EV.Energy App

[Pagemakers]

Anybody use the EV.Energy smart charging app?

I’m on Octopus Agile and I have a Tesla charger.

I’ve noticed the app doesn’t charge at the cheapest times. I thought that was the whole idea.

I’ve been monitoring it today and it’s charging when the rate is about 5p even though later in the evening/morning the rate is a low as 1.8p

 

[Medved_77]

It will work out when to charge based on the charge limit set on the car and the ready by time set in the ev energy app.

Hard to answer without an idea of how much charge you're trying to achieve between the current time and your departure time.

You're correct though, it should be picking the cheapest 30 min slots to charge your car whilst ensuring the charge limit is reached by the ready time you set.

Worth double checking the correct tariff is selected in settings also.

 

[Pagemakers]

I’ve got agile set in app settings.

My ready time is 9am.

The car needs about an hour to reach the required charge limit.

The car has been plugged in all day and it’s tried to start the charge several times throughout the day when rates are 5-8p.

There are several overnight slots at 1.8p before 9 am so I’m lost why it’s not trying to use those.

 

[Cnixon]

I don't think the app is that smart yet. It is good for those of us on a basic E7 package. Customer Service is good just email them. Remember for tesla owners they communicate direct with car so you need a good connection and use sentry mode to stop the car falling asleep during the night.

 

[Pagemakers]

I emailed support earlier. Waiting to hear back.

 

[Masklin]

I’ve got agile set in app settings.

My ready time is 9am.

The car needs about an hour to reach the required charge limit.

The car has been plugged in all day and it’s tried to start the charge several times throughout the day when rates are 5-8p.

There are several overnight slots at 1.8p before 9 am so I’m lost why it’s not trying to use those.

Having recently moved on to Go I’ve tried using the EV app to control charging during the overnight period. Each time I’ve set it up, double and triple checking settings, putting in a price limit etc, it’s started charging straight away instead of waiting till 0030hrs.

Have given up on it for the time being.

 

[Pagemakers]

It mentions this in the FAQ. Have you tried doing what you do then in the Tesla app pressing STOP CHARGING once it starts and then wait to see if it schedules correctly after this? Sadly for me it doesn’t and charging will re-start at a sub-optimal time.

I think the app only polls your car every 30 mins that’s why initially it can start to change when plugged in. That said it should schedule correctly after that but like I say above for me it doesn’t.

 

[Masklin]

I hadn’t seen that and will give it a try, cheers.

 

[Pagemakers]

I guess there’s no other app available with similar features?

 

[simon.c]

I’ve got agile set in app settings.

My ready time is 9am.

The car needs about an hour to reach the required charge limit.

The car has been plugged in all day and it’s tried to start the charge several times throughout the day when rates are 5-8p.

There are several overnight slots at 1.8p before 9 am so I’m lost why it’s not trying to use those.

Is the car set with a delayed start time of midnight? If you do that then it will normally initiate a charge briefly at midnight and then the app will stop it and start the next charge at the appropriate time. Remember the next day’s tariff will only be published sometime after 4pm so before that the app will only know about the available slots up till midnight. You may find it has been the car trying to charge rather than the app if you haven’t had a delayed start set. Once the car has tried to initiate a charge and the app has stopped it if you check the ev.energy app it should tell you on the home screen what time it is planning to next start a charge, and it should coincide with a cheap agile window.

 

[Pagemakers]

Is the car set with a delayed start time of midnight? If you do that then it will normally initiate a charge briefly at midnight and then the app will stop it and start the next charge at the appropriate time. Remember the next day’s tariff will only be published sometime after 4pm so before that the app will only know about the available slots up till midnight. You may find it has been the car trying to charge rather than the app if you haven’t had a delayed start set. Once the car has tried to initiate a charge and the app has stopped it if you check the ev.energy app it should tell you on the home screen what time it is planning to next start a charge, and it should coincide with a cheap agile window.

I don’t have a delayed start time but I do set the smart charge after 4pm.

Yesterday for example I set the 90 min charge about 8pm. It then tried to change almost every 30 minutes even though the best time would have been about 00:30 and 03:00.

I’ll set up the delayed start time to after midnight and see if that makes any difference. Technically, if it’s SMART I don’t really see why that would make a difference if I set everything up after 4pm.

Incidentally, in the app I do see the time it plans to start the next charge but mostly this does not coincide with the next cheapest window.

 

[simon.c]

If you set the delayed start time in the car then it will stop the car trying to initiate charges during the day. The ev.energy app itself is smart but it just uses the simple stop/start instructions via the API to control the charge on the car. If you leave the car to it’s own devices (without a delayed start) then it will occasionally try to restart a charge on its own - that’s probably what has been happening.

 

[Pagemakers]

If you set the delayed start time in the car then it will stop the car trying to initiate charges during the day. The ev.energy app itself is smart but it just uses the simple stop/start instructions via the API to control the charge on the car. If you leave the car to it’s own devices (without a delayed start) then it will occasionally try to restart a charge on its own - that’s probably what has been happening.

With that in mind, assuming I delay the start until after midnight and say the cheapest rate is 4am, based on what you’ve said above the car could try to start the charge at 00:30......

 

[NastyNick83]

I set the car to schedule a charge at 00:00 so that it doesn't try and start a charge as soon as I plug the car in. Then have the EV.Energy app to do the rest.

Have car to be ready for 16:00 (as you won't want it to try and charge after 16:00).

What do you set your 'only charge off-peak' threshold set to?

 

[Pagemakers]

I set the car to schedule a charge at 00:00 so that it doesn't try and start a charge as soon as I plug the car in. Then have the EV.Energy app to do the rest.

Have car to be ready for 16:00 (as you won't want it to try and charge after 16:00).

What do you set your 'only charge off-peak' threshold set to?

I don’t set the off-peak option because Octopus Agile doesn’t have an off peak period.

 

[Jeeves]

I don’t know if this support article addresses your issue or not?

 

[Pagemakers]

I don’t know if this support article addresses your issue or not?

Thanks for that, yes I’ve been through their support pages a dozen times.

My issue is not that, it’s it does not schedule the charging at the most optimum times.

If I set the app to charge at say 8pm to be ready by 9am and the cheapest rates are say between 2-5am it may start the charging at 10pm.

I’ll going to set a delay until after midnight to see if that fixes it. I suspect however it will begin sometime after midnight.

 

[Jeeves]

I didn’t mean RTFM. I’m sorry if you felt that.

Hopefully their support people can help. They seem to be very keen to do so.

Mine seems to work almost perfectly as the graph from the OctoWatchdog app shows. It seems to miss the 30-minute windows by a few minutes at the start and end.

 

[NastyNick83]

I don’t set the off-peak option because Octopus Agile doesn’t have an off peak period.

I set a threshold to only charge 'off peak' when the rate is below a certain amount.

I'm also on agile and I have mine set to only charge when the rate is less than 3p/kWh (for example). Then it works out how much charge is needed and goes for the cheapest times to make sure I hit set charge by 16:00.

You could set that to 5p/kWh for example

 

[Pagemakers]

I didn’t mean RTFM. I’m sorry if you felt that.

Hopefully their support people can help. They seem to be very keen to do so.

Mine seems to work almost perfectly as the graph from the OctoWatchdog app shows. It seems to miss the 30-minute windows by a few minutes at the start and end.

View attachment 569798

no offence taken. Thanks for the help.