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

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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
 
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Apologies if this has been mentioned before but I go this a couple of days ago;

Please remove & reconnect your car in our app to keep using Intelligent Octopus Go. Until you do, smart charging won’t work, so you’ll need to schedule your own charges in the Tesla app.

Tesla has changed how their cars connect to third party apps like ours. Drivers now need to add their Virtual Key to smart charge. Important: if you have more than one Tesla this works a bit differently for you. The last FAQ in this email has more info.
Here's how to reconnect your car and add your Virtual Key in the Octopus app:
First, disconnect your car.
  1. Make sure you’re at home with your car and you’re on the latest version of the Octopus app (version 4.20 or later).
  2. Open the Octopus app, click the profile button in the top corner of the app’s dashboard, go to Devices, select ‘Intelligent Octopus Settings’.
  3. Scroll down and tap ‘Disconnect Car’ and confirm. Once done, go back to the app homepage.
Next, reconnect your car.
  1. Open the app home page, scroll down, and click “Get started” on the Intelligent Octopus Go tile in the 'Explore our Lab' section. This will take you to reconnect your car, the same way you did when you first joined the tariff.
  2. Select ‘Electric Vehicle’ and follow the steps to connect through Tesla.
  3. Our app will prompt you to sign into your Tesla account, and Tesla will ask you to give Octopus Energy access to your device information. Make sure you enable Vehicle Information and Vehicle Charging Management so we can smart charge your car.
  4. Follow the steps to add a Virtual Key. (If your car is a Model S or X from before 2021, you can skip this step.)
  5. Finally, navigate back to our app and complete your connection test.
You’ll know you’re reconnected when you can see your car in the ‘Devices’ tab again. If you have any issues at any point, check this step-by-step help article


Don't know if it helps?
 
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Yes, I have a schedule, but the Tesla does not charge automatically during these scheduled hours.
We need some more info to troubleshoot.

What integration are you using? Tesla or EVSE?
What EVSE do you have? Have you turned off ALL its smart charging features?
Have you removed ALL schedules from the car and have set the max charge to 100%.
Has it ever worked since the test charge?
 
We need some more info to troubleshoot.

What integration are you using? Tesla or EVSE?
What EVSE do you have? Have you turned off ALL its smart charging features?
Have you removed ALL schedules from the car and have set the max charge to 100%.
Has it ever worked since the test charge?
I use a three-pin charger. Everything was working fine for almost two years until the octopus app was updated last week. I didn't change anything in the settings. I connected it after returning from work, received the schedule and the car was ready in the morning. Now after connecting I also receive the schedule, but the car is not charged even one kilowatt in the morning. I can only charge using manual control. I have it set to a maximum of 80% and the current battery level is 41%
 
I use a three-pin charger. Everything was working fine for almost two years until the octopus app was updated last week. I didn't change anything in the settings. I connected it after returning from work, received the schedule and the car was ready in the morning. Now after connecting I also receive the schedule, but the car is not charged even one kilowatt in the morning. I can only charge using manual control. I have it set to a maximum of 80% and the current battery level is 41%
Have you gone through the steps to re-authorise the Octopus app with Tesla as outlined in Octopus' recent email? And if you did that, are you sure you gave the app the correct permissions? There's a post further up this thread where I helped someone alter the permissions after they misclicked during the setup on the app.

(This may not be the issue, but I'm trying to think of recent changes that may have caused this)
 
Have you gone through the steps to re-authorise the Octopus app with Tesla as outlined in Octopus' recent email? And if you did that, are you sure you gave the app the correct permissions? There's a post further up this thread where I helped someone alter the permissions after they misclicked during the setup on the app.

(This may not be the issue, but I'm trying to think of recent changes that may have caused this)
Hmm. I reinstalled and still the same.
 
It's not about reinstalling, it's about Octopus having the right permissions to access the API. Is it showing in your Tesla account as per this post

I've selected the permissions as it shows in the post however, when i get to the page to 'set up third party virtual key' where it says download the app/log in (i have the app downloaded and logged in) i click on Finish Setup and the page just reloads and nothing happens. Any ideas?
 
