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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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Pretty sure the T&Cs prohibit this otherwise owners could use their car at friends & relatives addresses to fix them a tariff that they aren't eligible for.
Couldn’t see anything in the T&Cs.

The location checking aspect could potentially cause confusion in the system though.

ie. the Octopus system would perhaps need to have been set up to allow an EV to have more than one home location - which it probably hasn’t.

1668783216724.png
 
The FAQ explicitly says you can't
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If both properties happened to be on the IO tariff with another car registered, then you could de-register that car from the app along with your car from the app and re-run the test charge at the new property, and vice versa.

You'd quickly go insane though.
 
The FAQ explicitly says you can't
View attachment 875827

If both properties happened to be on the IO tariff with another car registered, then you could de-register that car from the app along with your car from the app and re-run the test charge at the new property, and vice versa.

You'd quickly go insane though.
I’m not sure that’s completely clear - it could be taken to mean that if I had two properties both with IO accounts both in my name. In that case, I (as the legal bill payer) would be benefiting twice, so I can see why that would be forbidden…but with two different bill payers it’s a slightly different situation, I think.
 
I’m not sure that’s completely clear - it could be taken to mean that if I had two properties both with IO accounts both in my name. In that case, I (as the legal bill payer) would be benefiting twice, so I can see why that would be forbidden…but with two different bill payers it’s a slightly different situation, I think.
Go ahead mate you know best obvs. :rolleyes:

Apart from the service being geofenced to your property when you've completed the test charge and you having to do the de-register thing I mentioned.
 
I’m not sure that’s completely clear - it could be taken to mean that if I had two properties both with IO accounts both in my name. In that case, I (as the legal bill payer) would be benefiting twice, so I can see why that would be forbidden…but with two different bill payers it’s a slightly different situation, I think.
The FAQ quoted says nothing about preventing two separate houses, with two separate IO accounts under two separate names being linked to the same car. (Your query) It just says that an IO account is linked to one property. IO doesn't have to be linked to any car as in my case it is linked to my charger. Just give it a try and see. The worst that can happen is it won't work.
 
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I’ve already explained the car is geofenced to the property and for it to work you’ll need to de-register it from the app and perform a test charge at the new location every time.
If both properties have IO accounts (one property linked to each IO account as per the FAQ) there is nothing to say the same car couldn't be geofenced to both properties. The only way to be sure is to try it. If it doesn't work there is nothing lost👍.
 
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If both properties have IO accounts (one property linked to each IO account as per the FAQ) there is nothing to say the same car couldn't be geofenced to both properties. The only way to be sure is to try it. If it doesn't work there is nothing lost👍
Look I don't know if you're not on IO at the moment and just don't understand the mechanics of it, but the way the car is geo-fenced to your property is at the test charge phase.

The only way you can do a test charge is when you register your car.

The only way to register a car which is already registered already is to de-register it from the account it is already registered to.
 
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What evidence do you want mate? I've been using IO for 18 months. I wrote the OP to this thread. I've posted from the FAQ. I've described in detail the process of when and how the car is geo-fenced and registered to an account.
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Any evidence or experience of not being able to have a car registered at two separate addresses and accounts would be suffice!

Given this will be a fairly rare requirement. I suppose it would be expected that this forum or the IO forums wouldn't be much help to answer the users question without first hand experience or reference to something from IO.
Can you direct us to anything that says a car can't be linked to two separate accounts?
What concern would this be to Octopus that they would want to prevent this?

Account/property A will smart charge when Account A's registered device is at Account A's geofenced home location. Likewise for account/property B. When the device isn't at an accounts geofenced home location then IO isn't interested. This isn't difficult.
What knowledge do you have to share to say that geofencing is going to cause issues and the user shouldn't try to do it on your advice?
 
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?
If your not willing to contribute educating us non educated (hopefully without the toys coming out of the pushchair!) then why start the thread? Genuinely want to understand what I'm missing on this as it should be the way it will work for businesses with multiple premises when we're all electric.
Sick of repeating myself. Last time:

  • The way the car is geo-fenced to your property is at the test charge phase.
  • The only way you can do a test charge is when you register your car
  • The only way to register a car which is already registered already is to de-register it from the account it is already registered to.
That is the only way you can hop one car between two separate properties both on Intelligent.

Of course you can charge any non-registered car in the fixed off-peak window. But two have a car registered and doing IO stuff at both places would require the de-register -> re-register rigmarole.
 
Sick of repeating myself. Last time:


That is the only way you can hop one car between two separate properties both on Intelligent.

Of course you can charge any non-registered car in the fixed off-peak window. But two have a car registered and doing IO stuff at both places would require the de-register -> re-register rigmarole.
  • The only way to register a car which is already registered already is to de-register it from the account it is already registered to.
This is the bit I'm not clear on. Where have you seen this?