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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 @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:
 

 

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