I've selected the permissions as it shows in the post however, when i get to the page to 'set up third party virtual key' where it says download the app/log in (i have the app downloaded and logged in) i click on Finish Setup and the page just reloads and nothing happens. Any ideas?
I'm not sure what else to suggest. Perhaps disconnect your car from the Octopus app and go back through the onboarding wizard. At least then Octopus will confirm they can do the test charge (or otherwise).
 
I'm not sure what else to suggest. Perhaps disconnect your car from the Octopus app and go back through the onboarding wizard. At least then Octopus will confirm they can do the test charge (or otherwise).
Yes. I disconnected the car from the octopus app many times and installed it. I receive a test load and then a schedule. During scheduled hours, the charger does not turn on.
 

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I've selected the permissions as it shows in the post however, when i get to the page to 'set up third party virtual key' where it says download the app/log in (i have the app downloaded and logged in) i click on Finish Setup and the page just reloads and nothing happens. Any ideas?
I remember the same sort of thing when I did it. I had to click on Already have token (or something like that) to get to the next bit.
 
Yes. I disconnected the car from the octopus app many times and installed it. I receive a test load and then a schedule. During scheduled hours, the charger does not turn on.
The car should be (permanently) set to 100%, not 80% as you have shown. It is the IOG target that will determine the charge (ie 80%)

Are you sure under 'Schedule' on the Tesla app that both 'Departure' & 'Charge' have all the sliders greyed out?
 
The car should be (permanently) set to 100%, not 80% as you have shown. It is the IOG target that will determine the charge (ie 80%)

Are you sure under 'Schedule' on the Tesla app that both 'Departure' & 'Charge' have all the sliders greyed out?
I've tried all the options, 100% and 80%, and it doesn't change anything. The limit was set to 80% and everything worked. I don't have any schedules turned on. The car charged like this for two years until the last update. I didn't change anything. I only installed the latest version of the octopus app.
 
I’ve been looking at octopus and these issue make me feel it’s all a bit too complicated. I got the impression irrespective of charging whenever octopus sees it as a good idea, you get 6 hours of cheap rate over night. Is it possible to get your car to charge then (using a simple start charge at midnight) and get the cheap rate?
 
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Yes, I have a schedule, but the Tesla does not charge automatically during these scheduled hours.
My car has started doing this today. It was fine a couple of days ago and I haven't changed anything and I haven’t updated the app when they asked previously as it was all working fine.
My view was “ if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” maybe it needs fixing :p now
I’ll leave it for a few days and see what happens as I don’t need to charge much anyway
 
I’ve been looking at octopus and these issue make me feel it’s all a bit too complicated. I got the impression irrespective of charging whenever octopus sees it as a good idea, you get 6 hours of cheap rate over night. Is it possible to get your car to charge then (using a simple start charge at midnight) and get the cheap rate?
Yes but beware the T&Cs which require you to make at least one smart charge per month. IOG is not meant to be used as a 6 hour Go.

I have never found it complicated, it's always been faultless and pure simplicity - plug in, manually stop the charge via the Tesla app, a schedule appears sometime over the next hour or so & the car then charges to the SOC required. Even disconnecting and reconnecting cars three times has been trouble free (Model 3, Model Y and a recent request to disconnect & re-instate the Model Y after Tesla made API changes).
 
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Yes but beware the T&Cs which require you to make at least one smart charge per month. IOG is not meant to be used as a 6 hour Go.

I have never found it complicated, it's always been faultless and pure simplicity - plug in, manually stop the charge via the Tesla app, a schedule appears sometime over the next hour or so & the car then charges to the SOC required. Even disconnecting and reconnecting cars three times has been trouble free (Model 3, Model Y and a recent request to re-instate the Model Y after Tesla made API changes).
Thanks - the monthly charge makes sense.

Last question for today.. with the energy cap changing at the end of next month, are the current rates likely to drop, are you locked in or are they already reflected, or I guess maybe nobody knows? I’m aware these types of tariffs aren’t obliged to follow the energy cap rate so they have more freedom than most as the average rate paid is almost certainly lower