Ohme charger on Intelligent Octopus

AWC · October 18, 2023

Anyone else using an Ohme charger on Intelligent Octopus get a message from the Ohme app saying your energy price cap had been disabled? This is a key setting to make sure a Lexus will always charge at the lowest tariff rate so what are they playing at?

MWC · May 21

I notice this post is a few months old, so maybe my response now isn't of any use, but just in case here it is....

I have an Ohme charger and am on the Intelligent Octopus tariff. When I first used it last summer I was also concerned about the cap being removed, however I was assured that as the charging was controlled by Octopus I was guaranteed to never pay more than off peak rates. The cap is best left off to allow Octopus more flexibility to make use of surplus energy. This has proved to be the case. In the early days there were several occasions where I plugged the car in during the day and found the car charging, however I was only ever charged the off peak rate. Nowadays it tends to delay charging until 23:30 which is fine. It all works well for me.

AWC · May 21

2 hours ago, MWC said:

I notice this post is a few months old, so maybe my response now isn't of any use, but just in case here it is....

I have an Ohme charger and am on the Intelligent Octopus tariff. When I first used it last summer I was also concerned about the cap being removed, however I was assured that as the charging was controlled by Octopus I was guaranteed to never pay more than off peak rates. The cap is best left off to allow Octopus more flexibility to make use of surplus energy. This has proved to be the case. In the early days there were several occasions where I plugged the car in during the day and found the car charging, however I was only ever charged the off peak rate. Nowadays it tends to delay charging until 23:30 which is fine. It all works well for me.

Yes, the Ohme app has changed so if you have "smart charging" enabled it will charge at any time at the lowest rate.

John Yossarian · August 2

On 5/21/2024 at 6:36 PM, AWC said:

Yes, the Ohme app has changed so if you have "smart charging" enabled it will charge at any time at the lowest rate.

This was the case till recently, you plug in the car and Octopus would charge it during the day at off peak price. Since July, the only off peak charging happens during night hours. I have no idea what happened (I was on holiday for three weeks) but no longer day charging at off peak price with Octopus.

Anyone else noticed that?

AWC · August 3

On 8/2/2024 at 7:26 AM, John Yossarian said:

This was the case till recently, you plug in the car and Octopus would charge it during the day at off peak price. Since July, the only off peak charging happens during night hours. I have no idea what happened (I was on holiday for three weeks) but no longer day charging at off peak price with Octopus.

Anyone else noticed that?

When I first started using the new app, it did charge charging at various times during the day but since the fuel price reduction it only seems to have charged overnight, maybe this is why?

Rich6 · August 3

Hiya - I also have a 2023 450h+ and an Ohme charger but am having intermittent charging problems where sometimes it refuses to charge. Ohme have been useless at replying to my issue but I wonder if anyone has any “tricks” they use to ensure an overnight Ohme charge. Interestingly if I use the 13amp cable and the onboard Lexus charging app it charges each day everyday….. tnx

MWC · August 3

Hi Rich6

In the past 12 months I've only had one failure to charge, and I found that the cable was unlocked on the car, so I don't think it was an Ohme issue. Normally, whenever I plug in the cable to the car I receive a message on my phone telling me the charging schedule has been calculated. If I then open the Ohme App it displays the nominal allocated charging slots along with the expected charging rate at those times. (presumably the slots are a tie in with Octopus Energy). At the times yours refuses to charge has a schedule been allocated?

Rich6 · August 3

MWC

The strange thing is that the charging plug always physically locks and the Ohme app registers a potential charge but the car doesn’t always respond with a green charging light. It’s as if the “handshake” between charger and car doesn’t always fully connect. 13 amp connector does it first time every time

Marcus01 · August 4

Do you have the car set to charge immediately ? Mine does as MWC says, never (so far) had any problems.

Rich6 · August 4

MWC

I don’t have any charge settings implemented - is this something you do?

AWC · August 4

On 8/3/2024 at 3:40 PM, Rich6 said:

Hiya - I also have a 2023 450h+ and an Ohme charger but am having intermittent charging problems where sometimes it refuses to charge. Ohme have been useless at replying to my issue but I wonder if anyone has any “tricks” they use to ensure an overnight Ohme charge. Interestingly if I use the 13amp cable and the onboard Lexus charging app it charges each day everyday….. tnx

Hi Rich,

Are you allowing the Ohme to control the charge and not the car, I have the car set to charge immediately? I set the Ohme app up so it will only charge when the rate is 7.5p per unit or below and the charger takes care of everything.

One similar issue I noticed in the past was when I unlocked the car again after connecting the charger it would sometimes miss a charge so I got into the habit of rebooting the charger whenever I did this which seemed to cure it.

MWC · August 4

Hi again Rich6. I don't use any charge settings on the car, and have never set any. The car is set to charge immediately, although in reality this is of course controlled by the Ohme charger & Octopus. Incidentally, the Ohme App is set up to have the car fully charged by 05:00 every day. It also shows the tariff as Intelligent Octopus Go.

MWC · August 4

Regarding the comment by AWC regarding unlocking the car after the charger had been plugged up this is a good point. I found early on that if the car is unlocked and I plug the charger cable in followed by locking the car everything is fine, however if I return to the car for something therefore unlocking it I find the charging connector remains unlocked following locking the car.again. The charging plug has to be removed and reinserted to lock again. This situation should not arise and I informed my dealer about it some time ago.

Rich6 · August 5

MWC

I don’t have any charge settings implemented - is this something you do?

thanks everyone, I think I’m doing the same as you all but I probably have a faulty charger. Ohme are currently ignoring my issues so I think it’s time to raise the problem with their CEO…….lets see