Charge Anytime and Ohme integration update: important information for our customers

​@dpotter  I hope IOG goes well for you. Some people have found it to be unreliable but it seems to depend on the car as well. If you end up with IOG issues then SpeakEV.com is a good forum to go on to see what other EVers have done to solve issues.

Peter

ok that’s great,thanks again.

Thanks Peter. It’s early days yet, so I’ll see how it goes. I don’t really have many options to be honest.

​@dpotter I've always said you've got to go with the best option for you. You are not here to debug other people's systems. Try different things and stick with the one that works. That's how I got to Agile and using the timers in the car. I'm still waiting for the electricity part of my bill which was due on the 7th but they will get round to it. Eventually.

i stopped charging through the Ohme app mid June and started charging my Audi Q4 through the Ovo anytime app  it has been smart charged 5 times since but on my bill i get no credits, it is showing the saving in the app but dont pass on to Ovo, i have had to screen shot the saving and send to Ovo and i am still waiting for a response 

OVO seem to have a very short sighted approach to integration! It's clear that integrating with smart chargers is and will continue to be the most stable solution. 

What is the reason OVO have stopped integration with OHME ? I'd like The real reason! Not some *edited by moderator* about OHME not playing ball! 

It worked perfectly fine ! There's no improvement anywhere, in fact it's worse. what can we expect in the future more OVO improvements that cost us more money ? 

Unfortunately, the deprecation and removal was necessary for the EXACT reason we’ve already stated - Ohme refused/failed to maintain their code and update it to remain in-spec for what’s required of a Charge Anytime integration. There is nothing OVO can do under these circumstances - it will break no matter what OVO does.

Lessons were learnt from the legacy methods. Between that and some stuff OVO is planning on to actually improve Charge Anytime meant the legacy methods were no longer viable.

Ohme was the last remaining integration that ran using the legacy methods - Indra was the other one, but they updated their code successfully. Everyone else uses the new method by default so this issue is unlikely to happen ever again for the same reason.

What improvements? I see no evidence of improvement anywhere, just additional failure. 

Tell us what the improvements will be, not some vague promise that OVO are going to. 

They’re not launched yet - those items are still in the works so I can’t reveal them right now. What I can say is that support for more vehicles and chargers are being added on a regular basis - NexBlue, Zappi and evec recently got added as supported chargers for example, and several EV brands were added in the last month or two.

But I can reveal this much - there has been work on making Charge Anytime play nice with stuff like Power Move Flex with an integration between the two, so that your EV doesn’t charge during a Power Down event and prioritises charging during Power Up events - I believe this may already be active but I’d have to ask. That’s just the start though, more is coming down the road. I just don’t have details yet.

Just to give more transparency… The reason PodPoint isn’t supported is because of a commercial conflict of interest as that manufacturer is owned by EDF. OVO hasn’t been able to figure out a solution for that and probably won’t be able to unless EDF releases their grip on it.

The reason I responded in this thread was because I felt it was the more appropriate place and of your two comments, the one this side had higher quality/value than the other.

Here's the rub .…

OVO recommend a charger OHME ! OVO Change their system and then claim OHME are using legacy Comms! 

And as for 'trust us more good things are coming' I don't trust OVO! Why not develop the package first rather than brake a working system and 'Promise' good things are coming. 

As I said short sighted. 

Are OVO going to add cost and claim it's value ? 

And what the time line for these fabled improvements? 6 months after OVO broke the working system? 

Then you can always just leave. That’s always an option - there are other tariffs still out there that support Ohme directly if that’s what you really want.

OVO added support for Ohme in the early days of Charge Anytime - but Indra came first - back when the plan was just offer a cheap EV Charging rate without any advanced features. Things have changed since then however and the system has evolved to reflect that.

The new method fixes many issues from the legacy methods and Ohme were invited to come along for the ride - but unlike Indra, they refused to play ball and that’s their decision. As soon as OVO realised this, they pulled Ohme from the online store and stopped selling Ohme products. That’s as much as they could do while they continued to try and figure things out.

If you want out, you can leave - the Charge Anytime team on 0330 175 9678 will waive any exit fees but you can ONLY get them to do this if your EV is not compatible.

This is your offer. If you have a suitable EV, you can migrate to the Charge Anytime app and use that. Or you can buy another charger - OVO’s store already offers discounted rates for those but there will be no further discount on the table. If you don’t like either option, you can leave OVO fee-free (ONLY if your EV isn’t compatible) and go somewhere else. That’s more than generous to be frank.

Just to manage expectations… The team did want me to mention that no refunds will be offered if you originally bought the Charger via OVO and they also won’t reimburse additional work that you had done e.g. drop kerbs as those are completely beyond their remit. At least one person has already tried the latter and had it explained that OVO never covered that work in the first place.

No-one is forcing your hand. It’s your decision at the end of the day.

Avoiding answering THE direct questions!

Are OVO going to add Cost to Anytime users ? And When are the changes going to be delivered? 

OVO break a working system with a charger they pushed, promise improvements will come but won't say what they are or when they'll happen, then turn around and say you're free to leave or spend more money on another charger they're pushing, with no guarantee they'll maintain that integration either. Fabulous! 

