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

 

[Js1977]

so how do you explain the fact that prior to the 'refresh' there was no schedule - after the 'refresh' there was a schedule?

Really??...Think about it

 

[zoros]

kootuu - does this help?

https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaUK/comments/14gbbw0

 

[Ledzep]

Signed up to IO last night and all seemed ok, managed to do a test charge after a few attempts but overnight the car didn't charge.

This is my setup:

Model 3 SR+
PodPoint Solo 7kW

This morning I saw the smart charge schedule had a slot between 8am and 9am but again, the car didn't charge.

I've since disconnected car and added it again but now I can't get a successful test charge no matter how many times I try. I've disconnected the car multiple times, reconnected it, etc. It just won't do a test charge.

There is no scheduling setup on the car or pod point.

Any idea how to fix this?

hi @kootuu , we are in the same boat, have the same car and charger @browellm has been really helpful , but same with us after nearly 2 weeks , IO GO wont tell the car to charge over night, or when the smart schedules have been assigned, which the app always does.

octopus CC are starting to annoy, today we were told its because we have a limit on the car and to remove it ?? !!! how can I remove a limit that's part of the cars software ..... ?? the only thing i can think they mean is set the percent the same on the car as the app?

all I'm currently doing is setting the schedule in the car to start at the first smart charge slot given by the octopus app, not really that intelligent though

 

[KennethS]

hi @kootuu , we are in the same boat, have the same car and charger @browellm has been really helpful , but same with us after nearly 2 weeks , IO GO wont tell the car to charge over night, or when the smart schedules have been assigned, which the app always does.

octopus CC are starting to annoy, today we were told its because we have a limit on the car and to remove it ?? !!! how can I remove a limit that's part of the cars software ..... ?? the only thing i can think they mean is set the percent the same on the car as the app?

all I'm currently doing is setting the schedule in the car to start at the first smart charge slot given by the octopus app, not really that intelligent though

I'm sure you know this but if you have an upper charge limit set on the car that is below the one you set in the Octopus app, it seems the app won't set a schedule or attempt to charge the car.

 

[browellm]

probably coincidence but I do see a number of reports involving Wallbox chargers. If it’s fully configured to be a properly dumb charger it really shouldn’t be a cause of issues, but odd all the same.

 

[Js1977]

I do see a number of reports involving Wallbox chargers

I use mine for IO and there are no issues to be fair. No problems here but has you say, people need to make sure they remove all their schedules or it messes it up.

 

[xreyuk]

I think you will find IOG reports all usage by car and house. If you look in the app you can tell what usage you had during the night and then look for a night when you didn't charge. Take the 2 away and you will be left with roughly what went into the car.

Your Hypervolt is probably reporting the correct figure.

Note: Your car reports what went into the battery and not what was taken from the supply. There could be a big difference if battery heater is used during the night to help charge you battery, as what happened for the last few nights...

I'm using TeslaFi that reports both what went into the battery and what was used from the supply. In the example below you can see that the battery heater was running

View attachment 1010622

Thanks. Tesla reported 50kwh going to the car, and 52.5kwh out the charger, hypervolt reported 55kwh out the charger, and Octopus reported the 64kwh. I have no idea where Octopus are getting that figure from cause looking at my historical usage, there's no way the house used an extra 10kwh in the charging time (around 8 hours). I'm using 8-9 kwh per 24 hours on a normal non charging day.

 

[zoros]

I find Octopus CC do their best when it comes to assistance regarding IO and its foibles. But they aren't technicians.
I asked to speak to technical and they have redirected me to:
[email protected] for assistance where the nerds live!
Apparently you cannot phone them (there is no contact number available it seems) because they have been inundated since IO was launched! So they request that enquiries are sent via email and they will ring back on a priority basis.

 

[kelvin 660]

I think that the Octopus app 'devices' tab doesn't report usage very accurately...

Last night TeslaFi reported 29.83 kWh used and 28.67 kWh added to the battery, whereas the Octopus app 'devices' tab reported 36.83 kWh used, but looking at half hour usage only 30.58 kWh was actually used!

