Wiki Everything you wanted to know about Intelligent Octopus But Were Afraid To Ask

Why write this post?
A lot of people are starting to get interested in IO. I don't think Octopus do a very good job of spelling out the benefits in their website. They have some FAQs, but the same questions keep coming up over and over on the forums.

What is it?
In a nutshell, IO is a split tariff that gives you a cheap off-peak rate for charging your EV and other electrical items in the household, including home batteries.

Isn’t that the same as Octopus Go or Go Faster?
The principle is the same, but in exchange for some benefits which we’ll explain, you allow Octopus to control the timing of your EV charge, so they can choose low carbon intensity and/or cheap wholesale priced time slots.

So I’m not in control of my charge? I don’t like the sound of that!
Well yes…and no. You’re in control of how much to charge and when you want the car to be ready, just like you would be normally. Within those parameters, you’re allowing Octopus to control which half-hour slots the car chooses to get to that target % charge. And you can always override IO if you want to “bump charge” through the day.

OK, but what are the benefits you mentioned for this trade off?
First of all, you get a larger guaranteed off-peak window for using household appliances and charging home batteries, etc. It’s six hours between 23:30-05:30. Go, for example, is a fixed 4 hour window.
In addition, when IO schedules your EV charging slots it sometimes creates schedules that fall outside of the fixed, six hour window. If that happens your EV charging and all your household use in these extra-slots is also charged at off-peak rates.
I have frequently had schedules give me seven or more hours of off-peak rates. On one occasion, I had a total of ten hours of off-peak rates.

Am I eligible?
You need a smart meter and a compatible car and/or charger. Since you’re reading this here, I assume you’ve got or are thinking of getting a Tesla. IO works with the Tesla API to create the charging schedules. The advantage of this is that IO will work with any* home charger. If you have a charger with smart features, you need to disable them so that the charger acts as a dumb switch. IO will control everything via Tesla’s API to start and stop your charging.
*Even your granny charger - but you need to tell IO what the max throughput is when you go through setup so that it can work out your schedules properly.

Some of this sounds too good to be true.
Phantom drain caused by having smart charging enabled in the Octopus app has been fixed as of 30th August 2022. One small side effect appears to be that schedules sometimes take longer to appear in the app after plugging in.

Further questions (to be updated in the main thread body once the edit timer on this post expires)

I have two EVs, can I charge the other while on IO?
Not with IO scheduling the charging, but you can charge any other car in the fixed 23:30-05:30 off peak window or at any other time at peak prices.

What are the rates etc?
Octopus do a decent job of explaining the peak and off-peak rates along with contracts etc. Head over to their pages to discover that.

I asked for a target % of x, but I got less than x.
There are two or three reasons for this.

The first, most common reason, is that Tesla reports battery % differently depending on where you look. The API (that IO uses) reports the gross battery %. This is generally fixed but can fluctuate very slightly. The Tesla app shows usable %. Apps like Teslamate and Teslafi can display both. Quite often, there is a delta of 2-3% which may be down to battery temp or other factors. This usable % will often be recovered as the battery warms up during a drive.

Some users have reported charging % being way off, perhaps 10% or more. This could be down to an error in the onboarding process. Some of the charger database entries incorrectly assume the charger you are onboarding is the 11kW version, without actually saying so in the charger description. The Andersen A2 was an early example of this. If you suspect this may be the case, the easiest thing to do is go through the on-boarding again and choose "Generic 7.4kW charger". It won't affect your functionality on IO in any way.

Lastly, it has to be mentioned that occasionally IO just craps out. It may be down to a comms error, a server error at Octopus' end, or just reasons. IO is a beta product and it's wise to expect one or two quirks from time to time

 

[Yuff]

It will, sometimes you have to wait an hour or two.

The schedules haven’t been as prompt over the past week, although this morning it was much quicker.
it could be my mobile and Wi-Fi coverage though as that has been pants, locally, recently

 

[browellm]

The schedules haven’t been as prompt over the past week, although this morning it was much quicker.
it could be my mobile and Wi-Fi coverage though as that has been pants, locally, recently

I think it's a few factors, some of which we have no control over. The Tesla API/servers aren't the most bombproof thing in the world - think of the times the app is slow to respond or has outages. Then we have no idea what resources and reliability the Octopus back end has committed to this. Then there's our home connectivity. Lots of variables.

