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

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.