Intelligent octopus

[Nagus]

Anyone got Intelligent Octopus working with their Skoda Superb IV PHEV? 

I was trying to take advantage of the low overnight tariff. I have a SyncEV charger. I went through the Octopus app & it all goes through right up to the last part stating the connection was successful but couldn't find any available vehicles. Just wondering if someone has successfully got this to work? I've checked that the car location sharing as activated & that there are no updates available. 

[MarkyG82]

I'm on various forums and everyone has issues with this on vag cars to varying success. I too have a syncev point and the smart bits have been improved recently. I rely on the car driving the charge times etc so don't use the smarts built in to the wall point.

Something like a zappi would be better I think.

[jjc]

I am trying to do the same and get the same error, hope Octopus are able to sort it soon

Have you contacted customer support so they know, the more of us report it possibly the sooner they may fix it 🙂

 

John

[Nagus]

I have sent an email explaining the problem to Octopus so here's hoping they get back to me with a positive resolution. It does say to make sure that the vehicle has the latest firmware. Is that an over the air update or is it something the dealer has to do? 

[Patent]

Are you sure the iV has this functionality?

[aerofurb]

Similar for me - invited by Octopus to join Intelligent Octopus as my Octopus Go deal is about to finish. Got all the way through the process fine (Superb iV was on the list) and when it got to the test mode, came up with the same screen as above. After it said it was all fine. Email sent to octopus but nothing back yet. 

[jjc]

They have updated the app, now and it tells you to wait up to 5 mins and also retry. However mine still fails 😞

 

John

[Nagus]

Hmmm, getting a bit further through the testing on the Octopus app but failing on the last connection test. 🙁

 

Intelligent Octopus is so close I can smell it. 😂😂

 

 

[jjc]

Just re-tried my connection and WOO HOO it went through 🙂

Did need to ensure that I set the charger to "charge" ie disabled my solar divert and set it to a "dumb" charge mode.

Suspect it will switch over tonight at midnight

 

John 

[aerofurb]

Just tried again via the Octopus app and mine appears to have worked this time. 
 

I’ll find out in the morning….!

[aerofurb]

Well the car is showing at 80% which it was set to charge to.

 

I switched off the ‘off peak’ hours option on both the EO charger app and the Skoda app, as instructed by Octopus. 
 

I’ve also had a confirmation email from Octopus saying I’m my Intelligent Octopus tariff is ‘live’. 

[jjc]

Looks like they have fixed the issues 🙂 

Mine all connected and looked to have done a charge.

Just got to work out how to ensure the car does not try to charge up from the house battery, which it will if the charge is set outside the standard reduced tariff time.

 

John

[Nagus]

I've got my SyncEV charger on 'dumb' which means it charges as soon as I plug my car in. Can I ask were your cars charging when you tried the Octopus app? Both charger & car is set to 'dumb' 

My car is fully charged ATM so I'll try again tomorrow. 

[aerofurb]

Mine was plugged in, not charging and at about 14% with it set to charge to 80%. 
 

I haven’t used it today so it shouldn’t do anything tonight…

[Nagus]

Is it possible the reason I can't get it to complete the connection test is because I have a SMETS1 smart meter? Also there seems to be no way to plug my car into the SyncEV charger without it automatically starting to charge. If I stop the charge using the syncEV app it will not start charging again unless I unplug & plug the car back in. Still no word back from Octopus after a second email. I'm going to get this working if it kills me. 😁

[jjc]

@Nagus

 

I think you have to have the car charging (I did for mine) as it looks like they test their control by stopping the charge.

 

John

[Nagus]

Woohoo, after trying for the umpteenth time I got a successful connection. 

 

Well happy. 

 

 

 

[aerofurb]

So... A couple of weeks in and how are others finding it?

 

Perhaps someone can tell me if Im doing it wrong, but I've switched off all timed charges on the car, MySkoda and my EO charger.

 

It appears to me that Intelligent Octopus assumes you are charging at the max rate - I normally leave it on reduced unless I know it needs the max rate to get the charge in over night.

 

Normally (and as I did with Octopus Go), I charge to 80% which is fine for my massive 5 mile each way commute. That means charging at reduced rate from around 40-50% to 80%. Then 90% or 100% if I know I'm on a longer trip the next day.

 

I sussed that now, at reduced rate, I wasn't getting the requested charge, so I selected max on the car. That nearly works but it seems to stop at 70-75% when I want 80% and 95%, when I want 100%. The charging plan seems not to be the full 5 hours (4 hours with Octopus Go) but in half hour bites that aren't enough. From what I can see, they offered me 6 hours (1130-0530) but then I only get what they think is going to be enough by 0530 hrs. I'd have thought that they would just charge it from 1130 hrs until it's charged to the requested amount.

 

I have emailed Octopus but that was only on Friday and no response yet. 

 

[jjc]

@aerofurb

 

It all seems to work OK but with a few oddities. I have mine set to 100% charge but does not usually manage this in one run only reaching 90ish% 

Also IO stops my solar divert from charging charging the car from spare solar power, the only way I can do this is by temp disabling IO and then putting it back on in the evening.

I put a post on the Octopus forum and others have confirmed that they have the same issue and do the same as I am doing.

 

John  

[aerofurb]

Thanks, John. 
 

I’ll have a trawl of other forums. Nothing heard back from Octopus yet. 
 

 

[jjc]

Octopus contacted me today to say the cost of IO is going down from Fri now 7.5P off peak 🙂

 

John

[Nagus]

Yeh, at only 11kw I really need it to charge 100% each night to get 22-27miles to get me to work & back but only charging it in half hour chunks gets me 85-95%. 

 

Also I switched smart charging off from the app & couldn't get it to start again. Tweeted Octopus (best way to get a hold of them) & they told me to remove my car from the app & run through the setup again which seemed to work for that night but didn't charge it the following night. Going to remove the car from the app again today & try the setup.... Again! 

I know I need to charge the car at least once a month to keep my IO but there are times I want to charge the car when I need it. I have solar so if I can charge it when the sun is out it's obviously going to cost me heehaw. 

 

Early days for me I suppose. 😁

 

It's great when it works at 7.5p per kW. 👍

[jjc]

@Nagus

 

Hi, 

 

the only way I can get mine to charge to 100% or to use Solar is to have the car unplugged then wait a short while then turn off control in the app (this is a slider) wait a while then plug the car in and on mine it will act the same as before IO took control and you can charge from Solar or during the night cheap rate. To go back to IO control unplug again wait a short while enable control again in the app wait a short while and plug in and you should get a schedule sent to you. It is all a tiny bit of a faff but works OK for me for the moment to get the cheap prices. Possibly in the future they will enhance IO to fix these issues as Solar charging is assisting them in reducing fossil fuel usage.

 

John 

[Nagus]

Well the last time I moved that slider is when all my problems started as I mentioned earlier 😊

 

Good news is that I went through the setup again & it all seems to be fine. 

Think I'll just leave it well alone 🤔

[Nagus]

Car charged this afternoon while on the high rate of payment on IO?? 

 

FFS!