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Good Morning,

 

I’ve recently added Charge Anytime to our account, however as our charger (Zappi v2) isn’t compatible, I’ve gone down the route of linking the Charge Anytime app directly with the car itself (BMW i4), which is where the problems have started.

 

So to provide context, before we added Charge Anytime, I was using the My BMW app to control the charging, preconditioning and vehicle preferences. In my case I had a schedule set up, so the car would precondition the batteries and warm the cabin prior to departure, however since the Ovo app ‘took over’, the preconditioning functionality has gone haywire.

 

It appears that the schedule I had in place (Mon-Fri 7am departure), keeps being replaced with bizarre times of the day and night (I had a random 3am departure scheduled the other night) and no matter how many times I go back to reset, it keeps happening.

 

Somehow the Ovo app is clashing with the manufacturers app and essentially rendering the preconditioning functionality useless, which is a problem. If the Ovo app does need to be the dominant app for controlling the car, it needs more functionality. Did any issues arise during testing, Ovo? I’d be interested to know.

 

Has anyone else experienced anything like this yet? If this continues I’ll probably uninstall it, as in my opinion, essential vehicle functions shouldn’t be compromised as a trade off for having a cheaper electricity rate to charge your car.

 

Any help and advice would be appreciated.

Hi @ChrisIX3 and welcome to Charge Anytime and the world of EVs (or is this not your first?)!

 

Can you tell us if you’re using this with Direct to Vehicle (D2V) or via a compatible smart charger? 

 

Charge Anytime should take your ready by time and max charge % and it should do the rest, hitting your ready by time no matter what. Some more info might help, such as what EV, do you use the EV’s app etc


Hi @Tim_OVO ,

Apologies, I have been away.

I have a Ohme untethered home charger, a BMW IX3.

Both Devices have their own apps.

They are now set

BMW - Charge Immediately 

Ohme - Avoid Peak Charger ‘off’

i did this to get a charge in the car, but may be different to how it was when I was trying to get OVO to work.

How should they be set to allow OVO to override them?

I will be home this evening and will set again to charge overnight and see what happens.

 

Thank you


Hi @ChrisIX3,

 

If your have a Ohme Home or Ohme Home Pro smart charger, that is compatible with Charge Anytime. You’ll need to link up the charger via your online account here. From that point onwards you can use your Ohme app to manage charging. You should disable charging via the BMW app. All control should be with Charge Anytime via your smart charger. 

 

Any questions on this, just let us know!


Hi @ChrisIX3,

 

If your have a Ohme Home or Ohme Home Pro smart charger, that is compatible with Charge Anytime. You’ll need to link up the charger via your online account here. From that point onwards you can use your Ohme app to manage charging. You should disable charging via the BMW app. All control should be with Charge Anytime via your smart charger. 

 

Any questions on this, just let us know!

Little confused at this, are you supposed to use the Ohme app OR the Charge Anytime app?


Ohme app. :)


Ohme app. :)

Thank you. I was completely confused with that. 


Thanks all. Just for interest, what I have found works…

I am now using the Charge Anytime app, I have the BMW set to ‘Charge Immediately’

Ohme is showing charge to full ASAP.

Charge anytime is set to hit 90% but 8am tomorrow (school swimming gala, worse luck!), and charging is working, I think.

 

The disconcerting thing is the BMW app sends notifications to my phone saying it has updated the charge setting to a time window and the car ready by… neither of which are accurate.

I think this is update being passed to car coming from the charge anytime app everytime it kicks in and out.

I’m trusting the app 🤞

 

 


@ChrisIX3 I’m sure you know what you’re doing and I’m just being a Charge Anytime novice here (allbeit an OVO employed one), but, I’m still unsure whether you’re using Charge Anytime via the smart charger route or the direct to vehicle (D2V) route. 

 

It sounds like you’re D2V, using the Charge Anytime app. Were you given any advice on what to set the Ohme charging settings to? and likewise for the BMW app?


Hi, I’ve jumped on this thread to see if there is any update to this. I also a BMW 330e (2022) which has been for the past 4 months working in perfect harmony with the OVO charge anytime app. 
Until a week ago when the OVO App stopped receiving updates from the car. I contacted the Smarthome team but haven’t to date received any reply from them. However all of a sudden the OVO app on Monday reset its self and unlinked the car. This allowed me to reconnect the car to the OVO app and now the app is again talking to the car. 

However, since re linking the car to the OVO app it appears to be doing the same to my BMW as it is to others in this thread. Randomly setting bizarre departure times. I get about 2-3 minutes of initial charge when I put my car on charge with a 0500 hours departure time set via the OVO app, then the charge is paused and won’t charge any further. The OVO app then reverts to saying charge will resume after 0100 hours but doesn’t. 

