yeah I hear you! The idea of the intelligent option is that you charge when the grid is using less! Anyhow, you get a slightly cheaper rate. That besides, my charger and my BMW will not allow me to set max charge percentage, so you have to do a mannual estimate for time to stop every single time you plug it in!
Octopus Intelligient & Location
- Thread starter colin123
- Start date
Help Support BMW i3 Forum:
Does anyone know?
If your car is plugged into OI and the car starts charging outside of the schedule, are you charged at the OI cheaper rate?
If your car is plugged into OI and the car starts charging outside of the schedule, are you charged at the OI cheaper rate?
I've just seen an update on one of the Facebook i3 groups which seems to explain what is currently happening:
"the problem they are having is with any bmw connected to any intelligent tariff (where the supplier controls the times). Bmw did an update that clashes with the connection, this causes a conflict. Any off peak charge period is reverted to 00.00-00.00 around 4-5 times a day, which then flips the car to charge immediately. So you can set an off peak period at around 6pm only to find bmw has overriden it at 7.30pm and your car starts with charge immediately. If you look in the bmw app history you can confirm this is affecting you because there will be several charging profile corrections sent each day that you personally didn't send."
This matches with what I've seen in the last few days - I uninstalled my car from the Octopus app (using the Disconnect Device option) and set up charging directly in the myBMW app - the correct way with a Departure Day/Time as far into the future as possible - and it still misbehaved in the same way - it simply ignored the schedule and charged to 100%. When I checked the following day, the schedule I had set in the myBMW app was gone and it was set to "Charge immediately".
I'm on Android app version 4.9.2 (36892) which is dated 11 September - hopefully there will be an update soon which fixes this problem, though it doesn't seem as though BMW consider it to be an urgent issue...
"the problem they are having is with any bmw connected to any intelligent tariff (where the supplier controls the times). Bmw did an update that clashes with the connection, this causes a conflict. Any off peak charge period is reverted to 00.00-00.00 around 4-5 times a day, which then flips the car to charge immediately. So you can set an off peak period at around 6pm only to find bmw has overriden it at 7.30pm and your car starts with charge immediately. If you look in the bmw app history you can confirm this is affecting you because there will be several charging profile corrections sent each day that you personally didn't send."
This matches with what I've seen in the last few days - I uninstalled my car from the Octopus app (using the Disconnect Device option) and set up charging directly in the myBMW app - the correct way with a Departure Day/Time as far into the future as possible - and it still misbehaved in the same way - it simply ignored the schedule and charged to 100%. When I checked the following day, the schedule I had set in the myBMW app was gone and it was set to "Charge immediately".
I'm on Android app version 4.9.2 (36892) which is dated 11 September - hopefully there will be an update soon which fixes this problem, though it doesn't seem as though BMW consider it to be an urgent issue...
YES, absolutley, IF it was part of the schedule set by OI
Ouch, so all said and done we have to rely on a BMW update ?
It seems so. I still find it really odd that a bug within the myBMW app could cause these symptoms, but people who have never used Octopus at all are reporting the same, so I guess the problem must be there. What I don't know is whether this problem is confined to only a part of the world, or whether it's global.
Perhaps the problem is not within the myBMW app but within BMW's server-end programs - I don't know. If so, we may never get any information about when a fix has happened.
Just to confirm - the following test shows that the problem still exists and seems to be solely down to BMW:
In the myBMW app, go to Vehicle, Charge & Climate Timer, and set a "Charge in Time Slot" (you will need to set a Departure Time). Doesn't matter what you set - anything will do. Then select "Update in My BMW". Then leave it for 6 hours and check the settings again.
I've just done that - I made the change to the charging profile at 10:56 this morning, and at 14:45 my car's Remote History shows that something (not me) changed the charging profile to set the car to "Charge Immediately".
It would be interesting to hear if the same thing is happening in, say, North America, or whether it is confined to Europe?
In the myBMW app, go to Vehicle, Charge & Climate Timer, and set a "Charge in Time Slot" (you will need to set a Departure Time). Doesn't matter what you set - anything will do. Then select "Update in My BMW". Then leave it for 6 hours and check the settings again.
I've just done that - I made the change to the charging profile at 10:56 this morning, and at 14:45 my car's Remote History shows that something (not me) changed the charging profile to set the car to "Charge Immediately".
It would be interesting to hear if the same thing is happening in, say, North America, or whether it is confined to Europe?
I second this.
I did exactly the same over a year ago and its worked perfectly since. Turn off 'intelligent Octopus Smart features' and charge during your off peak period. I have my charger set to a schedule that matches the low cost overnight period and many chargers now support 'charger to %'. I had no end of problems with all kinds of timers being changed by Octopus and despite their blurb saying they don't interfere with anything else - it did constantly and when reported to Octopus they just say 'its still in beta'. My advice, switch it off and keep the BMW app and your own charger app only. My Octopus app is still installed just smart features not enabled.
That may be OK for some people but, as explained above, the current problem does not seem to be anything to do with Octopus.
It's a problem which appears to be somewhere in BMW's systems, so trying to use only the myBMW app won't work (as I've found out) for this specific issue.
And also bear in mind that if you are an IOG customer, you violate the T&Cs of the product by permanently turning off Smart Charging, because it means they can't turn charging on and off "on the fly" when they can get cheap sources of supply.
