to also.

The app is free, there's some screenshots below and impressively since I've started using it my energy cost has been -£1.09 as it's taking advantage of the plunge rates.

 

[Noel83]

Ooh interesting, I was put off Agile by the effort of having to sort it out myself but I've already got ev.energy for my smart charger so that could tempt me.

Tbh I quite like my 4hrs on go from 8.30pm every night as it means the dishwasher and tumble dryer can benefit from 5.5p too!

 

[Cnixon]

I have just signed up to this, just out of interest. It looks really good. I am on economy 7 (fairly basic) similar to previous poster I thought Agile was going to be a faff and Go just did not work out better than E7 standard as I am a fairly high user during day (i was with Octopus but now with Symbio). The great thing about the app is it is made for Tesla or Smart chargers. I have a referral code but I think the OP or Jeeves should have the chance before me!!!

 

[Durzel]

This only works on Rolec chargers though, doesn’t it?

 

[Medved_77]

Ooh interesting, I was put off Agile by the effort of having to sort it out myself but I've already got ev.energy for my smart charger so that could tempt me.

Tbh I quite like my 4hrs on go from 8.30pm every night as it means the dishwasher and tumble dryer can benefit from 5.5p too![/QUOT

This only works on Rolec chargers though, doesn’t it?

No, I'm using PodPoint.

Think it's charger agnostic. It's communicating with the car to start and stop the charge cycles rather than the charger.

 

[Medved_77]

I have a referral code but I think the OP or Jeeves should have the chance before me!!!

Didn't notice there were referral codes and not sure what the benefit is? App is completely free, there is a reward scheme for using the app but haven't investigated what that does.

 

[Durzel]

No, I'm using PodPoint.

Think it's charger agnostic. It's communicating with the car to start and stop the charge cycles rather than the charger.

Thanks, I misread the app description, says it’s compatible with Teslas OR other EVs with the Rolec charger.

 

[Roy W.]

This only works on Rolec chargers though, doesn’t it?

It only works with Rolec smart chargers if you’re trying to charge any EV other than a Tesla. With Teslas it communicates directly with the car to control charging.

It’s certainly an interesting app, although there are several reviews that mention the car failed to charge, so I’m not sure how reliable it is. No doubt time will tell.

 

[NewbieT]

...there are several reviews that mention the car failed to charge, so I’m not sure how reliable it is.

I wouldn’t be too hasty to blame the ev.energy app. My custom script failed to charge one night. As in, for several half hours in a row. The car can sometimes take ages to wake-up and so my wake-up call sequence timed out. It’s exactly the same with the Official Tesla app, every now and then it takes ages or even fails to wake the car. I find in these instances I have to unlock the car with the app (assume this uses Bluetooth) or wait 30 mins plus.

Anything using the API like an app will suffer the same problem. The only guaranteed way I’ve found to charge is the scheduled charging within the car (it must set a cron/interrupt to wake itself up). I use this when I ‘must’ charge and I use my custom setup when I want free or dirt cheap electrons.

The only other thing occurs to me is if you make a bad API call Tesla adds a time-out. I hope the app taking ages to open isn’t caused by undesirable actors knocking on the door (try enough doors and one will open ).

If hadn’t built my own ev.energy seems a good way to go. I just still don’t like sharing my credentials. Each to their own.

 

[Roy W.]

I wouldn’t be too hasty to blame the ev.energy app. My custom script failed to charge one night. As in, for several half hours in a row. The car can sometimes take ages to wake-up and so my wake-up call sequence timed out. It’s exactly the same with the Official Tesla app, every now and then it takes ages or even fails to wake the car. I find in these instances I have to unlock the car with the app (assume this uses Bluetooth) or wait 30 mins plus.

Anything using the API like an app will suffer the same problem. The only guaranteed way I’ve found to charge is the scheduled charging within the car (it must set a cron/interrupt to wake itself up). I use this when I ‘must’ charge and I use my custom setup when I want free or dirt cheap electrons.

The only other thing occurs to me is if you make a bad API call Tesla adds a time-out. I hope the app taking ages to open isn’t caused by undesirable actors knocking on the door (try enough doors and one will open ).

If hadn’t built my own ev.energy seems a good way to go. I just still don’t like sharing my credentials. Each to their own.

Yes, it’s the same problem that a few people have discovered previously. There’s also this in the ev.energy FAQ, although having to use Sentry mode seems a bit wasteful.

 

[Jeeves]

I’ve been using it for many months with an EO Mini Pro. Not failed so far.

 

[Cnixon]

I have a couple of Tasker programs which build up the charge for the weekend - not that I have any trips planned!!! I think the app will work with these. I realised that the account details (after registration process) asks about your Electricity Supplier this looks a bit "work in progress" but obviously this will enable the app to start charging at the best time even on a basic E7 tariff. I suppose even then the "Green" credentials would choose when is the more appropriate part of the off peak period to use which could keep prices down in the long run. Hopefull!!!!

