Octopus Intelligient & Location

[colin123]

PS. I have also changed from EO MIN PR0 2 (EO are a shambles of a company!!!) to a OHME HOME PRO. So far so good without the BMW update!? Only problem I now have is get Octopu sto charge me off-peak rates when it decides to charge outside the 23:30 - 05:30 window!!!

 

[Clanduncan]

Well, I can confirm at least that BMW are no longer sending out zero charge schedules, i.e. erasing anything you've set back to charge immediately instead. I can now use the car schedule instead of the wall charger scheduling at last. It's great to have a warm car, and a battery warmed up and ready to travel again!

 

[Gonville]

I believe this happened a few weeks ago? Is in another thread here somewhere. They seem to have flushed all message queues of the accounts and stopped the remote API access by Octopus. There was a long update. It’s Octopus using our credential via an API which wasn’t intended for third party access. BMW closed the gate. Octopus pay Ford for a commercial API to access Ford vehicles in the same way. If you have logged in using Alexa skill (for heating the car and remote access) that interface requires an additional non robot pictorial challenge now. So tightening up.

Text:-

“
Octopus API access



Thank you for getting in touch and sharing your experience with us. I completely understand how frustrating it must be to see your BMW i3 not detected by the Octopus app, especially when you were expecting it to create a charging plan.

At present, BMW has temporarily suspended app integration as they update their systems to enhance security protocols. This impacts how we connect with their services and has led to some temporary changes:

BMW Vehicles: Currently, onboarding through the app is unavailable. However, you can still register your BMW via our website. Once registered, you can schedule charging during the off-peak times offered by Intelligent Octopus (IOG).

Mini Vehicles: Onboarding through the app is currently suspended, and website registration is not supported at this time.

Additionally, the usual 7-day onboarding timer for IOG has been suspended for BMW vehicles while we work with BMW to resolve these issues.

We expect a resolution soon, with BMW releasing a software upgrade from 9th December at their service centres and a remote software update becoming available in Q1 2025. We appreciate your patience as we collaborate with BMW to restore full functionality as quickly as possible.”

 

[i3m3fan]

Just joining this chat. I like the checklist above from Octopus. I have used it successfully for at least a few years and the major problem seems to be with messages not reaching the car.

I think the car always starts charging when you plug it in and only pauses when the Octopus schedule is set by the issuing of the random future time interval ( as our dear old i3 has no ‘stop’ charging command). So that bit of their advice seems to admit to a problem. I thought it always charged and then stopped after a short time when the schedule was set. No schedule no stopping - which seems to be most people’s issue.

In the last few months there has been a myriad of folks with issues which all seem to be blamed on BMW. As far as I can see if the car doesn’t receive an SMS message ‘or’ (big ‘or”) the car isn’t at home because the permission to see location (GDPR) is periodically turned off (GPS needs cycling in car) and requires re-confirmation. This means (as above point 3) it doesn’t know where the car is - so won’t issue a schedule.

Also if the BMWid password has changed the octopus server can no longer access the BMW server using the stored credentials. (Good way to stop it though).

Another also - if the BMW myBMW app hasn’t been updated (mine is tagged for auto update but didn’t) the server doesn’t appear to recognise requests from the back version app.

Just a few thoughts from experience.

@alohart Have you Heard of any delayed charging/ off peak timed charging anomalies in the US (only relying on myBMW app and no third party charging)??

 

[alohart]

@alohart Have you Heard of any delayed charging/ off peak timed charging anomalies in the US (only relying on myBMW app and no third party charging)??

I haven't. I have been surprised that only U.K. i3 owners were having problems, but I think that Octopus was probably part of the problem. A local organization has been pitching automated off-peak charging, but I don't have an Internet-connected charging station that could be controlled over the Internet and the i3 does not support a remote command that would stop charging before a full charge which I would want to do, so I'll continue to charge manually during off-peak hours.

 

[Gonville]

I haven't. I have been surprised that only U.K. i3 owners were having problems, but I think that Octopus was probably part of the problem. A local organization has been pitching automated off-peak charging, but I don't have an Internet-connected charging station that could be controlled over the Internet and the i3 does not support a remote command that would stop charging before a full charge which I would want to do, so I'll continue to charge manually during off-peak hours.

This is exactly what octopus have been doing. To achieve a ‘stop’ they send a random future time slot request so the car pauses. The random times have sent members nuts. Then when they have a slot Octopus just sends a new time period and the car starts again. This is why it doesn’t need an internet connected charge station.

 

[alohart]

This is exactly what octopus have been doing. To achieve a ‘stop’ they send a random future time slot request so the car pauses. The random times have sent members nuts. Then when they have a slot Octopus just sends a new time period and the car starts again. This is why it doesn’t need an internet connected charge station.

