How to set up your smart charger to use it with Charge Anytime

Does MikeyB’s advice help @LancastrianScot?

Thanks.  Yes it does.  Very similar experiences.  In a couple of days, I’ll see if my problem with driving the Indra charger is fixed.   Keith Drury.

Hey @LancastrianScot,

Just got an update from the team, their advice is as follows:

We wouldn't recommend using a start time, simply setting your ready by time in the web app should then allow you to plug and forget, resulting in the vehicle charging by the ready by time. If their charge is still refusing to charge correctly, we would advise they reach out to their installer who will be able to raise a support ticket to Indra.

Hope this helps. 

Thanks, Emmanuelle

I’m following that, but can’t test the smart charging ATM, as I’ve boosted the charge level to 100%, and can’t charge any more till I’ve used the car - perhaps at weekend.  The big unknown has been how to set up the car/My BMW app.  Should it be set on ‘Charge Immediately’, or ‘Charge in time period’ (setting for the latter a very wide time period, as Indra advised)?  In the past, BOTH these settings have been reset remotely during charging by some outside agency (presumably Kaluza??) to ‘Charge in time period’ with a seemingly random time period which caused both smart and boost charging to stop.  But this was before a firmware refresh from Indra, so I wait to see if this has worked, and will then experiment with the My BMW settings.

CLARITY AT LAST!  Confession time from me: 

It’s the car that’s at fault (my now 98%-certainty view).  From new, it hasn’t taken charge for more than 5 - 25 minutes, based on testing I’ve conducted over the last 3 weeks.  It’s a BMW 330e, built Jan 2024.  The charging control system drops the charging supplied by ANY means, including the BMW-supplied granny cable charger (i.e. completely excluding my Indra Smart Pro EV charger from the process) at random, but short, intervals.  The car either resets the charging mode to charge in time slot, inserting random, but never current, times, or it fails to fault/error mode requiring removal and reinsertion of the charger nozzle.

I notice the same problem has been raised on BMW owner forums in the past.  With no solution apparent.   😟

So I’m pretty sure it’s not a setup issue at all.  As regards fixing the car fault, our local agent can’t look at the car for a month (pressure of work to ship out the new ‘74’-plate sales!!!!!  That’s service for you!)  If there’s any further issues after they’ve checked the car, I’ll report back.

With grateful thanks to all contributors here    😅    Keith Drury

That sounds like some useful detective work @LancastrianScot - these things can become rather complex with various feeds and settings. One change at a time is often key so that you can identify cause and effect. 
It sounds poor that they can’t look at the vehicle for you quickly. 
Hope you’re managing somehow just now and it all gets put right soon 

Fully agree!    Managing - yes, sort of.   As a PHEV, the thing is only 12kWhr capacity:  it’s taken 2 days of charging minutes at a time/failing/resetting/try again to get to 99% today.  But the last session was 47 minutes, without charging dropping out, using the Indra Boost setting, i.e. @ full domestic p/kWhr, not Charge Anytime.  May stick to using that boost setting till car fixed.   🤔

Thanks.  Keith Drury (retired engineer, so familiar with experimentation and forensics!!)

Hi @LancastrianScot,

It’s amazing to hear that you have made progress in identifying the issue! It also sounds like you have identified a group of individuals in similar circumstances to you. I appreciate you taking the time to share your journey with us as it keeps us in the loop. 

Please keep us updated on your progress and if you manage to get a fix to your issues!

I have just had the Indra charger installed. The installer new nothing about the web app. I contacted Indra and they set up the Kaluza account, but I was still unable to log into web app. They have now told me I must only use the Kaluza web page. Has anyone had this issue and will it cause problems when I register for Charge anytime?

No, Charge Anytime has used their web interface since the start as far as I know. 
There’s a guide here