Look, I get it. Changes like this one are horrible. But there’s nothing OVO can do if the integration partners pull the plug from their side. That’s the risk you take with ANY consumer grade smart stuff - the support for the smart features will ONLY continue to work for as long as the original manufacturer deems it worthy of their time. Unlike Ohme, just about all the others (currently Indra, Hypervolt, Andersen, evec, NexBlue and Zappi) are in it for the long run and have shown a clear intent to provide long-term support for as long as they can keep it going.

As it so happens, my contacts at both Indra and Hypervolt have informed me that they’ve both recently taken on a large number of ex-Ohme customers between them. They were surprised by it, but apparently quite a few folks have decided they wanted to replace the Charger rather than leave OVO. That is, of course, the decision of the individual customers but it does potentially indicate who those folks trust more.

With that in mind, I’ve not recommended Ohme to anyone on the Forum for a while now. I don’t want to go into much detail as to why, but signals I monitor started showing indications some time ago that it was better for me to recommend other options. Thus, I changed my strategy based on those signals.

I do not work for OVO myself - my answers here are my own. You would have been reminded of this when you first signed up to the OVO Forum and from various clues we’ve placed everywhere.

As for the answers you seek...

As myself and others have already made clear in this thread, any planned improvements do not get announced until they’re ready. This is done to manage expectations in case of delays, setbacks or cancellations but it also to avoid putting excessive and unnecessary pressure on the teams. Just look at all the hype (and nagging!) surrounding the upcoming release of Samsung One UI 8 and you’ll soon see what I mean. Publicly announcing a release date before the stable release is ready will just put more pressure on Samsung, so they deliberately hold that back until there is actually a stable release they’re happy with. What OVO is doing is fundamentally no different. When it’s ready, it’ll be unveiled. This strategy not only results in a better product, but also improved mental health for the teams. Maintaining the latter is considered absolutely critical as causing them to burnout means they’re unable to work at all - which is obviously not a good position to be in.

Your question of Are OVO going to add Cost to Anytime users ? is poorly written in that it doesn’t make it clear what you’re asking. Please re-phrase your question to something with better clarity in order to get an answer to it.

Otherwise… I’ve provided you with your options. There are no other options on the cards at this time.

There are no plans to change the Unit Rate for the Charge Anytime add-on at this time that I know of - it currently stands at 7p/kWh at the time of writing (24th July 2025).

Neurodiversity and mental health matters are becoming very widely recognised these days. I am Neurodiverse myself (Autism/ADHD) which is known to OVO and the Forum Moderators. They’ve made reasonable adjustments that make my experience easier, but in return I also recognise that others may need them too - it’s the entire reason I’m considered an Expert by Experience. If you don’t look after your team, they will quit or have other adverse effects which are undesirable. Regardless of your views, it’s an unfortunate and uncomfortable truth that cannot be ignored these days unless you want to take serious risks that aren’t worth exploring.

For these reasons and others, I take a dim view towards any one who disrespects or discriminates others because of Neurodiversity or Mental Health related matters.

As for legacy support, the problem with that is that over time it builds technical debt and divergence in the codebase as the new codebase continues to leave the old codebase behind. There’s a reason why WordPress has a strict policy about only officially supporting the latest version and that older versions are supported with security fix backports on a courtesy basis only - and only while volunteers are willing to put in the time and effort required to backport critical fixes. This approach limits technical debt and frees up more time to work on new features - and most importantly allows critical matters to be dealt with more rapidly.

On the other hand, you have Microsoft Windows where there’s over 25 years worth of technical debt in the Windows NT Kernel alone. It’s only in the last five years or so that Microsoft has finally started ripping out vast amounts of legacy code from the Microsoft Windows codebase, but they’ve put themselves in a position where they’ll never be able to get rid of all that bloat - it’s too deeply rooted at this point and the only fix is to break backwards compatibility that will cause massive collateral damage.

OVO can easily argue that preventing this bloat in the first place is the best cure to the problem. Code maintenance for just one is a beast of a chore in itself. Trying to maintain a second codebase just for a single charger brand when everyone else uses the other - more stable - codebase just isn’t worth the time nor effort, especially when said charger brand could have just as easily migrated to the new method.

OVO wants ALL Charge Anytime users to get the same features. The way Ohme wanted to keep it operating would have given Ohme users a massively inferior experience compared to everyone else. The way it ended up is ultimately the lesser of two evils, but there was no perfect solution since Ohme was adamant they were never going to update their code.

Ultimately, OVO had a plan to communicate the sunset with customers and it was agreed with Ohme that OVO would go first by sending the emails out in batches. Ohme ended up blasting every single customer at once and broke the agreed plan by doing so. If anything, that should be a clue as to why I feel Ohme has acted unfairly in this matter.

The references I made to neurodiversity and mental health were in reference to your questions about why upcoming features haven’t been announced yet. I did make that clear that it wasn’t because of the Ohme disablement.

I know OVO well enough to know they would have done a controlled/phased shutdown if they were able to. But alas, that was not possible not only because of the integration being turned off, but also the contracts/agreements that granted access to Ohme customer data being revoked. Without those in place, it’s a dead tool regardless of the code.

