Important news for Indra charger owners - it’s time to set up your new Indra app

I have followed all of the actions on the email requesting that we move to the new Indra and Ovo Charge Anytime Apps, but unfortunately it does not appear to work.

With the car unplugged the Charge Anytime app told me that the car is unplugged as expected.

I plugged my car in, the new Indra app reported it was connected, but the charge Anytime app reports there is a connection issue and your car is not connected.

So I am doubtful it will charge up overnight.

The lights on the charger were initially flashing Green (i.e waiting for charge)

Given the number of issues I now see on the forum why are Ovo forcing this out onto everyone?  The emails recommending it should be stopped until the application and supporting platform is fixed.

If you’ve not spoken to the team about that issue, please contact them on 0330 175 9678 or chargeanytime@ovo.com - it’s probably an issue specific to you.

Hey ​@Wharfrat,

A flashing green light indicates that the charger is connected to the EV but not actively charging - “The green light indicates the charger is ready and connected, but the charging hasn't started because a charging session hasn't been initiated”. It could also be a function called “ Fixed Calibration Load” but that’s normally only seen during installation. 

This means that you need to wait at least 15 minutes between charging sessions to allow the schedules to reset and load the next schedule. 

Hey ​@darren.guscott,

I’ve merged your question into this thread as it’s similar to the discussions our members are having here. 

There are troubleshooting steps on the main thread itself if you haven’t seen them already. If you’re still having issues our Charge Anytime team are available to troubleshoot with you over the phone on 0330 175 9678 (option 2 existing customers). 

To clarify the point about "OVO forcing this out," the app is owned by Indra. OVO is simply assisting with the migration of customers to the new platform. While such migrations can experience initial difficulties and unforeseen issues, the teams are dedicated to resolving any problems quickly to minimize disruption. We apologise for any frustration this transition period may be causing.

Hi Moderators - please move this post if not relevant to this thread.

I have noticed that since all this change with the Indra/Charge Anytime apps that my charging from solar is being recorded differently. It is showing that I’m actually drawing some power from the grid when I thought I’ve been purely charging from solar. I don’t understand why this is the case, or perhaps it always has been the case but it wasn’t shown separately on the data.

Does this mean I will be paying the normal unit rate for anything I use from the grid, like when I use the ‘boost’ feature. I’ve thought the point of solar charging is to use what is being generated surplus to household requirements and not draw from the grid at all.

I’m finding it quite difficult to reconcile the data from both the apps - I’m hoping it’s just a matter of getting used to the change. Is anyone else not understanding it, or is understanding it and can help me?

Thanks!

Hi ​@Jasmin10 ,

I’ve had a chat with the team - they’ve acknowledged this one but need a bit of time to crunch the answer.

Hang in there for a bit and we’ll let you know what they say when they’ve had some time to dig the data.

Just to update, the car did in the end charge fully overnight. It threw me that it (a) didnt charge at all the first night (b) only added a tiny bit of charge after unplugging and (c ) the thing isn’t working now in the same way it used to.  BTW I never received any reply from OVO or Indra support.  I’ll wait and see what happens next time I need to charge but at the moment I now don’t trust it to charge when I want it to.

Hey ​@Wharfrat,

How did you get on over the weekend with charging? Has it improved any or still the same? 

When did you last contact the Charge Anytime team? If it’s been over a week I can try and chase up a response for you! 

​@Jasmin10 sorry for the wait - Bank Holiday weekends are annoying for slowing things down a ton.

Please monitor the Forum as I’ve heard there’ll be an update post likely coming out soon that may help you. I’ll give you a heads up once I see it live.

Thanks for hanging in there

Thank you ​@Blastoise186 

I’ve asked the team for advice here ​@Jasmin10 & I’ll report back. 

Hey ​@Jasmin10 

The Charge Anytime team are getting clarity on how solar with indra now works & when I get an update I’ll let you know on this topic thread 😊

I would also like to know this. I’ve not yet found a way to charge the car purely from solar since switching over. The ready by time can be set no more than 24 hours ahead and once the charge begins, it charges at the maximum 7.4kW. I don’t need my car to be charged to 100%, I just want to top it up using excess solar energy, but I can’t remove the ready by time and the Indra lights are green instead of yellow.

Hi ​@FatOldSun,

Exactly the same here. I too only want to top up with excess from solar generation. Also have noticed the lights are green not yellow for solar charging.

​@Emmanuelle_OVO, any update yet?

Jasmin

Hi ​@Jasmin10 and ​@FatOldSun,

To confirm, our back office teams last told us that they were awaiting word from other external teams on answers to all of this. I’ve chased them again and will update you as soon as I have any news!

Hi all,

Is anyone else with an Indra charger getting random and incorrect notifications on their phone that a vehicle has been plugged in to/unplugged from their charger?

I have had this now on Monday and today. Today was ok as I was in so able to look outside but Monday I was out when I got the notification so it did concern me a bit. Especially as earlier threads on here have confirmed with Indra chargers any vehicle can be plugged in to charge without needing to link them to the charger in any way.

Not had this at all.  If you’re worried, I see that you can now lock the Indra charger to prevent ‘unauthorised’ use in the new Indra App’s settings.

Thanks Ben. Your signature line is somewhat ironic!

The signature thing is a running joke between the Forum Moderators and Forum Volunteers. You could say that our energy related puns give us a real buzz! :P

I’ve had several spurious vehicle plugged in and unplugged alerts in the last week from my Indra charger app.  App is currently showing last plugged in today, but it was last plugged in 2 days ago.

