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

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

 

[browellm]

If the phantom drain is fixed, I will be happy to switch to IO.

I don't know why you'd deny yourself 2+ hours of additional off-peak tariff when the workaround is pressing three buttons, but that's your prerogative. But for sure, it would be a good QoL update if that bug is fixed.

 

[Darreno]

I don't know why you'd deny yourself 2+ hours of additional off-peak tariff when the workaround is pressing three buttons, but that's your prerogative. But for sure, it would be a good QoL update if that bug is fixed.

It’s more the wife. She won’t remember nor want to press that button all the time.

Plus with a PW on the way, working out the best way to go about it to prevent the IO draining the battery into the car.

 

[Undecided_2]

I have had smart charging enabled since 2nd August on iO. I’ve not experienced phantom drain when the car is not plugged in. We spent a week away and the SOC didn’t behave any differently. There are no chargers in Bampton, Devon. So we would have noticed.

 

[Garry TheBiz]

I believe the phantom drain only happens when you're at home and not plugged in.

I leave IO active all the time, and nearly always plug in at home. I've only ever experienced it on the odd occasion I've not plugged in at home.

My opinion is that this issue is exaggerated out of proportion.

However, I accept that not everybody's use case is the same, as there are those who prefer not to plug in every day at home. If you wait until your battery is low to charge once every few days, then you may have many hours at home unplugged and phantom drain will become significant.

 

[Adopado]

I don't know why you'd deny yourself 2+ hours of additional off-peak tariff when the workaround is pressing three buttons, but that's your prerogative. But for sure, it would be a good QoL update if that bug is fixed.

I suppose it’s because some people hardly ever need those additional 2 hours so remembering the work-around is an unnecessary irritation … if you regularly need them then yes, it’s a no brainer.

 

[Billbrown1982]

Well because of the conversation, when I got home last night I intentionally didn't plug my car in and left IO enabled.

It took an hour to go to sleep, but then stayed asleep until a 7.30am where it woke for an hour and then back to sleep until now.

Still on 61% which was how I left it.

 

[pcgtron]

It would be great if the phantom drain is now fixed. I'm forever going into the app to stop and start octopus being in control of the car charging. I'll experiment over the next couple of days. Was never a deal breaker for me, but would make a huge difference if I didn't have to do it

 

[JIBYC]

I've finally managed to sign up to IO from Go.

Any idea how long the plug in charge should last - it's been going for a few minutes and IO hasn't intervened?

 

[Undecided_2]

I've finally managed to sign up to IO from Go.

Any idea how long the plug in charge should last - it's been going for a few minutes and IO hasn't intervened?

I’ve had it charge for up to an hour before iO stopped it. When I checked back the next day the charge it put in disappeared - so several kW was complimentary. As they control the charge and state it will only do it during off peak I suppose they just correct it later on.

Typically it’s only around 5-15 mins before iO stops it. I sometimes stop it manually if we want our PV to cover over stuff.

 

[Skie]

In the Tesla app if you set the car to prefer to charge during off peak and with an off-peak end time of 5:30 the car won’t start charging when you plug in during the day and this allows IO to start the charge at the correct time. Only been on IO 2 weeks myself but once I set that up it’s behaved itself and I plug in every day.

 

[browellm]

In the Tesla app if you set the car to prefer to charge during off peak and with an off-peak end time of 5:30 the car won’t start charging when you plug in during the day and this allows IO to start the charge at the correct time. Only been on IO 2 weeks myself but once I set that up it’s behaved itself and I plug in every day.

Don't do this. It goes against the entire point of the tariff and if the car schedules charges outside of the fixed window, your car won't reach its target % charge.

 

[Zakalwe]

In the Tesla app if you set the car to prefer to charge during off peak and with an off-peak end time of 5:30 the car won’t start charging when you plug in during the day and this allows IO to start the charge at the correct time. Only been on IO 2 weeks myself but once I set that up it’s behaved itself and I plug in every day.

You have to allow the Octopus app to control the charging. All other controls need to be turned off, this includes the car scheduling and any scheduling on the charger.

 

[Skie]

Don't do this. It goes against the entire point of the tariff and if the car schedules charges outside of the fixed window, your car won't reach its target % charge.

It’s not scheduling a charge though, just telling the car to not start outside of off-peak unless you tell it to. It just stops the charge kicking off when you plug in at the higher cost per kWh.

In 2 weeks my charges have all been triggered by IO, including when the window has a large gap. IO will stop the car charging if it decides to start itself (like it does when you plug in without this toggled on) and IO will start a charge when it wants to no matter the cars protests about peak. IO starting a charge is exactly the same as a user hitting the start charge button and overrides any schedules in the car.

Some of the other settings will interfere, but this really doesn’t.

 

[browellm]

with an off-peak end time of 5:30

Some of the other settings will interfere, but this really doesn’t.

If the car schedules slots after 5:30am the car won't charge because you've blocked it from charging after that time. Hence you won't get to your target %.

 

[Skie]

If the car schedules slots after 5:30am the car won't charge because you've blocked it from charging after that time. Hence you won't get to your target %.

But if IO schedules one after then it will. IO knows the SOC you want so it should be able to squeeze enough charges in anyway.

But if you’re granny charging or going from very low to high then I guess the off peak setting could cause an issue. Can always set it to when you’d want the car to be ready, it’d still stop the unwanted charge on plugin.

 

[browellm]

Unwanted charge on plugin is not really a problem, and if you're paranoid you can press stop charging in the Tesla app once you've plugged in.

 

[Undecided_2]

The only thing that I learnt was that I needed to set the SOC higher in the Tesla for iO to charge to that. I assumed Octopus would override what was set.

 

[m3gt2]

You have to allow the Octopus app to control the charging. All other controls need to be turned off, this includes the car scheduling and any scheduling on the charger.

I have also set my car to only charge off peak, it stops the car charging when you initially plug in before IO takes control, plus IO has had a few glitches with charging before but since seeing the car in this east it's been flawless, touch wood it stays this way!

 

[Zakalwe]

It’s not scheduling a charge though, just telling the car to not start outside of off-peak unless you tell it to. It just stops the charge kicking off when you plug in at the higher cost per kWh.

In 2 weeks my charges have all been triggered by IO, including when the window has a large gap. IO will stop the car charging if it decides to start itself (like it does when you plug in without this toggled on) and IO will start a charge when it wants to no matter the cars protests about peak. IO starting a charge is exactly the same as a user hitting the start charge button and overrides any schedules in the car.

Some of the other settings will interfere, but this really doesn’t.

The point of IO is that off-peak can be variable. It can offer off-peak slots before and after the "standard" times of 23:30 to 05:30. That's the whole point of it to allow Octopus to move off-peak to whenever electricity is the cheapest.

I'm not saying that what you are doing won't work, but it's not the point of IO.

 

[Undecided_2]

The point of IO is that off-peak can be variable. It can offer off-peak slots before and after the "standard" times of 23:30 to 05:30. That's the whole point of it to allow Octopus to move off-peak to whenever electricity is the cheapest.

I'm not saying that what you are doing won't work, but it's not the point of IO.

Octopus iO has charged the car during the day many times. The actual charge in kWs doesn’t show at the time so I suppose Octopus move it to off peak. If I plug in and it starts charging during peak times again, we’re not charged full rate and the app doesn’t show that it put anything into the battery during that period of activity.

I always go all in and not that fussed about micro managing the car. The only thing we do is keep the Tesla SOC under 50% unless we’re travelling. iO has been working really well so far and we’re glad we switched from EDF.