 

[kootuu]

hi @kootuu , we are in the same boat, have the same car and charger @browellm has been really helpful , but same with us after nearly 2 weeks , IO GO wont tell the car to charge over night, or when the smart schedules have been assigned, which the app always does.

octopus CC are starting to annoy, today we were told its because we have a limit on the car and to remove it ?? !!! how can I remove a limit that's part of the cars software ..... ?? the only thing i can think they mean is set the percent the same on the car as the app?

all I'm currently doing is setting the schedule in the car to start at the first smart charge slot given by the octopus app, not really that intelligent though

Will try that, although I'm currently in an endless "Uh oh, we can't get your information" loop after disconnecting the car again in the Octopus app and trying to re-add it. Just doesn't let me me add it anymore :/

 

[Ledzep]

I'm sure you know this but if you have an upper charge limit set on the car that is below the one you set in the Octopus app, it seems the app won't set a schedule or attempt to charge the car.

Hi @KennethS , yes car has always been set above whats set on the octopus app.

 

[Ledzep]

Will try that, although I'm currently in an endless "Uh oh, we can't get your information" loop after disconnecting the car again in the Octopus app and trying to re-add it. Just doesn't let me me add it anymore :/

@kootuu , you may have to call them, we had issues when first trying to switch, which meant they had to reset the account ? as it wouldn't let us add the car initially.

 

[Masklin]

Will try that, although I'm currently in an endless "Uh oh, we can't get your information" loop after disconnecting the car again in the Octopus app and trying to re-add it. Just doesn't let me me add it anymore :/

My connection has fallen over and, having removed the car and then attempted to reconnect I’m now having the same issue. Thought the connection failing may have been due to the API switch, having just reconnected the car to TeslaFi for the new API, but that’s just an uneducated guess. Have switched to scheduled charging for the moment and if not able to reconnect over next day or two I’ll call Octopus.

 

[Bernard_S]

I'm sure you know this but if you have an upper charge limit set on the car that is below the one you set in the Octopus app, it seems the app won't set a schedule or attempt to charge the car.

You need to set the limit in the car to at least 6% more than the limit set in the Octopus app for it to start a charge.

 

[KennethS]

You need to set the limit in the car to at least 6% more than the limit set in the Octopus app for it to start a charge.

I’ve only been on IO for 7 months or so but I’ve never had to do that. I charge it most nights.

 

[Ledzep]

You need to set the limit in the car to at least 6% more than the limit set in the Octopus app for it to start a charge.

I've tried having them the same and having the car above the limit set in the octopus app.

The app and car appear to be talking as when i plug in i get a charging schedule, but when it comes to charge time nothing happens. All octopus say is third party scheduling is stopping the charge, am at a loss tbh.

 

[browellm]

I've tried having them the same and having the car above the limit set in the octopus app.

The app and car appear to be talking as when i plug in i get a charging schedule, but when it comes to charge time nothing happens. All octopus say is third party scheduling is stopping the charge, am at a loss tbh.

Have you ever used something like ev energy or similar apps, even if it was years ago?

Normally I would suggest resetting your Tesla password and re-authenticating the Octopus app against that. Problem is at the moment Tesla seem to be rolling out the Fleet API and it's breaking third party apps who disconnect from their old systems. Hence people going back through onboarding and not being able to get back on.

 

[Masklin]

Have you ever used something like ev energy or similar apps, even if it was years ago?

Normally I would suggest resetting your Tesla password and re-authenticating the Octopus app against that. Problem is at the moment Tesla seem to be rolling out the Fleet API and it's breaking third party apps who disconnect from their old systems. Hence people going back through onboarding and not being able to get back on.

The issues I mentioned a little earlier seem (fingers crossed!) to have been resolved by doing just that, resetting Tesla password and then re-authenticating Octopus, (plus TeslaFi and Phone Key which also needed doing post password change).

 

[zoros]

Ledzep: Do you have the schedule button to ON in your TeslaApp on the 'Schedule/Charge' page?
Mine's off.

 

[fox5150]

There appears to be a new enrolment process with Tesla asking to confirm the access that Octopus needs. Also asks to configure a virtual key for Octopus. I’m not at home so I didn’t complete it, but it was talking to the car successfully now.