Octopus Intelligient & Location

[colin123]

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!

 

[jeeringtowser]

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?

 

[mojo]

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...

 

[colin123]

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?

YES, absolutley, IF it was part of the schedule set by OI

 

[colin123]

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...

Ouch, so all said and done we have to rely on a BMW update ?

 

[mojo]

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.

 

[mojo]

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?

 

[shoei600]

This is why I gave up with Intelligent (and also not wanting extra apps for no good reason) and use Go and have my charger set to charge at cheap times (not rocket science so why do Octopus make it complicated)

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.

 

[mojo]

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.

 

[mojo]

It would be interesting to hear if the same thing is happening in, say, North America, or whether it is confined to Europe?

Update - response from BMW in the UK suggests that it is only UK customers that are affected. Again, I find that hard to understand, but I know nothing about how BMW distribute and update their server infrastructure around the world...

 

[colin123]

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.

I second that

 

[Gonville]

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.

This is what it is. There is a fault in the myBMW app directly with the i3. I have a screen shot. Every 4 hours approximately the app generates a blank charge profile and sends it to the server. This is sent to the car which interprets it as a change to ‘charge immediate’. The history is clear under ‘Vehicle nformation’ ‘Remote Histroy’. So whilst a car should have been waiting for the next cheap rate tariff slot it starts immediately. All the settings are set to null.

(Incidentally the same are sent to the i4 which responds with ‘Failure’ as the i4 clearly has some better validation on the message).

 

[Gonville]

This is what it is. There is a fault in the myBMW app directly with the i3. I have a screen shot. Every 4 hours approximately the app generates a blank charge profile and sends it to the server. This is sent to the car which interprets it as a change to ‘charge immediate’. The history is clear under ‘Vehicle nformation’ ‘Remote Histroy’. So whilst a car should have been waiting for the next cheap rate tariff slot it starts immediately. All the settings are set to null.

(Incidentally the same are sent to the i4 which responds with ‘Failure’ as the i4 clearly has some better validation on the message).

Also note a 4.11.1 update to the app last night doesn’t fix the problem.

Also note that the Mini app which is very similar doesn’t have this fault.

 

[mojo]

Every 4 hours approximately the app generates a blank charge profile and sends it to the server.

It's not the app that's causing the problem. You can test this easily: Set up a schedule in the car using the myBMW app. Now shut down the app. Then go and check in the car itself every hour to see whether the schedule stays there.

I just did that and two hours later the schedule in the car was gone. That can't have been caused by an app that's not running.

It's easy to confirm - run up the myBMW app again and check the time that the command was sent to the car. That confirms that the charge profile update happened while the app was not running.

 

[Goldfish120]

I had so much aggregation with Intelligent Octopus and my i3s and also a mini. I was very happy when Octopus enabled the Zappi Charger to work intelligently. This has been an incredibly reliable solution. Also as we have a number of EVs works with all. Only challenge is doing a bit of ninja maths on the percentage charge required. One vehicle with a 77kwh battery and the i3 with 42kwh. So I just divide my percentage by 2 for the i3 A neighbour with a new mini gave up with Intelligent Octopus due to mini issues - once again not an Octopus issue - and now is just using an Octopus tracker tariff. I spent ages with them trying all sorts to get this to work.

Also heard that more car companies are removing support for Intelligent Octopus due to issues and the pathetic excuse of GDPR telling an other company your location I.e. your car is now at home. So I suspect the Charger integration route will become the norm.
I do feel your pain on this one, but budgeting for a new compatible charger may be the only future proof reliable solution which is sad.

 

[jeeringtowser]

YES, absolutley, IF it was part of the schedule set by OI

Thanks Colin, but it wasn't part of the OI schedule, having read more here it is the problem caused by BMW.

 

[Gonville]

It's not the app that's causing the problem. You can test this easily: Set up a schedule in the car using the myBMW app. Now shut down the app. Then go and check in the car itself every hour to see whether the schedule stays there.

