Preconditioning settings like pre-heat from my BMW EV app not working due to clashing with OVO's Charge Anytime?

Emmanuelle, 

you seem to know what is going on 

Do you know if there is any update on the BMW I5 any charge anytime.

Hey @Stevenlevy,

You can see all eligibility details in our Charge Anytime page here. You must be an OVO Energy customer and have an eligible car or charger. We’re constantly looking to open up the eligibility of this product to more EV models and chargers, so if you don’t see your tech here, keep an eye on our page.

Hello @SBRetd. I may be jumping to conclusions, but I presume in your question you are referring to the 12v battery. This is a common problem with many hybrid cars and has existed for far too long. My 2013 hybrid Auris has from new had to be driven at least once every two days, about 6 miles is usually enough. Battery too small or insufficient charging, Toyota doesn’t seem to know, but all Toyota hybrids seem to suffer from it.

I have been considering a new plug-in car and the Ovo charge anytime, but as you have found, it does not seem to be very flexible. Hopefully it will improve as time goes on. Can’t say for all cars, but plug-in Toyota cars will drain the 12v battery if left plugged in and not charging.

Hi Taj

Yes you are correct.  Prior to subscribing to ‘Charge Anytime’ I didn’t have the issues that this thread has exposed.  I certainly didn’t experience any problems with a battery drain when the vehicle is unused.  So, having experienced a ‘secondary’ battery drain (a separate rechargeable battery for the comms system) I have inferred that this could extend to the main battery over a prolonged period.  My thinking goes like this - if ‘ Charge Anytime’ is draining this secondary battery which could be recharged by the main 12v battery, then does the main 12v battery provide the power to maintain the ‘Charge Anytime’ comms interface when the secondary battery is no longer capable .  If so, my battery will be at risk.

I am probably wrong but was interested in any experiences others might have had.

I understand your concern @SBRetd, my advice would be to contact our experts at smarthome@ovoenergy.com.

When they respond, it would be really helpful if you could pop back and update the thread. This may help other EV owners with similar concerns. 

Hello Emmanuelle

I have posted a response from Nicholas at OVO.  Please see below.

I have asked for more clarification as the answer indicates that the vehicle is polled until it is plugged in.  This indicates that battery use is drawn upon when the vehicle is unplugged  - or maybe I have misunderstood.

That said, the fact that no one else, apart from Taj, has suggested a problem, then I probably have nothing to worry about.

I’ll have time over Christmas to test the principles 😀

I'd like to reassure you that Charge Anytime will only send out charge commands when your vehicle is at home.   This will have some affect on the battery as commands are sent to the vehicle until we have a successful connection when it is plugged in.   It wouldn't be expected that your battery would be affected by charge commands whilst not at home and not on charge.   I hope this gives you some reassurance whilst you're away.

Hi same issue here with a Mustang Mache not pre conditioning when connected to charge anytime.

For me at least this is more than just having a nice warm cabin as on the Mache if plugged in it also pre conditions the battery (warms it up) which does drastically improve the life and range of the battery so I am told.

I have raised an “idea” linked below with a couple of suggested changes either read the pre conditioning schedules via API or allow a scheduled override of the smart charging (effectively a scheduled “charge now”)

Any one affected please vote and we may get this sooner

Hi,

Does anyone know if there is an update to this issue please? 

Used the Charge Anytime app for the first time today and noticed it immediately set some funky future preconditioning settings, overriding my existing ones (BMW i4)

New customer here, I’ve just spent 2 weeks needing an iOS update just so I could open the app and now seeing this on the first attempt at a charge - not the best start ☹️

Cheers. 

Hi @GarryC1989,

I’m sorry to hear this.

I’ve just reached out to the team to chase this up for you. I’ll be back as soon as I get an update for you.

Hi @GarryC1989,

I’ve managed to get a response from the team.

Unfortunately there’s no update on this issue at the moment. For some vehicles, including BMW & MINI, our smart charging control automatically overwrites any existing pre-heating/cooling schedules. Please accept our apologies for this inconvenience, and be advised that we are working hard to try to rectify this issue, but it is not something that we can resolve soon so in the meantime you will need to decide if you are willing to forego these features in exchange for the Charge Anytime savings.

Any Updates on this, I am having the same issues. The App stops the charging and never restarts! I have been caught out twice recently and had to Urgent Charge to get me to a DC charger, which defeats the whole point of having a charger at home! Time to switch to another energy supplier if its taken over a year and no updates or improvements?? 

It’s a lost cause I’m afraid, it’s never going to be fixed. All you can do is monitor the charge. Mine works about 60% of the time, other times I’m restarting the car, restarting the app all fun and games.

