Power Move going into Beyond - new challenge information

If you really feel that strongly, just use the app PURELY to enable Power Move and then just uninstall it if you truly don’t care about the other stuff in there. It’d only take like… 30 seconds once every three months or so! But having this stuff be in the app is actually what tons of OVO customers wanted, thus why it’s now in the app.

Likewise, you’ll probably want to keep it once you realise what else it can do...

If you really feel that strongly resistant that you cannot possibly use the app, then the answer’s simple - just don’t use it. You’d be shooting yourself in the foot, but ultimately it’s your decision. Use it and get the cool stuff, or don’t use it and skip the cool stuff. It’s up to you.

OVO isn’t forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do. But if you choose not to play the game, then you have to accept you cannot get the prizes on offer. It’s just like how refusing Smart Meters means you have to accept you cannot have certain products - it’s your decision but in such cases you are intentionally locking yourself out of the best deals on the market.

I also try to keep to as few apps as possible but I've finally succumbed and downloaded the OVO energy app in order to join Power Move. Being disabled and pretty much housebound I don't need the app for much else although the weekly usage updates will be useful. I'm hoping to continue to reap the full reward each month  -  as I have done since first joining. 

I must say I was agreeably surprised to see the £10 for September on the October bill to date page. I don't know how I managed to make the target for September! My usage for the second half of the month was only below the target twice but I think that including weekends as off-peak is probably what helped. 

The 4-7pm timeline suits me better as I batch cook and freeze portions so that I don't have to cook every day. So easy to microwave for a couple of minutes after 7pm to have my meal at my normal time around 7:30pm. I found the 6-9pm timeline very difficult.

The PM reward often shows up on your live billing page (app or browser) before you get the email about it.

Another agreeable change is that the maximum reward has gone up again and is now £12.

OK, it's not the £15 that it was last year, but better than £10.

Tricia - yes I agree - 4-7 is a much better time to work with.  I never bothered with the 6-9.

It’s disappointing that OVO have chosen to exclude people from Power Move if they don’t use the app (either because they don’t have a suitable device or simply dislike using mobiles for everything). It seems rather silly if you genuinely want to encourage everyone to be more careful with their usage.

And looking at the app on google play, there’s a whole list of access permissions it requires which are excessive for its purpose.  That’s enough to put me off. 

Eh? Those permissions are pretty standard stuff for literally any app under the sun these days.

Facebook asks for A LOT more than that - I wouldn’t worry about the OVO app so much. And besides, the ones that can mess with your data are off by default - you have to grant them manually.

@TomThumb et al...…

I had the same confusing issue so I uninstalled Ovo Beyond and installed the Ovo Energy app and to Ovo Beyond from there instead. Very easy, not complicated at all and it works fine 👌. 

Ok, now I’m not so sleepy and Dewott does have Samsung DeX so I can throw it onto a larger screen, I can respond properly to a comment from last night.

I’ve reviewed the app permissions on Android for the OVO Energy app - and honestly… There’s nothing that surprises me.

• Calendar permissions are OFF by default - the app only asks for them when you use a feature that requires it. It’s used purely for the meter reading reminders - which you won’t trigger with Smart Meters enabled anyway. IIRC this can probably get moved to the new Intents anyway, which would allow OVO to eventually drop Calendar permissions.
• Notification permissions are pretty self-explanatory - it just lets the app send notifications, nothing more, nothing less.
• Camera is used for helping you to read meters - it’s NOT used for basically anything else.
• Full Network Access basically lets the app access the internet - you do want it to work at all… Right?
• View Wi-Fi Connections is part of how Android apps get to the internet. It ain’t gonna hack ya Wi-Fi password!
• Prevent sleep basically doesn’t do much - it just keeps the device active when the app is in use.
• Play Referrer API doesn’t really do anything anymore other than telling OVO where you got the app from
• Storage permissions are no longer used - but were ALWAYS OFF by default. This has been dropped completely from the latest versions and the app can no longer use it.
• Photos/Media/Files permissions are no longer used - but were ALWAYS OFF by default. This has been dropped completely from the latest versions and the app can no longer use it.
• download files without notification - used to refresh the app and isn’t surprising to me
• Receive data from Internet - used for Notifications, every app under the sun has this
• View network connections - allows the app to know whether there’s internet or not, pretty standard stuff
• Control flashlight - simply turns the phone torch on/off
• Run at startup - allows notifications to work
• Control vibration - makes the phone vibrator work, otherwise does basically nothing

In all cases, any permissions that get dropped are removed from the app manifest. Upon installing such app updates, any existing installs will be checked for whether that permission was previously granted. If it was granted previously, it’s automatically revoked as part of the update (usually within 30 seconds) and cannot be re-enabled. If it wasn’t granted, it’s just removed and can’t be turned on.

If new Restricted Permissions are added where user consent is required, they’re always enforced to be DISABLED by default and you have to manually grant them if you want said app to have it. Everything under Other however, is considered to be low risk and you don’t usually need to worry about that stuff - those permissions wouldn’t give the app any additional access to your data anyway.

I’m not enrolled because I’m not paying by direct debit.  I’ve fixed my rate and that removes the benefit you’d get for paying by direct debit if you were on the flexible tariff.  And they wouldn’t tell me what discount I’d get for paying by direct debit on the flexible tariff.

If they’d just take the amount of money that I’d racked up per month I’d be fine but I don’t want to do any of that “spread the cost” stuff.  Is it possible to pay just what I’ve used?

Does the app tell you how you’re doing on meeting the peak usage?  I’ll update the code for the bookmark that does the calculations for you later and upload it to github.

You can see all the tariffs available on the Plans page. Here’s the comparison for electricity in my postcode; they might be different for yours:
  

Delighted to hear that. I’ve been wondering whether I shouldn’t give you a nudge 🙂 (I couldn’t work out how to change the peak period for Oct-Dec myself, I’m ashamed to say.]
  

[EDIT a few hours later] The updated bookmarklet is available at Ovo-Power-Move-Calculator · GitHub 

Thanks, TB 👍🏻