 

[Jason71]

I think it's a few factors, some of which we have no control over. The Tesla API/servers aren't the most bombproof thing in the world - think of the times the app is slow to respond or has outages. Then we have no idea what resources and reliability the Octopus back end has committed to this. Then there's our home connectivity. Lots of variables.

IO must poll the car regularly to find out if it is plugged in.
If you don't have a charge start time set in the car then when you do plug in it will start charging and generally within 20 minutes the IO will poll it stop the charge and set a schedule.
IF however like me you set a charge start time in the car, 2:15 in my case, to prevent wasting money charging for 10-20 minutes at peak rate and in case the IO schedule fails.
Then when you plug in the car will not charge and within 15 minutes the car should go to sleep.
The problem is unless IO polls in that 10-15 minute window then when it does next poll it will find the car asleep. I am pretty sure it is not allowed to wake the car up since that would be bad so it will just assume you came home did NOT plug in and the car is happily sleeping. Thus no schedule gets set.

You can work around this by opening the Tesla app to wake the car then going into the IO app and changing the required charge %. This seems to prompt IO to poll the car, which it then finds awake, and sets a schedule.

If I did not do this I assume what would happen is that when the car wakes up to charge at 2:15 some time in the 20 minutes after that IO will poll it find it awake, set a schedule and carry on from there.

so ironically my 2:15 charge start that I am using to hedge against IO not setting a schedule my be the very thing that is causing the schedule not to be set sometimes. Oh well.

 

[Basicbob]

Quick question I’m on intelligent paying 31p peak and 7.5p off peak. When the reduction in the cap from 1st October will Octopus reduce this peak rate a little or keep it as is

 

[Basicbob]

Quick question

I’m on intelligent and pay 31p peak with the new price cap coming into effect in 2 weeks will Octopus be reducing this rate ?

 

[yessuz]

Quick question

I’m on intelligent and pay 31p peak with the new price cap coming into effect in 2 weeks will Octopus be reducing this rate ?

You need to check what is your average price per kwh.

you have 6 hours at 7.5p and then 18 hrs at 31p

6 x 7.5 + 18 x 31 = 603 / 24 = 25.125p pre kwh.

what is new price cap?

 

[KennethS]

Quick question

I’m on intelligent and pay 31p peak with the new price cap coming into effect in 2 weeks will Octopus be reducing this rate ?

Others more knowledgeable will shed more light but I don't believe the price cap applies to variable/time of use tariffs. So any price cap will not apply. But Octopus makes it pretty easy to switch tariffs with them if something better comes along.

 

[yessuz]

2900 kwh is ~ 1000 gbp under new price cap (what I read from ofgem)

this is 34.5 p per kwh or average.

IO on average is 10p lower... so no, I do not think there will be any change to peak rate.

 

[Jason71]

Quick question

I’m on intelligent and pay 31p peak with the new price cap coming into effect in 2 weeks will Octopus be reducing this rate ?

The price cap does not apply to IO and at one point the day rate was significantly more than the price cap but then Octopus lowered it to be about the same. I am hopeful that when the price cap falls they will do the same again but its kind of entirely up to them. It will depend on the actually wholesale price and competition in the market probably.
Historically before the energy crisis Go day rate was always very competitive so

 

[giorgosa]

Hello,

Disconnected previous vehicle and trying now to setup the new M3.

Unfortunately I get the below message, any ideas?

UPDATE: ISSUE RESOLVED ITSELF AFTER A FEW RETRIES

 

[Cardo]

I have been experiencing some frustrating IO behaviour, recently. I use HA to set my Zappi to Eco+ and turn off IO Smart Charge during the day then revert the Zappi to Fast and enable IO Smart charge in the evening. Whilst I wait for the native Zappi IO integration, this has been allowing me to charge the car at night allowing IO to control the charge whilst still being able to use PV surplus during the day. However, over the past week or two I’ve noticed a change in IO’s behaviour where enabling Smart Charge no longer triggers a charging schedule to be set (I’ve briefly mentioned this in an earlier post). Previously, as soon as Smart Charge was enabled it would wake the car and create a schedule. Now, turning on Smart Charge no longer immediately polls the car and I’m finding more often than not a schedule isn’t being set, even if I manually wake up the car and toggle Smart Charge off and back on again. I have found a reliable way to generate a schedule is by changing the ready by time. So far, this has immediately created a schedule each time I’ve had to do this. Before I create yet more automations in HA to fettle with the ready by time; has anyone experienced anything similar where IO isn’t setting charge schedules when Smart Charge is enabled?