Charging seems to have worked fine though since the change to using the Indra app.

​@FatOldSun you’re right about the irony hahaha, perhaps I should amend the signature to include ‘(when everything’s working as it should be)’ 😅

Just linking in ​@Jasmin10 here as well - I am still waiting to hear back from our back office at the moment - apologies for the delay!! 

I hope to bring you some news soon 🤞

Thank you, ​@MikeyB, didn’t know about about this but have now done that 👍🏻.

​@Ian in Somerset, glad it’s not just me!

Going to have to come up with a suitable signature 😏

Since switching over I am finding a few issues

twice it failed to charge overnight. On checking the App from 5pm to midnight it just said planning your next charge but never did

next day it was sat doing the same so I had to force a charge from the Indra app. But that is full price. So after two minutes I stopped it and the schedule charge  carried on charging fine. But it then stopped on the hour and said planning next change. 
 

another issue I find is if set my car limit to 80% and it does actually do a charge to80%, but then I decide later that day I need 100% the next day it will not restart the schedule as it thinks it’s complete. I have to disconnect the car for a while first to instigate the next session to get that 20%. 
 

on the old web based app I could just adjust the percentage needed and the schedule would restart

seems a backward step to me losing the flexibility 

Hi there, I had no issues converting from the Indra web app to the Indra mobile app and linking through to the Charge Anytime app. That all worked perfectly fine. My issue is that since switching to this new method, the charging process itself has become unreliable. I have an Indra Pro charger and an MG4 EV. After connecting the charging cable to the car, the Indra app notifies my that a vehicle was connected (no problems here), but charging often does not commence and when opening the Charge Anytime app, that app throws a “connection issue” error message. Sometimes unplugging the charging cable from the car and reconnecting it resolves the issue (the car immediately starts to charge), other times I have had to reboot the Indra charger (throw the power switch on the isolator switch) and on some occasions have had to repeat this entire process a few times before charging actually commences. I have seen a few firmware updates install on the Indra charger after rebooting the Indra charger. I had a few “isolated issues” with my system before the switch from the Indra web app, but nowhere near this new level of unreliability. I am concerned. Any comments / advice?

I've mostly had successful charging sessions with the new setup. When things have gone wrong it's always been because I've tried to change something - anything - after I've plugged in.

I've found that the way to be sure of success is to just leave well alone. If you want to change anything, unplug first, make your changes, wait a good 20 mins and then plug back in.

In my opinion it could and should be much smarter, so let's hope the code wasn't  written by some already forgotten freelancer and is still being worked on!

Hey ​@Bobbych, 

The team gave me some information to pass along for you: 

“A couple of things have changed from how the legacy Indra integration worked.

• With the legacy Indra integration, to help balance the grid, Charge Anytime would reduce the charging rate from 7kW to 2.4kW. With the new app experience, Charge Anytime now fully pauses charging instead, resuming later. This is better for the grid overall.

However, some vehicles interpret this pause as charging being complete, go to sleep, and then don’t respond to further attempts to charge. If the EV doesn’t begin accepting a charge within 11 minutes, the scheduling optimiser assumes the battery is full and cancels all remaining schedules from the charger. In this case, the customer will see the “Planning your next charge” message in the Charge Anytime app.

• The scheduling optimiser (the part that calculates how much charge is needed to reach the customer’s desired battery level by the Ready By Time) now needs to be reset after every charge session. So if a customer finishes charging and wants to add more, they’ll need to unplug for 15 minutes, set a new Ready By Time, then plug in again. Similarly, if a customer is charging two vehicles one after the other, they’ll need to wait 15 minutes before plugging in the second vehicle. They should also do this if there was a failed charge and the charger is stuck on ‘planning your next charge’.

If these don't work you’ll need to speak to indra as we only send charging commands. They can check:

• if the charger's firmware is up to date (newer firmware should automatically send ‘wake car’ commands to stop them falling asleep)
• Apply compatibility settings to improve charging reliability
• Investigate if the vehicle is blocking the charge and suggest work arounds
• Check for issues with the charger or charging cable”

Hey ​@maxg74,

The team have asked if you can reach out to Indra for your issue as it could be something to do with the cable physically or the 'cable state' (how indra telemetry displays cable status e.g. connected or not connected). You’ll reach them on the options below:

Email: support@indra.co.uk

Call: 01684 770 631

Let us know how you get on! 

Hey ​@Jasmin10,

The team have gave me an answer to your questions about Solar:

“It might’ve appeared like you were charging your EV solely from solar, but technically, that wasn’t the case.

Previously, the charger would enter "solar matching" mode when just 1A of excess solar was detected. If there wasn’t enough solar (less than 6A), the system would have topped up the difference from the grid - so you were actually using a mix of solar and grid power. 

It could have seemed like you were only using solar power because you received Charge Anytime credit for all the energy used during those sessions - even the solar portion - as long as you weren’t in Boost mode.”

We’ve just published a new article on this recently to highlight the changes which i’ll leave below for you:

I’m sorry for the delay in getting back to all your questions as the teams been working hard with the Indra migration and have just caught up with anything outstanding, They’ve said they’ll happily answer any questions you have just reach out to them any time on 0330 175 9678 (Option 1 new customers/option 2 existing customers) or chargeanytime@ovo.com.