 

[Jason71]

Yes, it’s the same problem that a few people have discovered previously. There’s also this in the ev.energy FAQ, although having to use Sentry mode seems a bit wasteful.

View attachment 544256

I think there are 2 things being mixed up here. This refers to the fact that the car will not wake up from start charge requests via the charge port which is a known problem. It can be a bit slow sometimes to wake up when called via the API but it always does. The only time the API should fail if if the car loses its internet connection

 

[Jason71]

I wouldn’t be too hasty to blame the ev.energy app. My custom script failed to charge one night. As in, for several half hours in a row. The car can sometimes take ages to wake-up and so my wake-up call sequence timed out. It’s exactly the same with the Official Tesla app, every now and then it takes ages or even fails to wake the car. I find in these instances I have to unlock the car with the app (assume this uses Bluetooth) or wait 30 mins plus.

Anything using the API like an app will suffer the same problem. The only guaranteed way I’ve found to charge is the scheduled charging within the car (it must set a cron/interrupt to wake itself up). I use this when I ‘must’ charge and I use my custom setup when I want free or dirt cheap electrons.

The only other thing occurs to me is if you make a bad API call Tesla adds a time-out. I hope the app taking ages to open isn’t caused by undesirable actors knocking on the door (try enough doors and one will open ).

If hadn’t built my own ev.energy seems a good way to go. I just still don’t like sharing my credentials. Each to their own.

I did the same thing since I don't like sharing credentials. I don't actually use it to start charging very often since it's easier just to schedule it for 00:30 (octopus time) in the car but I do use it a lot to start the AC etc . It's been pretty reliable. How long is your timeout? It may not be the cars fault of course. Could be the internet connection or even Teslas servers playing up that night. I know that does not help since the car is not charging either way. As a fail safe I set up alerts. if the charge state falls behind where it ought to be while charging, or the car cannot be contacted. I get a notification to my phone to warn that something is wrong.

 

[Durzel]

The suggestion from EV.energy to leave Sentry mode on seems strange to me, as that will consume quite a bit of battery power in its own right, possibly negating the savings you make from using the app in the first place.

@Jason71 Interested to know how you use API calls to turn on the AC, presumably that’s to stop it getting too hot inside? How do you know how hot inside it is without waking it up anyway? Or do you do that periodically?

 

[Jason71]

The suggestion from EV.energy to leave Sentry mode on seems strange to me, as that will consume quite a bit of battery power in its own right, possibly negating the savings you make from using the app in the first place.

@Jason71 Interested to know how you use API calls to turn on the AC, presumably that’s to stop it getting too hot inside? How do you know how hot inside it is without waking it up anyway? Or do you do that periodically?

I wasnt very clear. I don't use it for that. I use it to turn the ac/heat on 10 minutes before my departure to cool/de ice etc. I know there is scheduled departure but it's very limited you can't use when not plugged in or if using timed charge start which is 100% of the time for me so its pretty useless for me.
If you want to know how to do it I can point to some good guides etc. Anything the app can do you can do via api calls plus a bit more

 

[ChickenDipper]

Still a bit of a faff especially if the car does go into ‘deep sleep’ or something else happens that means you don’t charge and come out to an uncharged car on a day you really need it!

Personally, and this is just me, I didnt buy a luxury car to worry about a few pence per kWh or flux pricing, already saving a fortune on diesel and don’t need the added anxiety, just a reliable and easy to manage approach to charging my car.

 

[Epico]

Downloaded this last night with the anticipation of moving to agile...is it supposed to keep my car awake all night?

lost 7 miles overnight because of it

 

[Jason71]

Downloaded this last night with the anticipation of moving to agile...is it supposed to keep my car awake all night?View attachment 544904 lost 7 miles overnight because of it

No. but if its not set up correctly it is more than capable of doing that. I am not an expert but have seen quite a few threads on here where people have that issue. It is fixable though

 

[MrBadger]

If you enable idles then click on sleep and idle icons, you may be able to see what is causing the car to wake up. Its possibly not a TeslaFi issue since the car at time of screenshot is not being polled by TeslaFi and the car does sleep which is further evidence that TeslaFi is not polling at times.

By the timings, something is waking the car on a regular basis approx every 12-16 minutes, and it could well be something mis configured in TeslaFi, but it may be something else. I would not expect to see TeslaFi doing this out of the box. It is equally possible something else is at play, which TeslaFi logs may highlight. We get regular waking of the car at certain points of the day (the rest of the time its sleeping for very long periods of time) - nothing obvious but its definitely not TeslaFi - these cars do wake for various reasons and it seems to be normal behaviour.

Once TeslaFi has stopped polling, it wont just wake the car up unless you have some scheduled event that runs. Something else will be waking the car.