 

[Pete UK]

I have been experiencing some frustrating IO behaviour, recently. I use HA to set my Zappi to Eco+ and turn off IO Smart Charge during the day then revert the Zappi to Fast and enable IO Smart charge in the evening. Whilst I wait for the native Zappi IO integration, this has been allowing me to charge the car at night allowing IO to control the charge whilst still being able to use PV surplus during the day. However, over the past week or two I’ve noticed a change in IO’s behaviour where enabling Smart Charge no longer triggers a charging schedule to be set (I’ve briefly mentioned this in an earlier post). Previously, as soon as Smart Charge was enabled it would wake the car and create a schedule. Now, turning on Smart Charge no longer immediately polls the car and I’m finding more often than not a schedule isn’t being set, even if I manually wake up the car and toggle Smart Charge off and back on again. I have found a reliable way to generate a schedule is by changing the ready by time. So far, this has immediately created a schedule each time I’ve had to do this. Before I create yet more automations in HA to fettle with the ready by time; has anyone experienced anything similar where IO isn’t setting charge schedules when Smart Charge is enabled?

I’ve not really noticed that to be honest. I’m just leaving smart charging on all the time and not toggling it on and off.
A schedule shows up; usually fairly promptly for me (but I haven’t looked too closely recently - it just seems to work and the car charges correctly overnight)
But like you say, if one isn’t there immediately then changing the ready by time (or the target charge % in the Octopus app) will generate us a schedule straight away.

I’m pretty happy lately (except for the weather). My export tariff is now all set up, as of a few days ago. Which took about 5 weeks from sending all the info to Octopus.
So all in all about two and a half months from install date, switching supplier to Octopus, and everything is finally all in place.

I’m still showing 4p export rate in the app but just got an email confirming that I will be switched to the 15p export rate. That certainly makes life a lot simpler. Just charge Solar batteries to 100% every night. Export any excess generation in the solar day (?) and perhaps a bit in the evening if there is any spare before 11:30pm, let IO do it’s thing. Rinse and repeat.

 

[spon88]

I’ve not really noticed that to be honest. I’m just leaving smart charging on all the time and not toggling it on and off.
A schedule shows up; usually fairly promptly for me (but I haven’t looked too closely recently - it just seems to work and the car charges correctly overnight)
But like you say, if one isn’t there immediately then changing the ready by time (or the target charge % in the Octopus app) will generate us a schedule straight away.

I’m pretty happy lately (except for the weather). My export tariff is now all set up, as of a few days ago. Which took about 5 weeks from sending all the info to Octopus.
So all in all about two and a half months from install date, switching supplier to Octopus, and everything is finally all in place.

I’m still showing 4p export rate in the app but just got an email confirming that I will be switched to the 15p export rate. That certainly makes life a lot simpler. Just charge Solar batteries to 100% every night. Export any excess generation in the solar day (?) and perhaps a bit in the evening if there is any spare before 11:30pm, let IO do it’s thing. Rinse and repeat.

This is pretty much what we'll be doing having switched from Flux yesterday. The last week or so was still decent on Flux but getting progressively worse and the weather ahead looks pretty poor.

Only issue I have now is that even though the app has updated to IO, it's showing my export tariff as Flux import for some reason. I think someone posted about this earlier. Emails to Octopus are a slow process at the moment (5 days with no reply for the last one) so I'm currently on hold on the 'phone listening to Mull of Kintyre, preceded by The Rivers of Bablyon! I'm convinced that this is a deliberate attempt to get you to hang up quickly but I'm going to hang in there.... Jeez... It's bl00dy Save All Your Kisses For Me now! Definitely deliberate

 

[spon88]

Just as a follow-up to the post above, I spoke to a very friendly Charlotte on Octopus support who was a bit shocked about the tariff misalignment. She noted that the system had muddled my import/export mpans which "shouldn't happen". I also advised that I'm not the first, so it looks like there is a system glitch somewhere. So check your app tariffs when you make the switch.

She also advised that the 15p outgoing shouldn't actually be live yet and is scheduled for mass update on October 1st. However, given that the 15p export was part of the decision to jump across to IO a week or so earlier than I otherwise might have, she will try to get me on to it now if possible.

