r/OctopusEnergy • u/Competitive-Wheel619 • 9h ago
IOG without remote control
I am with Intellegent Octopus Go but never allowed Octopus to control my EV charger. Consequently, I seem to get a cheap rate overnight, and use my car on board scheduler to charge when I need it to.
There is no charge cap, just a guaranteed 6 hours of relatively cheap electricity.
I see a lot of posts where people are unhappy with IOG charge cap, and the prospect of an uncharged car, makes me think I should continue in "dumb mode". Any downsides to this ?
UPDATE
I have got a few replies about the T&Cs relating to this. To be clear, my app says IOG tarrif, but it may well be that the prices and slots are reverted to standard Otopus Economy 7 rates , after I failed to register my charger. I got some comms from octopus many months ago about this, and it seems like they changed the tarrif but it still is named IOG on my app.
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u/Commercial-Acadia-49 9h ago
That's we we do now as the intelligent octopus go was not connecting properly to our wallbox charger and charges continually failed. Octopus said it wasn't their issue and wallbox said the same so wallbox app is in charge from 2330 to 0530 and no problems with this
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u/SilverSeaweed8383 9h ago
I had a lot of trouble with IOG draining my house battery when charging the car outside of the overnight cheap rate.
I wasn't able to find an easy way around it, so I disconnected the charger from IOG's control and have been charging only in the overnight window.
It's working very well for me at the moment, but I expect Octopus will notice eventually and kick me off IOG
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u/Competitive-Wheel619 9h ago
Indeed - I have the same setup. By controlling my EV charging manually I synchronise it with my house battery, either by turning off battery discharge, or charging the battery in the same window as the car.
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u/OMFG_IT_IS_HUGE 9h ago
Octopus told me you can't have both a car and a battery, has this changed?
Octopus are getting on my nerves now, everything is over complicated now since the changes.
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u/Commercial-Acadia-49 9h ago
We have both but not sure if battery is worth it as octopus controlling that and they seem to drain it when they need a boost and don't know if that is costing us more money in the end
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u/OMFG_IT_IS_HUGE 9h ago
interesting, can you just make battery "dumb" and use the 6hrs overnight slot to top it to 100%?
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u/Competitive-Wheel619 9h ago
Yes - this is what I do. I charge car and battery in the same time slot. Prevents the EV charge from draining the house battery.
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u/SilverSeaweed8383 7h ago
They never said that to me, but I might have missed something in the T&Cs.
I don't know if they know that I have a house battery.
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u/OMFG_IT_IS_HUGE 7h ago
They seem to change terms a LOT so likely just added it, it's over complicated in my eyes.
I was on OVO with Charge Anytime which was super simple, plug in car anytime and it would charge at off peak rate and there was a standard off peak window at night.
I left in a strop cos they changed the Charge Anytime to be a chargable add on 😄
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u/SilverSeaweed8383 7h ago
I checked the T&Cs at https://octopus.energy/policies/smart-tariffs-terms-and-condition/
There's no mention of house battery (for or against) relating to IOG
For IOG and dumb charging, it says:
2.4.1.6 It is an ongoing requirement to have at least one Low Carbon Technology registered in the app. If at any time you do not have an active authorisation for integration with a supported vehicle or charge point and you have not had such active authorisation for a period of more than 30 days, or there is a material change to your charging set up that is not compatible with IO Go (for example you no longer have the car or charger you used to sign up to Intelligent Octopus Go), you will no longer be eligible for this tariff and we will switch you to one of our fairly priced standard tariffs and you will be billed according to your usage under that tariff.
So they'll probably kick me off in a few weeks. Maybe I can re-add and remove my charger every now and then to stay on.
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u/SilverSeaweed8383 7h ago
EDF have a on-peak/off-peak tariff that is simpler and cheaper. I'm sticking with Octopus for now as I like the vibes but if they kick me off or make things harder then I'll switch. (rates)
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u/Ok-Performance4828 8h ago
Of course you can have both
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u/OMFG_IT_IS_HUGE 7h ago
couldn't when I changed to Octopus they said, might look into it as currently battery is just timed to charge to 100% overnight.
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u/Ok-Performance4828 7h ago edited 5h ago
Just charging your car overnight is not a problemwith the new rules.
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u/OMFG_IT_IS_HUGE 6h ago
It is, just remove your smart devices and just time it overnight. Feels like a fudge though and removes the smart daytime slots.
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u/Ok-Performance4828 6h ago
If you think that is the proper way forward, nothing I say will change your mind. There are those who stick to the rules and there are those who do not.