I cleared all the departure times in the car and keep resetting it back to ‘Charge immediately,’ however the OVO app appears to continuously overwrite this with its bizarre times, which I’ve noticed on the BMW app appear to always be for the preceding day. This may be a reason why the car stops charging as it’s an historic date.?


My Hypervolt charger wont work with the OVO app so I have to connect it via the car. It’s frustrating as it was all working perfectly until recently. Now the only way I can get the car to charge is via the Urgent charge feature and so the charge cost rises to standard rate. 
 


I’m still waiting for a resolution from OVO.

I’m hoping it’ll be sorted before next winter, otherwise I’ll have to disconnect the App - can’t be dealing with frosty cold cars in the morning - got spoilt by the pre-heating function.

My car charges OK, but at strange times. More often recently it’ll be fully charged before midnight - that’s with the car and App set for a 5.30 am departure.

My only suggestion is to delete the App and start again and just go with it’s foibles until OVO sort it

Good luck ! I love it when Tech makes our lives easier !

 


Hey @Paulalan and @DaveWeymouth,

 

Are you able to please make the Smart Home team aware if you haven’t already: smarthome@ovoenergy.com.

 

We’ll keep you updated if we get any updates on this internally. 


Thank you Emmanuelle,

 I have emailed the Smarthome team this morning . II’ve also appraised them of the latest fault I have after completing an urgent charge that the OVO app has now frozen.

The app now shows the message ‘Your car is not charging. Please use your cars display or app if you need to make charging start.’

However the car is fully charged and unplugged. 


Hey @Paulalan,

 

Sorry to hear your app is now frozen, I’ll ask about this internally and report back. 


Hey @Paulalan,

 

Got an update from the team:

 

‘There could be a few reasons and as such a few things we troubleshoot, we would always advise starting with the basics first and a quick close of the app, restart the device and reopen the app first. If they've emailed in, we most likely would have already replied by now or will be looking to today.’


Thanks Emmanuelle,

I did try those basic quick fixes first off, both for the OVO and the BMW app. However neither restart worked.

Some good news though is that yesterday the OVO app has started to work fine again.

The random charge times are still being added to the car. However, yesterday I set the OVO app to charge the car by 5.20am and the car charged perfectly!

I know this doesn’t help others who have similar problems. But if Smarthome team have done something behind the scenes, then they have worked and may help others.


Thanks for the update, @Paulalan

 

Hopefully the smart home team can help get to the bottom of the random charge times. We want your Charge Anytime experience to be faultless!

 

Keep us updated please, it may help others that come after you and find this thread. 


Why is this tread marked as Soved,  I still have an issue with Ovo app overriding my BMW charge time and OVO do not have a fix.


Hey @Nik_Pattni ,

This comment was left by a forum volunteer who does not work for OVO. However, the response given in this comment is one that roughly aligns with the community consensus.

The Solved status on a particular thread is used when the question has a reasonable answers that helps the community at large. It only usually gets changed back it was accidental e.g. if one of the forum volunteers (admittedly, I’m more prone to it than the others) hit the wrong button by mistake.

The answer that’s marked does not have to totally solve the entire question, it just has to be something that works for the most part. We never usually know if the original user got their problem solved as most don’t tell us, so the Solved status isn’t linked to whether they ever got their problem solved.

However, Answers can also be updated when new info becomes available or a better solution is found.

In this particular case, Tim has shared a workaround that should help. It’s not the golden bullet solution that’s still being worked on, but it’s something. Personally, I agree that it’s the most helpful comment on the thread in terms of the community benefit.

If you think you can provide a better answer, please feel free to post one. If consensus is reached, it may be tagged as the new answer.


This has started happening to me today after a month of faultless charging. (BMW i4, S&P charger) 
I’ve tried logging out and in to all apps involved with no joy. 
Do any of the other affected users have a fix or is it an on going issue? 


Hey @Rdmi4 

 

Sorry to hear about this.

 

I’d recommend you make the Smart Home team aware if you haven’t already, so they can help get this sorted: smarthome@ovoenergy.com.

 


Hi. 

I have a BMW i4 M50 and can barely charge my car with Charge Anytime. I previously owned a Tesla and it worked fine.

Like others have said, the BMW app gets overridden and sets bizarre times for departure even though I have turned everything off and set the car to charge immediately.

I have resorted to charging urgently but this is not an acceptable solution.

This thread should not be closed!

Thanks


I’ll check for an update on this one, @lmehuk

 

Please note that the best answer in this context is there to make sure the most helpful advice is below the question. 


Hi @lmehuk

 

Sorry for the radio silence there. I’m hoping for something more tangible to come back to you with but in the meantime I’ve been advised this is still an issue. 


Hi @Tim_OVO 

Thanks for the update. Is there any timeline to when his may be fixed please?


Hey @lmehuk 

 

I’ve reached out to the team to see if they can give a timeframe for us. I’ll pop back on here when I hear back from them so I can update you.


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