Switching provided wont help as they all use the same software - Enode. Seems the only true way is to get a compatible charger, or switch the a company that offers a low night rate and just charge without the use of an app during these times…

I will look at alternatives as I have never been happy with OVO tbh. Thanks for the reply. 

This is confirmed to be a BMW issue. The workaround is to just disable pre-conditioning for now.

I disabled pre-conditioning 10 months ago, the app is still as reliable as a chocolate teapot. Some times I get a charge and sometimes I don’t. You just can’t trust it.

I worked with the technical team for months and this was the reply:

Unfortunately, we've had to go to the central database company on this one. As far as we can see from the data we're receiving there is absolutely no reason for your EV to not be charged correctly. On that basis, it looks like the data we are receiving is incorrect. Most EV manufacturers use a company called Enode to handle their data and allow access to 3rd parties. That's where our data comes from. If the data we're receiving is not showing any errors, but your car isn't charging correctly, there must be a breakdown somewhere in the middle, and that's Enode.  We've asked them either to look at, or allow us access to, your raw data as it comes in from your EV. We have the raw smart meter data and, if we can compare the 2, we're hopeful that we can find a solution. This is new ground and not something that we've had to do before, not to this extent, anyway. That means I can't really tell you what kind of timeframe we're looking at here, I'm afraid. As soon as I have any more information, I'll be in touch.

Hi @NeVeTaS,

I’m sorry to hear this.

I’ve reached out to the team to see if there’s any update on this. I’ll be back as soon as I get response for you.

Does having a compatible charger, like an Ohme Pro get over this issue?

thanks very much,

It does, yes. Just make sure to set it up via the Charger!

Hi all

Before I got my 530e  I spent a lot of time reading blogs like this to help guide me on my own setup.

In the end I went with an Ohme Charger Pro and connected that to OVO.  OVO doesn't know that I have a BMW, OVO just talks to my Ohme.

Ohme then talks to my BMW which allows the preconditioning to work fine. My car arrived at the start of this month, and running my setup in this way allows everything to work.  My car is warm in the mornings having drawn the power for preconditioning from the charger.

I footed the cost of the charger as I didn't want to miss out on one of the main benefits of having a PHEV which was the preconditioning through the winter. 

Hope my experience helps someone.

That’s really helpful feedback ​@ElliUK. Thanks for sharing your experience 😊

I’ve added an EV badge to your account so other community members with the same green tech can identify you. 

We have a really helpful Charge Anytime hub you may find interesting:
 

• Charge Anytime - Topic Hub & How to get in touch F.A.Q.

3 months on, nobody ever got back to me. Trust me, they will never fix this…

That’s because it’s ultimately a BMW issue if memory serves.

I plugged in last night (Tuesday 21 January 2025) at 4pm. Battery at 63%

App was set to be ready for 8.30am and 80%

Car started charging immediately for 3 minutes, then app reported ‘next charge after 12.30am’

It went on to add some charge at 10pm, 10.20pm, 10.30pm, and finally 1.30am.

It’s now Wednesday 22nd January at 9.53am, app reports ‘awaiting your next charge’ and I’m at 68%

Useless...

If that’s happening… Call 0330 175 9678 Option 2.

Been there, done that. I never have any schedules or preconditions set, and the admins on the forum said they would look into it again, that was 3 months ago, never heard anything. This was the initial reply from OVO:

'I'm sorry for the issue this customer had, although it doesn't seem like there is anything deeper going on. We weren't able to confirm that the BMW was able to begin charging before timing out (BMW accepted our request but for some reason the vehicle never started charging).'

Unfortunately just looks like a case of charge commands sent but not obeyed.
'This issue can be related to an intermittent connection with the vehicle or the connected charger not offering charge to the vehicle when needed.

In order for the Charge Anytime app to work correctly, you must remove any and all schedules from your wall charger as they might cause a conflict with the smart charge schedules sent by the Charge Anytime app. Some chargers have a Plug & Charge mode or something similar, it’s usually best to check with your charger manufacturer as to how best setup the charger to offer maximum charge to the vehicle all day everyday.

In addition please can you make sure that there are no schedules set in your vehicle’s app that could be interfering with our control.

During periods where the vehicle isn’t sending us telemetry, we can't control or record smart charging, meaning that you won’t receive Charge Anytime Credits for charging completed during this period. This is covered in section 7 of our terms Charge Anytime Terms and Conditions| OVO Energy

We know this isn’t an ideal outcome so our developers are working on ways to improve how the app reports this kind of issue on future versions of the app.'