That seems like a clever workaround to the lack of a native "stop charging" command. However, it seems to have caused problems.

Does this mean that an i3 owner could stop an on-going charging session by setting a future charging time slot from the My BMW app?

 

[AUTOMAN]

It is interesting to read these posts My home charger is a Juice Box and is 5 years old extremely difficult to set up initially and controlled via the internet by the manufacturer. This system worked well for a year or so ,but then started to become problematic. So I used the vehicles time of charge set up which again was working ok
Then that started to apparently malfunction with the charging time becoming very random.
At some point I signed up with Octopus as they were pushing off peak . Things were a bit chaotic initially with the vehicles charging time becoming very random . I contacted Octopus to find that they were using the vehicles system to time the charge. This seems to be the case even now . I have given up even looking at the charging times times on the vehicle Simply plug in and octopus produces a charging plan it is seldom totally accurate but is fully charged by my departure time. Most of my problems is suspect were due to Octopus getting their systems sorted out .

 

[mojo]

If your Octopus setup continued to work normally through November's debacle, you were very lucky! I don't think anyone outside Octopus knows why some people were getting malformed commands from their servers and some were not...

If you haven't looked at the app that supports the JuiceBox hardware recently, it may be worth another look. I don't know if this applies to all of the different types of hardware that JuiceBox used, but Enel X have recently updated the app that works with my EO charge point, and it actually works reasonably well - much to my surprise.

It has been very handy to be able to use the Enel X app to set up the scheduler in my charge point while the Octopus app is not available (to me) while they figure out how to fix their interface to BMW's servers.

 

[Gonville]

That seems like a clever workaround to the lack of a native "stop charging" command. However, it seems to have caused problems.

Does this mean that an i3 owner could stop an on-going charging session by setting a future charging time slot from the My BMW app?

Absolutely - I think that it would do exactly that. I let it do this for about 2 years but I haven’t tried it since as I have since moved away from Octopus to a less expensive supplier. On the BMW i3 UK groups we have spent hours counselling people over the appearance of random time slots appearing in their app. People keep clearing them and setting it back to charge immediate which of course defeats the whole grid management loading that the company is trying to achieve - whilst offering cheaper rates.

I believe I even posted on here a complete guide to what to do on Octopus.

However since BMW have decided it’s a breach of terms of use of the API the facility has been withdrawn and only 2(3?) online charger wall boxes are registered - rather than all BMW/Mini vehicles via the ConnectedDrive API. Some folks say theirs is still working - which is fine - but others who have deleted their ‘device/car’ from Octopus App then find they can’t re-add as it isn’t supported. The tariff remains in operation for fixed hours overnight (accessible by manually using the i3 time slot) but that wasn’t really the point of trying to smooth grid demand.

 

[Gonville]

Original Octopus explanation:-

Intelligent Octopus Go



Suggestions from another group.



The random times (one hour future random time slots) are simply added to the car to pause the charge after plugging in and to ensure the IO app gets a response. These are overridden by the nightly schedule produced after plugging in the charger. this is because the BMW has no ‘stop’ charging commend. Only a start and start in a future hour. There are usually multiple sessions based on charging needs. The car works well with the schedules but it needs the MINI/BMW server comms to operate consistently. IO is signed in to MINI/BMW server in the same way as the Mini/MyBMW app and controls the car that way. Flaky comms can result in schedule problems (parked underground for example).



During the actual charge schedule the IO app stops and starts the charging process and sends a random schedule to pause/stop the charge slot before sending the next command to charge for the next scheduled time slot. First time monitoring the process it is confusing until gaining an appreciation of what is happening.



Checking status in Mini/MyBMW does not cause issues in general. Just don’t set schedules or issue commands. Best to leave the car alone if a charging schedule is established in Intelligent Octopus to avoid the possibility of sending commands at the same time.



Intelligent Octopus only works correctly if you use just one thing to control the ‘switch’. The wall box has to be set to ‘ON’ to deliver charge when requested by the car. If it is smart (they all are now precisely to enable grid smoothing) it will have its own schedule. The car has to be set to ‘Charge Immediate’. Then the IO app can be used to set a time when the car needs to be ready and the charge level. After that the IO app will send commands directly to the car to start and pause.



If your wall box is set to ‘OFF’ nothing is going to happen.



(all Wall boxes have different settings - for example for zappi it’s ‘FAST’)



The whole idea of IO is to stop the massive peak when everyone sets their car to start at 00:30 (or now 23:30). The whole point is to be smoothing the load on the grid by managing the spread of the load over the 6 hours by starting and stopping at different half hour slots for different areas. If we all have the tariff and don’t use the IO app the tariff will get withdrawn if it isn’t making the costs match. Assuming the costs of supply at night time vary depending on wind. It is a beta tariff. Abuse it and we loose it.