I just did that and two hours later the schedule in the car was gone. That can't have been caused by an app that's not running.

It's easy to confirm - run up the myBMW app again and check the time that the command was sent to the car. That confirms that the charge profile update happened while the app was not running.

That’s true that the history is recorded (in the server log files) wether the app is running or not. So indeed that excellent experiment shows that the server itself is generating these requests. I did think it was Octopus but changing your BMWid password without sharing those new credentials with Octopus should stop any Octopus input to the server. So that does seem to show a random generation in the server rather than by the app itself - such that the app just shows the historical record (as retrieved from the server).

 

[Gonville]

I had so much aggregation with Intelligent Octopus and my i3s and also a mini. I was very happy when Octopus enabled the Zappi Charger to work intelligently. This has been an incredibly reliable solution. Also as we have a number of EVs works with all. Only challenge is doing a bit of ninja maths on the percentage charge required. One vehicle with a 77kwh battery and the i3 with 42kwh. So I just divide my percentage by 2 for the i3 A neighbour with a new mini gave up with Intelligent Octopus due to mini issues - once again not an Octopus issue - and now is just using an Octopus tracker tariff. I spent ages with them trying all sorts to get this to work.

Also heard that more car companies are removing support for Intelligent Octopus due to issues and the pathetic excuse of GDPR telling an other company your location I.e. your car is now at home. So I suspect the Charger integration route will become the norm.
I do feel your pain on this one, but budgeting for a new compatible charger may be the only future proof reliable solution which is sad.

I should switch to this but I decided to go for Tomato as with my usage and the 20p a day difference in standing charge it saves me £300 plus a year. GDPR seems to be a drama.

I do have a question on why bother with the Octopus percentage. I always set mine to 100%? Why not? With one car much bigger and the Mini and i3 it’s seems just a not very sensible setting for i3 - for Tesla maybe.

 

[Goldfish120]

I should switch to this but I decided to go for Tomato as with my usage and the 20p a day difference in standing charge it saves me £300 plus a year. GDPR seems to be a drama.

I do have a question on why bother with the Octopus percentage. I always set mine to 100%? Why not? With one car much bigger and the Mini and i3 it’s seems just a not very sensible setting for i3 - for Tesla maybe.

Main reason is if you use a little you can get the system to charge at peak times. e.g. from 8 am to 11am. I think the system has a bit of a quota system depending on usage so you can avoid “bump” charging at full cost. This is my experience so if I put in 10% over night (11:30 to 05:30) into one vehicle can then plug in an other in morning and ask for 30% by 11am, for example, and Octopus then charge from 8am until 11am at the 7p cheap rate while I cook the breakfast etc etc Not sure how system works but using it appropriately is good. Can also just set i3 charge so it fills to 80% rather than the 100% to keep battery happier

 

[Gonville]

Main reason is if you use a little you can get the system to charge at peak times. e.g. from 8 am to 11am. I think the system has a bit of a quota system depending on usage so you can avoid “bump” charging at full cost. This is my experience so if I put in 10% over night (11:30 to 05:30) into one vehicle can then plug in an other in morning and ask for 30% by 11am, for example, and Octopus then charge from 8am until 11am at the 7p cheap rate while I cook the breakfast etc etc Not sure how system works but using it appropriately is good. Can also just set i3 charge so it fills to 80% rather than the 100% to keep battery happier

Battery is happier if you charge to full. Cell balancing. The i3 uses ‘passive top end cell balancing’ to burn down the highest charged cell to the next highest cell but only on completion of charging. Stopping at 80% means the cells don’t ever get balanced and capacity is reduced as charging stops as the first cell hits the high voltage limit. Leaving lower voltage cells missing out of additional capacity. As the highest cell charges faster and faster to the top voltage the trailing cells get less and less charge. Not just theoretical but anecdotal. I only partial charged on ‘free’ type 2 when shopping and never topped up at home. After a year the capacity was down to 33miles at 100% (not in winter). Picture attached. After religiously charging to 100% for 3 or 4 months it recovered to 75miles.