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]

Thanks for the response. This makes sense, though is unfortunately a terrible implementation by Octopus.

Manually stopping the charge every time I plug in is asking for trouble, as one of us is bound to forget and end up chugging away electric at 43p/kWh. Would leaving the Zappi on Eco+ but with a boost timer covering a wide range (ie. 2200 - 0800) work? The car recognises it’s plugged in, would that be good enough for IO to map a charge?

You would be better following the strategy @Coinneach Cìr and others have documented. @Skie can walk you through it as well.

 

[Cardo]

You would be better following the strategy @Coinneach Cìr and others have documented. @Skie can walk you through it as well.

Does IO overrule the off-peak end time setting? My concern would be if I set it up to end charge at say 0700 hrs (which is what I set in the Octopus app) and the car decides it will start charging at 0100 hrs. If IO then wants to start charging at 2330, will it start charging or will the charge delay until 0100?

 

[browellm]

Does IO overrule the off-peak end time setting? My concern would be if I set it up to end charge at say 0700 hrs (which is what I set in the Octopus app) and the car decides it will start charging at 0100 hrs. If IO then wants to start charging at 2330, will it start charging or will the charge delay until 0100?

They're just on/off control signals so the last signal should always "win"

 

[Skie]

Does IO overrule the off-peak end time setting? My concern would be if I set it up to end charge at say 0700 hrs (which is what I set in the Octopus app) and the car decides it will start charging at 0100 hrs. If IO then wants to start charging at 2330, will it start charging or will the charge delay until 0100?

IO always wins unless you use the Octopus app to bump charge.

My car has been set to complete off-peak charging by 5:30 and IO always does it's thing, no matter when the IO charging periods are calculated for. You can even check your monthly bill and see the cheap-rate periods matching with the higher demand from the car charging, it works really well.

 

[giorgosa]

Hi all,

I have on order a M3, expected early January.

A couple of questions:

- I dont have an off street parking. This means I’ll plug in at about 23.15 and disconnect at about 06.00. Would this work ok with IO as I see that it takes some hours for schedule to be created? Do I need a schedule if I charge only at the reduced Tariff hours?
- how much accurate is the geolocation? I’ll use a 20m cable to charge, which means that car will be approximately 20 meters away for the address registered in the bill. Will it be a problem?

Thanks in advance

 

[Cardo]

IO always wins unless you use the Octopus app to bump charge.

My car has been set to complete off-peak charging by 5:30 and IO always does it's thing, no matter when the IO charging periods are calculated for. You can even check your monthly bill and see the cheap-rate periods matching with the higher demand from the car charging, it works really well.

I left the Zappi on Fast and the car set with an off-peak charge by 0700 hrs time to coincide with my IO settings. IO mapped a a charge from 0430 to 0600 hrs (although I knew the car would need at least two hours to charge to the limit I’d set). Looking at the charge history overnight, the car started charging at 0430 and then stopped at 0600 as per the charge plan. However, moments later it started again and charged until about 0630 when the car reached the charge limit.

My query is:

Did the car resume charging of its own accord to ensure it reached the charge limit because I’d set the charge by time to 0700? Or did IO realise it hadn’t charged sufficiently when it stopped at 0600 and added on another 30 minutes to fully charge the car? If the former, that extra half hour will be at my 43p peak rate, whilst if it’s the latter I’d imagine it’ll be at the 10p off-peak rate.

 

[SteveJol]

I left the Zappi on Fast and the car set with an off-peak charge by 0700 hrs time to coincide with my IO settings.

I don't know the answer to your specific question, but why set the off-peak to 7am when IO's guaranteed slot only runs to 5.30?

 

[Cardo]

I don't know the answer to your specific question, but why set the off-peak to 7am when IO's guaranteed slot only runs to 5.30?

But the mapped charge doesn’t necessarily coincide with the 2330-0530 slot. Last night, for example, it was set to 0430-0600. If I’d set the car to charge by 0530, wouldn’t this interfere with the IO mapped charge?