Evidently there are still a few glitches in the Octopus matrix, but they have some good guys there who are usually able to assist. But you might have to endure their awful on hold muzak before you speak to someone!

 

[roadcred]

I am having some difficulty moving from Flux to IO + Outgoing Fixed 15p.
Cannot seem to get anyone in the smart team.
I spoke with someone this morning who did not accept that you could get a 15p export tariff if you are on IO!
I can find no-one to do me a short cut from Flux without going through the form and providing docs I previously submitted years ago!
So I fiiled in the form and no doubt it has disappeared down a black hole but apparently you have to get Outgoing before the IO form will consider you.

 

[spon88]

Hmmm. So some steps forward and some back! I now have the app showing IO import and 15p export. However, the export is showing as 12 months fixed and if that is indeed the case, it doesn't bode well as I'll want to go back on Flux come spring. I've asked for clarification. Anyone else seeing the 15p outgoing as fixed please and if so, what are the implications? Given the benefits of Flux (assuming it still exists) a few quid to buy out and switch may be an option.

Worse is that they've also switched my gas tracker to flexible which wasn't requested. Sigh..... We'll get there but beta tariff or not, this is a bit of a roller coaster!

The support person has raised it as a a complaint (it wasn't) but apparently this is the best way to a quicker resolution.

 

[spon88]

I am having some difficulty moving from Flux to IO + Outgoing Fixed 15p.
Cannot seem to get anyone in the smart team.
I spoke with someone this morning who did not accept that you could get a 15p export tariff if you are on IO!
I can find no-one to do me a short cut from Flux without going through the form and providing docs I previously submitted years ago!
So I fiiled in the form and no doubt it has disappeared down a black hole but apparently you have to get Outgoing before the IO form will consider you.

That does sound even worse than the faff I'm going through. It seems very odd and hugely resource intensive to revalidate documents you submitted and had approved previously. I guess it's tricky keeping the systems and admin all aligned with the various new tariff options! They're certainly struggling a bit at the moment.

 

[ACarneiro]

Hmmm. So some steps forward and some back! I now have the app showing IO import and 15p export. However, the export is showing as 12 months fixed and if that is indeed the case, it doesn't bode well as I'll want to go back on Flux come spring. I've asked for clarification. Anyone else seeing the 15p outgoing as fixed please and if so, what are the implications? Given the benefits of Flux (assuming it still exists) a few quid to buy out and switch may be an option.

Worse is that they've also switched my gas tracker to flexible which wasn't requested. Sigh..... We'll get there but beta tariff or not, this is a bit of a roller coaster!

The support person has raised it as a a complaint (it wasn't) but apparently this is the best way to a quicker resolution.

The 12 months fix just means the tariff is guaranteed for 12 months.
AFAIK, as there are no early exit fees you are still free to change whenever you want.

 

[ACarneiro]

She also advised that the 15p outgoing shouldn't actually be live yet and is scheduled for mass update on October 1st.

She is incorrect.
The email sent to SEG customers specifically said the tariff would be migrated by the end of that week.
Which it was.

 

[MB2MB2]

If you plug in at home in the day IO will stop the charge. I am not sure if it is using geolocation and thus will not interfere if you are somewhere else. If it does you can do the same thing you would do at home which is go onto the Octopus app and select "bump charge" which should prevent it from interfering in theory. You can do this pre-emptively as well of course as soon as you plug in.

You get the 7.5p rate for 6 hours for all usage every night whether you charge or not.
Since the charger is not smart Octopus have no way to influence any other car using your charger and they will get the cheap rate at night of course. How you schedule that is up to you / the technology you have.

if you set the car to charge at 23:30 it will prevent it charging earlier but it means it will start to charge at 23:30 whether Octopus want it to or not which is not really in the spirit of the game. personally I set mine to start at 2:15 which is within the Octopus schedule 95% of the time and avoids early charging or missed charging. 23:30 is generally not in the Octopus schedule in my experience.

Thanks - moved over on Friday and after the testing all seems to have gone smoothly so far. Arrived at work today, moved the slider from 50 - 90 and it charged at work no issues. Will see what happens when it gets home and if it tries to schedule a charge (ie follows the car setting) or if it follows the app and doesn't need to charge (app is set to 50%). Good tip on the 2.15 might also try that if have a trip the next day.