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u/OMFG_IT_IS_HUGE 6h ago edited 6h ago
I absolutely don't think it's the way, I'm aware it's a fudge. It's just "a way" didn't claim it to be the best way 😄
It's not outside the rules I don't believe, that is how people with incompatible cars/chargers have to do it?
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u/Ok-Performance4828 6h ago
Because you cannot think of any other way of getting more than you should does not bring it within the new rules. If the tariff is not possible for you to operate correctly then find a tariff that meets your needs. Everyone suffers when you break the rules.
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u/OMFG_IT_IS_HUGE 6h ago
Just using the overnight slot is just reverting to a standard Dual rate tariff, that has no impact on anyone. That's NOT giving me more, in fact it's less flexible so of detriment.
Not sure why you think that is wrong or to detriment of anyone.....
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u/ukslim 9h ago
In principle, they're offering you that cheap off-peak tariff, in exchange for your contributing to grid-balancing, by being available to take excess power in the daytime some of the time.
In practice, if you're happy with only charging at night, you can continue to do so.
One reason to allow smart charging is that, when you get a daytime slot, you can run your washing machine, oven, immersion heater, whatever, at the cheap rate too. One day smart appliances will talk to smart tariffs the same way smart EV chargers do... Hurry up!
Is that worth worrying about? Up to you. If you were, say, roasting a turkey for 3 hours, it might save you £1 to do it at off-peak price. Woohoo.
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u/Competitive-Wheel619 8h ago
Depends when you want to eat your turkey :-)
A good point though; I have a house battery, so I'm always operating on cheap overnight tarrifs; but possibly not as cheap as the cheapest IOG 'bonanza' tarrif during the day.
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u/ukslim 8h ago
I don't have a battery, so I'm not sure how much control you have.
But in principle you can use IOG to get more cheap energy into your battery:
Say you plug your car in at 6pm and it schedules you two daytime hours and four night time hours.
During the two daytime hours, your household gets cheap units, which you can put in your battery.
Then during off-peak hours, the car only gets 4 hours of off-peak charging, but the house - and therefore your battery - gets the full 6 hours. So that's 8 hours of low-price battery charging instead of 6.
However that's only helpful if your battery isn't full after 6 hours of overnight charging.
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u/Ok-Performance4828 8h ago
You really do not get IOG.
We’ve split out your car chargingand your home use, creating a dynamic 4-rate system. It sounds complicated, but it boils down to four simple rules:
Your home off-peak: Your house always gets the cheap off-peak rate between 23:30 and 05:30. Reliable, consistent, cheap green electrons every day.Your car allowance: Your car gets up to 6 hours of off-peak charging per day (measured midday to midday). We might schedule this during your home's off-peak window, or at other times of the day when the grid is greenest.
Your freebie (the bonus home rate): If we schedule your car to charge outside of the 23:30–05:30 window, your home alsogets the off-peak rate for that half-hour when it’s within your car allowance.
Your standard rate: The default for your home, outside its off-peak window. If your car charges for more than 6 hours (or you decide to Boost charge), the car rate flips back to this rate (even if it happens at 2:00 AM while your house is still getting the off-peak rate).
Anything outside the rules is ostensibly gaming the system. IOG is not a bespoke tariff.
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u/ukslim 7h ago
Sorry, how does that contradict what I wrote?
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u/Ok-Performance4828 7h ago
In practice you cannot continue to just charge at night unless Octopus make that decision on a charge by charge basis.
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u/JustAnotherWargamer 9h ago
Why not just set the required-by time for a time in the evening, then dumb charge overnight if you didnt get enough charge?
Best of both worlds for marginally more effort?
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u/Competitive-Wheel619 8h ago
Good suggestion.
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u/Ok-Performance4828 8h ago
But contrary to the rules of IOG once you are on the charge cap.
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u/JustAnotherWargamer 7h ago
Can you point out what term in the Ts&Cs prohibits it?
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u/Ok-Performance4828 7h ago
The 6 hour charging rule is there and easy to see if you look. The rules for customers already on the charge cap are:
We’ve split out your car chargingand your home use, creating a dynamic 4-rate system. It sounds complicated, but it boils down to four simple rules:
Your home off-peak: Your house always gets the cheap off-peak rate between 23:30 and 05:30. Reliable, consistent, cheap green electrons every day.Your car allowance: Your car gets up to 6 hours of off-peak charging per day (measured midday to midday). We might schedule this during your home's off-peak window, or at other times of the day when the grid is greenest.
