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You don’t need a smart charger to get Charge Anytime if you have a compatible electric vehicle

  • 15 December 2023
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You don’t need a smart charger to get Charge Anytime if you have a compatible electric vehicle
Tim_OVO
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You need a compatible vehicle or smart charger for Charge Anytime, not both

 

If you have an eligible electric vehicle (EV), you can benefit from Charge Anytime. You’ll be able to use the Charge Anytime app without needing an eligible smart charger or smart charger app. If you have an eligible charger, you’ll be able to benefit from Charge Anytime without needing an eligible EV. You can use your OVO online account to connect and manage your EV charging via your smart charger app. You won’t need to use the Charge Anytime app at all.  

 

To see how to set up your compatible vehicle with Charge Anytime, see this topic:

 

 

To see how to set up your vehicle with Charge Anytime with a compatible smart charger, see this topic:

 

 

Why do I need to use the Charge Anytime app with a compatible vehicle?

 

The Charge Anytime app (for Android here, for Apple here) will make sure your vehicle is being charged at the greenest time possible. We’ll need your vehicle’s details submitted in the Charge Anytime app to connect to the vehicle and control the charging. 

 

You can also override your smart charging schedule with the ‘Charge Now’ function if you urgently need to top-up. This will be charged at your standard home electricity rate. More details here:

 

 

The app is also the perfect place to show you how much money Charge Anytime is saving you.

 

Can I still use my EV’s app when using Charge Anytime with a compatible vehicle?

 

You shouldn’t use your EV app to manage your charging. This should be done on the Charge Anytime app. Other than that you can use your EV’s app as before. Please note that preconditioning settings in BMW’s EV app will also be affected. 

 

Check out the Charge Anytime FAQs or Charge Anytime page for more information.

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6

10 replies

P
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I am getting fed up receiving from emails from OVO about charge anytime only to find out that neither my car nor my charger is compatible and that as I have Solar I can’t have it anyway! This has been going on for many months. There is no indication whatsoever when or if this situation will change. It’s galling!

Blastoise186
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I am getting fed up receiving from emails from OVO about charge anytime only to find out that neither my car nor my charger is compatible and that as I have Solar I can’t have it anyway! This has been going on for many months. There is no indication whatsoever when or if this situation will change. It’s galling!

The Indra chargers do work on Charge Anytime if you have Solar. They’re currently the only ones that provide the required data for the system to figure out where it’s coming from.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
P
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I am getting fed up receiving from emails from OVO about charge anytime only to find out that neither my car nor my charger is compatible and that as I have Solar I can’t have it anyway! This has been going on for many months. There is no indication whatsoever when or if this situation will change. It’s galling!

The Indra chargers do work on Charge Anytime if you have Solar. They’re currently the only ones that provide the required data for the system to figure out where it’s coming from.

And that helps me how? I would have thought a good time to draw cheaper electricity would be overnight when lo and behold there is no solar activity to interfere.

Blastoise186
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Overnight isn’t always the cheapest time - it’s certainly not the greenest. The idea of Charge Anytime is to make the most of the greenest - not necessarily cheapest - power and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
C
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Hi, I have just had a EV charger installed. The brand is not one of the compatible chargers. The charger has its own app with a stop/start/smart charge functions. How would I get the OVO smart charging to still work? If I leave the car plugged into the charger and not start a charge, I’m presuming the OVO anytime app can’t control it. Any ideas would be great. Thanks. 

W
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Can you set the charger to charge if a car is plugged in or do you need to do something in app?

If you can set it up like that then dont do anything on the charger (unless you want to stop it charging between 6 and 9pm for Powermove) Provided your car is on the OVO list, it talks to the car and passes it instructions to draw power at the appropriate time.  I think it uses the programmed charging feature of the car to stop it drawing power, then overrides that when it wants the car to start charging    If you want to be certain it wont just start charging then set a time period in your car for just before you plug it in - that way OVO will have plenty of time to get the charging right. 

C
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Hi, thanks for replying. I spoke to the chargers help line and they have said that the ‘car need to be offered power first by the charger app’ then the OVO app would see that the car is charging from the Ford connect app, and stop the charge. I tried that last night, when I ‘offered power’ to the car from the app, the OVO app when automatically to the urgent charge. The charger is Vchrgd charger if that helps. 

ChristopherS_OVO
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Hi @Can,

 

Welcome to the EV community! I have added a badge to your profile to show you’re an EV user 🎉

 

I just wanted to highlight as you mentioned the Ford connect app that we’re currently aware of some issues with Ford customers and Charge Anytime. Keep an eye on the thread below for updates if this affects you. 

 

We also have a handy guide on setting up a compatible vehicle on Charge Anytime: 

 

Let us know how you get on 😊

W
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Hi, thanks for replying. I spoke to the chargers help line and they have said that the ‘car need to be offered power first by the charger app’ then the OVO app would see that the car is charging from the Ford connect app, and stop the charge. I tried that last night, when I ‘offered power’ to the car from the app, the OVO app when automatically to the urgent charge. The charger is Vchrgd charger if that helps. 

Was the power in the car below the minimum setting in the Charge Anytime App - I always set it to 0 so it never Urgent Charges automatically - I’ve only not got a charge when I wanted once  since last December when I got the tariff, but I have a PHEV so its not absolutely an issue (but it is much cheaper than petrol!) 

C
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Hi, I have a PHEV also, a Ford Kuga. I have set the minimum setting to 0 also, as I use all 39 miles of the battery every day. I think the issue is that the charger is telling the car to charge and the Ford app is telling OVO that it need to go into urgent charge mode. Maybe I need to have a look at the setting on the car/car app. 

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