 

[SteveJol]

But the mapped charge doesn’t necessarily coincide with the 2330-0530 slot. Last night, for example, it was set to 0430-0600. If I’d set the car to charge by 0530, wouldn’t this interfere with the IO mapped charge?

No, IO does it's thing regardless. Set your car off peak to 5.30 and forget about it (safe in the knowledge the car won't instigate charge after that time). IO will still start after this time if it wants to.

 

[Cardo]

No, IO does it's thing regardless. Set your car off peak to 5.30 and forget about it (safe in the knowledge the car won't instigate charge after that time). IO will still start after this time if it wants to.

Cool, thanks. Off-peak is now set to 0530. What about departure time? This seems mandatory when an off-peak time is set. Can I leave departure at 0700 or will this interfere?

 

[SteveJol]

I have my departure time mirroring what I have set in IO, both are 8am. Don't envisage 7am being an issue.

 

[Garry TheBiz]

The only catch to be aware of, when using the off-peak time in the app, is that IO can never use any slots after 5.30am. This is because the car will initiate a charge itself to reach your target SOC by 5.30am, even if IO was waiting to start a charge later than that.

The upside is, when plugging in on an evening, you don't have to stop the charge yourself. Also even if IO fails to start a charge, or fails to reach your set SOC, the car will ensure it's met.
The downside is you'll not be able to take advantage of slots after 5.30am, such as last night, when most people got the additional 5.30am to 6am slot.

It's a bit of a trade off. I've worked with it both ways, and probably prefer using the off-peak time, as it's one less thing to do when arriving home. Personal choice really.

 

[HenryT]

The only catch to be aware of, when using the off-peak time in the app, is that IO can never use any slots after 5.30am. This is because the car will initiate a charge itself to reach your target SOC by 5.30am, even if IO was waiting to start a charge later than that.

The upside is, when plugging in on an evening, you don't have to stop the charge yourself. Also even if IO fails to start a charge, or fails to reach your set SOC, the car will ensure it's met.
The downside is you'll not be able to take advantage of slots after 5.30am, such as last night, when most people got the additional 5.30am to 6am slot.

It's a bit of a trade off. I've worked with it both ways, and probably prefer using the off-peak time, as it's one less thing to do when arriving home. Personal choice really.

Wouldn't the compromise solution be to set the off-peak time to (say) 06.30?

 

[browellm]

Wouldn't the compromise solution be to set the off-peak time to (say) 06.30?

I got a slot at 9am this morning. It's one of the reasons I just don't use this method.

Also have to frig about with the % charge slider in the app anyway or it will merrily charge to 100% because IO is slow to send control signals.

 

[Cardo]

The only catch to be aware of, when using the off-peak time in the app, is that IO can never use any slots after 5.30am. This is because the car will initiate a charge itself to reach your target SOC by 5.30am, even if IO was waiting to start a charge later than that.

The upside is, when plugging in on an evening, you don't have to stop the charge yourself. Also even if IO fails to start a charge, or fails to reach your set SOC, the car will ensure it's met.
The downside is you'll not be able to take advantage of slots after 5.30am, such as last night, when most people got the additional 5.30am to 6am slot.

It's a bit of a trade off. I've worked with it both ways, and probably prefer using the off-peak time, as it's one less thing to do when arriving home. Personal choice really.

This was my thinking.

However, as long as IO smart charging is enabled, even if the car charges out of the planned windows, wouldn’t we still benefit from the cheaper electric? For example, I had 0430 to 0600 last night. If the car had charged and finished by 0530 as per the off-peak setting, would I still benefit from the cheaper electric 0530 - 0600? Whilst this may throw off IO’s intentions, it makes no practical difference to the end user.