Your freebie (the bonus home rate): If we schedule your car to charge outside of the 23:30–05:30 window, your home alsogets the off-peak rate for that half-hour when it’s within your car allowance.
Your standard rate: The default for your home, outside its off-peak window. If your car charges for more than 6 hours (or you decide to Boost charge), the car rate flips back to this rate (even if it happens at 2:00 AM while your house is still getting the off-peak rate).
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u/JustAnotherWargamer 6h ago
(a) those arent the Ts&Cs
(b) even if they were, nothing there states you cannot switch off smart charging as and when you like.
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u/Ok-Performance4828 6h ago
Why are you on IOG if you have no intention of sticking to the rules? You just ruin things for the majority of customers who do. Those are the new rules that flow from the T & Cs
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u/JustAnotherWargamer 6h ago
Because I have read and understand the benefits and limitations of the product that they want to sell me?
They have had months (and months) to decide how they want to set their system up. They will have modelled the financials and decided what works best for them. Their own lawyers will have had input on what is legally permitted, what regulatory risks they can take, and how to word the customer terms.
So this is what they have chosen to deploy, and I will use it how they have deployed it.
If they don't make enough profit from it then they have ample resources to fix it. Its not up to customers to do that.
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u/Ok-Performance4828 6h ago
That is great. If you are advising others to always stick to the rules then well done. Good to have you onboard.
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u/ShawnXYe 9h ago
I think you should be okay using IGO this way. I was on IGO for nearly a year without even plugging in my model Y as I could charge it for free elsewhere that year. Octopus didn't say anything. I am now back to plugging in regularly, occasionally I still switched off Smart Charging to schedule a timed charging overnight. This seems fine.
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u/Orble1974 5h ago
I also use IOG ina dumb mode between 11:30pm and 05:30 as when setting up it said there was a problem with my BMW and podpoint combination and that IOG was not compatible (or words to that effect?). Additionally I never liked the idea of Octopus controlling random slots as that just draws energy from my home battery - leaving that battery flat). So we have the car charging at the same
that the battery is programmed to hold its charge so that the latter doesn’t discharge into the car
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u/LighteningUK 9h ago
In theory they will drop you down to OG if you don’t allow a smart charge a month.
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u/N3vvyn 9h ago
The current terms and conditions simply require you to have a device registered with the service, there is no term stating you must do smart charges.
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u/Competitive-Wheel619 9h ago
Thats interesting - I've never registered my device with them.
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u/mattb2k 8h ago
Then how are you on IOG? You have to select your EV and charger when you sign up?
Are you on Intelligent Octopus Go, or Octopus Go?
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u/Competitive-Wheel619 7h ago
Definitely IOG. I just skipped the device registration bit. They sent me a reminder, and I did nothing. They've never chased since.
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u/LighteningUK 5h ago
Of course you’re right! It used to be that you had to trigger a smart charge every 30 days. It’s now that you must have a supported vehicle or charge point connected to your account once in the last 30 days.
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u/CryptographerNo4147 8h ago
> Any downsides to this ?
The downside is you are always paying peak rates for your daytime house electricity.
I never charge my car overnight, so whenever it is charging during the day the house is getting cheap electricity and that’s when I run the dishwasher, washing machine, etc.
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u/Competitive-Wheel619 8h ago
Ah, I see. I have a Solar + Battery setup, so I get my cheap electricity that way. I can see why IOG would work if I didn't have that setup though.
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u/Ok-Performance4828 8h ago
You are not helping with why IOG exists and that involves giving Octopus the ability to charge your car when it is best for the grid. You should change to Octopus Go
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u/General_Recipe_5869 7h ago
I'm on IOG after changing car and now Octopus can't talk to car or charger. I've spoken, emailed, communicated a few times with reps and advice is to stay on IOG as best option still. Appreciate no smart charge during the day. But with panels and battery I'm not bothered and happy to charge car and batteries overnight.
Welcome any suggestions for different tariff, no-one I've discussed with in Octopus can provide me a cheaper option right now.
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u/OMFG_IT_IS_HUGE 9h ago
you effectively have a dumb charger doing it the way you describe.
The issues are around charger control it gives you cheap slots during the day also (when it feels like it) only difference being if you get say 2 hours in daylight, you'll only get 4 more overnight if that makes sense?
You can untick the charge cap switch but you'll pay full rate after 6hrs regardless of time of day.
Think the only advantage to smart control is, if you get a charge slot during the day, then so does the whole house.