Introducing Charge Anytime - next generation EV charging

Hi Barry, we have a BMW also but decided to use the ChargeAnytime to control the Hypervolt Home Pro 3 rather than the car. It seems to work well and the car is always 100% charged by 9am (which is what we set). It does stop/start charging at all sorts of weird time intervals, its not just when OVO show excess of green energy. Can’t quite work that out, but seems to be doing its job.

Only had the PHEV 3 weeks, so I am awaiting next months bill to see if OVO apply the discount down to 7p. The app shows a certain amount of cost savings, but I want to see that reflected in the bill to be sure.

I also compared the the daily usage before and after car charging. Seems to be roughly £2.50-£6 difference depending on how much charge we required. But thats at the full rate.

Hi Barry, we have a BMW also but decided to use the ChargeAnytime to control the Hypervolt Home Pro 3 rather than the car. It seems to work well and the car is always 100% charged by 9am (which is what we set). It does stop/start charging at all sorts of weird time intervals, its not just when OVO show excess of green energy. Can’t quite work that out, but seems to be doing its job.

Only had the PHEV 3 weeks, so I am awaiting next months bill to see if OVO apply the discount down to 7p. The app shows a certain amount of cost savings, but I want to see that reflected in the bill to be sure.

I also compared the the daily usage before and after car charging. Seems to be roughly £2.50-£6 difference depending on how much charge we required. But thats at the full rate.

Barry - I agree with Aho’s remarks which reflect my own experience.

Are you looking at your energy hub on the OVO website? It details your home and car usage and the cost of both.

Yes, it’s not particularly helpful to see statements on the charge anytime app telling you how much you have saved. A better approach would be to state what had actually gone in your battery. I have deleted the app. I did not think it was particularly helpful beyond assuring me in the middle  of the night that my vehicle was charging: but I found it to be inconsistent.

The kaluza app gives you the data with a breakdown of the KWh actually charged on a daily basis. I simply multiply the daily figure by 7p and the result seems to tie in with what I see on my account on the OVO web site. I think the data originates from there so not too surprising.

Also, your slow charger delivers at the rate of 1.4 Kw whereas a modern dedicated charger will charge at 7.4 Kw, substantially faster and OK for an overnight charge.

My own view is that I don’t want to leave things to chance and the installation of the home charging point has given me trouble free charging on a daily basis.

Hi oho, it sounds like we’re on a similar journey except I’m holding off on the 7kWh charger for the time being. Your daily costs seem similar to mine and I guess the main difference if OVO ChargeAnytime is controlling the charger instead of the car but I can’t see that having any impact on the amount of charge.

Hi BobTom, I don’t see an Energy Hub on the main OVO website so what menu option is it under? I’ve tried searching for the Kaluza app but can’t find any details of it so what exact name does it go by in the App store? Once we get to the bottom of charging costs we’ll look at a dedicated home charger.

Hey ​@BarryM,

I’m sorry that your thread occasionally diverged down a different path. This happens sometimes, so I've separated the threads to preserve your original intent. If you need anything else please give me a shout and i’ll be happy to help! 

Hi Chris, I think you have ‘lost’ some of the relevant replies in my initial thread - I think there wee maybe 2 posts at the end that diverted the content

Hey ​@BarryM,

I’ll take another look through the thread again and move any that were mistakenly moved! 

Has anybody tried this:

Thanks for getting in touch. My name is Amy and I am apart of the Charge Anytime team here at Ovo.

To get onto Charge anytime, a part of the eligibility criteria is to have a smart meter. We would also try to install one for you. Nevertheless, we have had customers who have managed to add charge anytime to their OVO account without a smart meter, by using an incognito browser on google chrome. I cannot guarantee this will work, but we have had customers get on this way.

It must be said that trying to use Charge Anytime without a Smart Meter will eventually get you booted out - the terms of service are pretty clear about it.

No promises can be made whatsoever about success with ANY hacky workaround tricks. Given that you can no longer sign up to Charge Anytime using the web portal anyway, this trick will no longer work after May 2025 once the legacy web app for Indra chargers gets terminated.

The OVO Forum will not be able to provide advice with anything that could be seen as trying to game the system either I’m afraid. You’d be completely on your own - and at your own risk - if you were to attempt this.

Thank you for you message. A member of the OVO charge anytime team gave this as a potential solution. Why would they offer that now and accuse me of trickery later?

Would love to hear from anyone who has successfully employed this OVO recommended solution.

That… I cannot say…

All I can say is that the “solution” you were given isn’t a solution at all I’m afraid - it will also have a near 100% chance of breaking come the 8th May when the legacy web app used for Indra gets terminated. No other chargers ever went that way - everything (except Ohme) now runs via the Charge Anytime app.

Having checked with the team, they also commented that this “workaround” likely has a zero percent success rate for the use case - it’s more for another unrelated issue where sign-up should be possible but is glitching.

The best I can recommend is to upgrade to a Smart Meter first.

Hey ​@Left out in the rain,

I’m with ​@Blastoise186 in recommending upgrading to a smart meter first. The Charge Anytime eligibility criteria is clear when it says that you must have a functioning smart meter set to half hourly readings. 

If you need to ask about the previous advice given then you can reach the Charge Anytime team on 0330 175 9678 (option 2 existing customers) or chargeanytime@ovo.com. 

Hey ​@Left out in the rain,

I’m with ​@Blastoise186 in recommending upgrading to a smart meter first. The Charge Anytime eligibility criteria is clear when it says that you must have a functioning smart meter set to half hourly readings. 

If you need to ask about the previous advice given then you can reach the Charge Anytime team on 0330 175 9678 (option 2 existing customers) or chargeanytime@ovo.com. 

Smart meter will not connect (to the DCC WAN). Took 8 months to get it tested with a T3 aerial and it still won't connect. Smart meter is to be replaced with an Economy 7 meter.

OVO offered the following:

we have had customers who have managed to add charge anytime to their OVO account without a smart meter, by using an incognito browser on google chrome. I cannot guarantee this will work, but we have had customers get on this way.

I would be grateful if anybody, who has successfully employed this solution, could respond.

As mentioned, I’ve already checked with the Charge Anytime team who confirmed the information you received is not accurate. This has been verified by their team leaders. There’s a zero percent chance anyone else has pulled this trick off.

You’re welcome to ask them again if you wish.

It also wouldn't work because you are initially billed for the full amount and the Add On refunds you an amount based on the smart meter reading. No smart meter reading - no refund to bring it down to 7p a unit even if you could fool the OVO site to say you were a CA customer. To coin a phrase OVO have all the cards.

Having spent absolutely ages messing around, I’ve finally managed to reproduce the scenario that causes this bug and the associated workaround to trigger.

And I can confirm that it only works under very specific conditions where you’re supposed to be able to sign up anyway. It’s merely a case that the script which reveals the button sometimes fails to fire properly. I had a couple of friends help me verify this on their accounts and once in Incognito, the script fired 100% reliably.

However, we were unable to sign up to Charge Anytime on any of our accounts where OVO Beyond was NOT enabled i.e. on the accounts where my friends don’t yet have a Smart Meter (they’re working on getting them though). Even with custom trickery, we could not sign up for Charge Anytime on those accounts - it was blocked immediately by the usual eligibility checks.

The only one the workaround worked on was the one account where the script failed to fire but the account really was eligible - that one worked and got CA running after we bypassed the bug in question via Incognito Mode.

I cannot recommend trying if you don’t meet the criteria.