 

[Garry TheBiz]

For example, I had 0430 to 0600 last night. If the car had charged and finished by 0530 as per the off-peak setting, would I still benefit from the cheaper electric 0530 - 0600? Whilst this may throw off IO’s intentions, it makes no practical difference to the end user.

My concern too. As I understand it, IO will dynamically adjust the slots according to your cars SOC, adding more if needed, or removing them if not. I've seen this happen so believe it to be so. (Doesn't explain why IO is happy to leave you car a few % below set SOC though, but I'm not that fussed about that).

Also to answer @HenryT 's question about setting a later off peak time. The consequence of that is that if IO fails to meet your SOC, stopping a few % short, as it tends to do, then the car will finish off that last few % in peak hours. Now since I'm not fussed if I have 77% or 80% on a morning, I'd rather not have the last 3% at all, than have it at peak rate.

Again it's personal preference, as to whether you're more concerned about achieving the exact SOC %, or keeping your charging exclusively to off-peak rates, or missing out on the odd few off-peak slots after 5.30am. It seems a compromise whatever route you choose, even if that's stopping the charge manually each time you plug in.

For anyone interested, I'm trying a few changes in my Home Assistant to automate the whole process. eg.
When my car is plugged in,
and it's location is at home
and it's between 5pm and 11pm
then
set the charge limit to 80%
change the Zappi to fast
wait 10 seconds
stop the charge

This goes hand in hand with this automation:
When it's my departure time, eg. 8.30am
and the car's location is at home
and it's a weekday
then
change the zappi to eco+ (this stops pre-heat drawing power from peak rate mains)
turn on the climate in the car

This allows my wife to plug in her car and charge from solar during the day without having to change the mode on the zappi. Not that there's any spare solar this time of year!

another one I've set up is:
When the front door is opened
and the car's location is at home
and the time is between 8am and 9am on a weekday
then
stop the charge
unlock the charge cable

 

[Cardo]

With the above in mind, I’m thinking maybe leaving the Zappi in Eco+ during the day, with a HA automation to switch it to Fast at 2200 and then back to Eco+ at 0700. This should stop early charges on plugin and also avoid the car pulling from the grid during our preheat, which starts at 0700.

 

[Skie]

The only catch to be aware of, when using the off-peak time in the app, is that IO can never use any slots after 5.30am. This is because the car will initiate a charge itself to reach your target SOC by 5.30am, even if IO was waiting to start a charge later than that.

Not true in the slightest. If IO schedules a charge after 5:30am it will tell the car to charge and the car will charge. The off-peak 5:30am setting is just to stop the car charging as soon as it's plugged in, instead it will calculate it's own time to charge to be finished by 5:30am (which IO will stop if it's not aligned to IOs schedule)

I get 6-9am schedules from IO regularly and the car is always at my desired SOC each morning and has charged during the IO windows when checked against the graph on the bill.

I think people get confused when talking about API's and IO/Tesla as if it's some sort of mystical extra way to control charging. It isnt. IO is simply a dumb finger pressing the start charge button, the same one you have in the app. If you can press that button in the app, so can IO, and the car 100% respects the button being pressed no matter how it's pressed: Tentacles via the API or flappy meat on a phone.

 

[Skie]

Quick example. IO had a smattering of charge periods overnight and then 6-6:30 and 7-7:30 = additional IO scheduled charging. Car set to stop off-peak charging at 5:30 and you can plainly see the charging happening when IO wanted it to happen.

 

[browellm]

View attachment 886440
Quick example. IO had a smattering of charge periods overnight and then 6-6:30 and 7-7:30 = additional IO scheduled charging. Car set to stop off-peak charging at 5:30 and you can plainly see the charging happening when IO wanted it to happen.

Are you setting the Tesla app charge % to match what is set in the Octopus app?

I've tried this method a couple of times and because of the flakiness of getting stop commands from IO, I've found it will just carry on charging right up to whatever is set in the Tesla app. Tried it again today: 60% in Octopus and a 70% cap in the Tesla app. Car charged all the way to 70%.