What you want and what you actually get are, unfortunately, often two different things. If you look at Belkin Wemo, they recently pulled the plug on a TON of products which is over 95% of all Wemo stuff they ever sold… Or 100% of stuff if you don’t have Apple HomeKit. In that situation, your stuff is basically a brick - at least with the EV Chargers you can still do something with it i.e. charge an EV as all the manufacturers have committed to never bricking the core functionality of their stuff being an EV Charger.

Belkin is not offering any way to continue using Wemo via their cloud service at all which renders the devices basically useless, outside of the few that can connect to Apple HomeKit and run locally.

Another recent example came to my attention - Futurehome. They went bankrupt recently and the new owners are forcing users to either pay a subscription or have ALL their devices remotely bricked, making them virtually useless outside of basic manual controls.

What I’m basically saying is that this stuff relies on manufacturer support quite heavily. If the manufacturer pulls the plug (as Ohme has done for OVO Charge Anytime), then it’s game over.

So...I've just been charging my car for a couple of weeks blissfully unaware that my charge anytime account doesn't work with ohme charger. It looks like it was also removed from my actual OVO account. My questions are : how do I go about claiming my credit for the time between 15th July and now. I've downloaded the OVO charge anytime app and linked the car ...do I uninstall ohme app, charge anytime app never worked for me previously (I have a Skoda enyaq which is compatible) and why wasn't informed of this change. 

Hi ​@cyrustom ,

Notifications were sent out a couple of months ago - are you sure you didn’t miss them somehow? I’m afraid you won’t be eligible for credits where Smart Charging didn’t occur if you didn’t migrate before the 15th July - you’ll have to pay full rate for those days between the 15th July and whenever you migrated to the Charge Anytime app.

You should keep the Ohme app as you’ll want it for other functions - but I do recommend you delete and rebuild your Ohme account and reconnect the new account to the Charger to avoid conflicts. DO NOT add the vehicle back to the Ohme app though! You can then just set a random tariff in the Ohme settings - it doesn’t matter what you pick.

It must have went to my junk but never showed in the app. Only discovered because I opened ohme app. I've done as you've said and the charge anytime app hasn't worked last night. There's not even an urgent charge option. I've tried rebuilding ohme because I thought that would be the problem....it won't allow me into the app without connecting a car ....so I didn't pair I chose from the drop down...still charge anytime still not working. 

I see. In that case you may need to check with the team - 0330 175 9678 gets you straight through,

​@cyrustom sorry to see what’s happened here. Please do let us know how you get on when speaking to the Charge Anytime team following ​@Blastoise186’s advice. They can also be reached by email at chargeanytime@ovo.com.

Since I have moved over to Charge Anytime from the Ohme app, my car does not charge to what I have set it. I set the battery percentage to 80% to be ready at 06:30. When I wake up at 6 o'clock, the bakery is only charged to around 55% and it says 2 hrs 35 minutes until ready. This has only happened since I have had to switch from the Ohme app to charge anytime. Is anybody else having this issue? Thinking of moving energy suppliers if this continues....

Morning ​@alannic1971 and welcome to the OVO FOrum. I’ve added the EV badge to your Forum account so that other members can recognise you.

So that we can try to help here please could you let us know what model of EV you have?

Your best bet here might be to reach out to the Charge Anytime team directly at chargeanytime@ovo.com.

Hi Ben

I have a Tesla Model Y. I reached out to them last Tuesday and am still waiting for a reply.

Many thanks

Alan

Thanks ​@alannic1971,

There’s some similar issues flagged in this Forum post:

If you check the newest comments and scroll down. One user, ​@RobG-Reading has written:

I have a Model 3 and it works perfectly. I just leave it set to be fully charged by 6am. It usually starts charging for a minute and then decides when to charge. I have seen it stop and start which I assume is based on low/high grid availability, but it has always been charged by the end time. I leave   the charge limit set to 100% in the OVO app as the charge limit you set in the Tesla app will stop the charge so it’s then the same process charging at home or at a charger away from home. It’s also then straightforward for my partner to charge without knowing anything about the Charge anytime app. I assume the Charge Anytime app checks the Tesla charge limit when estimating how long you need to charge the car. I do like that you aren’t restricted on times you get low cost charging as you could set the car to be ready at anytime day of night so it’s very flexible. 

Generally though, in these sort of instances, we’d always recommend contacting the Charge Anytime team, which you’ve done. Hopefully they'll get back to you soon with some suggestions!

Have you had any luck in resolving this yet? I have a Renault Scenic and am having similar problems.I make some long journeys so usually need 100% charge but on the 3 occasions I have charged since the 15th July switch to Charging via the Charge Anytime app my vehicle has randomly charged to 83%,86% and 84%.I have never programmed a charge and just plug in b4 bedtime (always did this when charging through Ohme app and in 8 months it worked perfectly).On each of the 3 occasions using Charge Anytime app,the charge has stopped (again randomly 46%,63% and 74%)but the My Renault app has notified me and given me the option to ‘charge now’ so I’ve done that but still not got to the 100% charge required.Am I at fault does anybody know?