Intelligent Octopus Test Charge

[Bryanmet]

I’ve tried half a dozen times to do the IO Test Charge without success - says it ‘can’t control my vehicle’. I must be doing something wrong in setting it up.

I have iV60 - with ME3.0 - and PodPoint Solo charger.

I change the PodPoint from ‘Smart’ to ‘Manual’
In the car I set Location to ‘home’ and have tried both ‘charge immediately’ and ‘set departure time’ but get same result whatever I select.

Hope someone out there is able to spot my mistakes or let me have an idiots step by step guide on how to set car up on charging screen - never set anything in the car before as PodPoint does scheduled charge with no in car setup.

[RichR]

One thing I found when researching the same issue (for me, having ME2.4 was the issue - currently being upgraded at the moment) is that you need to have a charging location set for your home. So if you open the (new) app, confirm that the bottom box does show the car is detected in a location.

Probably not that, but worth checking. When I get my car back with ME3.0, I'll be going through the same process

[DazF05]

I did my setup yesterday and it all went through first time in a total of about 10 minutes still trying to get my head around leaving the charger on all the time and trusting intelligent to only charge at cheap rate

When you plug the car in during the day it charges instantly and intelligent is supposed to switch it off as soon as it sees it’s charging (I’m going to test that later today)

Also it didn’t charge last night I think it’s because I still had my podpoint on a schedule, I have just switched podpoint to manual hopefully that will work now

[Bryanmet]

I tried again yesterday and somehow it worked! Then a few hours later got the email confirming my switch to IO. So set the PodPoint to manual and plugged the car in. It did start to charge and I decided to stop it after a few minutes using mySkoda app. The IO app stated that it would set a charge plan shortly after plugging car in but didn’t seem to be doing anything. Anyway later on I got notified of a charge plan - mainly during off-peak time but a little beyond that as well - first charge was at 02:30 so I had to take it on trust that it would work - and it did! I extended my home battery timed-charge to cover the IO charges so that I didn’t drain the battery. All seemed to work just fine! Will check on OctoAid later to check tariff applied.

[Pict]

When you plug the car in during the day it charges instantly and intelligent is supposed to switch it off as soon as it sees it’s charging (I’m going to test that later today)

When I need a charge I plug my car in after getting home from work, get my bag out the boot, lock the car and then stop the charge on the My Skoda app. That 90 seconds is enough for Octopus to detect the car is connected and organise the schedule.

[Ken3966]

Much easier to set a preferred charging time of 23:30 to whenever you usually need car next day.
On the goodby screen change charging from charge now to charge at preferred time, or you can do it every time you need on the charging screen. Plug in and it charges for a few seconds, then pauses to 23:30.

Octopus still knows it is plugged in and sets a schedule overnight and this quite often results in extra off peak next morning as well.

[snalbansed]

When you plug the car in during the day it charges instantly and intelligent is supposed to switch it off as soon as it sees it’s charging (I’m going to test that later today)

It does say that you can stop the charge using the car or the Skoda app after you have plugged it in, save yourself a few pence instead of waiting for the messages to get through to Octopus. It'll still see the car is plugged in and set a charging schedule.

However I often get a message on my phone that octopus has failed to control the charge - my current theory is that what is happening is IO sees the car is plugged in, attempts to stop the charge (via the car), and fails because I've already stopped the charge. It always still charges over night though as per the schedule.

And like others have said - if you don't need the car first thing set the ready-by time to be later in the morning, as particularly in the summer they might choose a charging session later in the morning and you get an extra cheap electricity session beyond the six hours we already have

[Choppsie]

I did my setup yesterday and it all went through first time in a total of about 10 minutes still trying to get my head around leaving the charger on all the time and trusting intelligent to only charge at cheap rate

When you plug the car in during the day it charges instantly and intelligent is supposed to switch it off as soon as it sees it’s charging (I’m going to test that later today)

Also it didn’t charge last night I think it’s because I still had my podpoint on a schedule, I have just switched podpoint to manual hopefully that will work now

It took me a while to trust but now I am there. Initially, when I plug the car in, it starts to charge, but once the Octopus App starts talking to the car, and sends the charging schedule, the charging stops. This can take up to 30 minutes, something a member on here told me about.

My steps are:

1. Set up the plan in Octopus first (It will say something like "A charging plan will be made shortly after you plug in.")
2. Plug in the PodPoint Solo (2), making sure it is in manual mode)
3. You will see the charging light on the car go green.
4. Keep refreshing the Octopus App until you see the plan
5. If you check the car, the charging light should now be off

You don't need to check the car, I use the My Skoda App and make sure the charging cable goes from green to black, which it does "eventually"

It's that up to 30 minutes I wasn't aware of!

[Bryanmet]

When the light goes green when I plug the charger in, I use MySkoda app to stop the charge - no need to wait 30 mins. IO sends charge plan through a little later on - guess within 30 mins.

[Ken3966]

When the light goes green when I plug the charger in, I use MySkoda app to stop the charge - no need to wait 30 mins. IO sends charge plan through a little later on - guess within 30 mins.

You don’t need to do this. Just set up preferred charging time under the location in the menu. Then change option to charge at preferred time. I have mine set to 23:30 - 10:00.
Charging stops immediately but you still get a schedule from Octopus. I have it set to finish by 10:00 to benefit from any potential extra off peak slots as rarely will need car by then and have that time set in the Octopus app.
When away from home it only allows you to charge immediately, but at home it then defaults to preferred time for charging. You can override this if you actually need to charge at home immediately.