Kia EV3 direct to vehicle- Any current problems with using Charge Anytime?

Hi ​@WileyC ,

Kia causes a TON of issues, you’re better off going via the Charger.

What Charger do you have?

I have an Ohme pro which has dropped off the list of supported chargers list. Can you detail the issues being experienced?

It’s mostly down to Hyundai/Kia BlueLink being absolutely terrible and breaking every Smart Charging setup across Europe.

You’re welcome to try it, but we can’t promise it’ll be 100% reliable.

Interestingly when I asked OVO why they desupported the Ohme chargers they said that OVO had updated their technology and Ohme couldn’t support. When I spoke to Ohme they said OVO were tying to keep data to themselves (via Kaluza) but as OVO still support other chargers that doesn’t sound right.

I suspect OVO and other energy providers are feeding back to Kia re the blue link integration problems ….does anyone have visibility of how that process is going?

AFAIK, OVO has tried yelling at Hyundai/Kia about the BlueLink issues for ages and I wouldn’t be surprised if Enode (the gateway) and other suppliers have as well.

But for them, there’s just no incentive to do so it seems...

So I’m assuming it’s hit or miss on charging initiating correctly when instructed by the charge anytime app…is that correct? Therefore you get charged at max tariff rate rather than the lower EV rate?

It’s more the fact that with Hyundai/Kia being so unreliable… There’s a risk the vehicle might not charge at all. If it does, you’d be charged the correct rates at least.

Apols for all the questions and thanks for the great responses but are you saying there is more a problem with the actual charging of the car (forgetting the charger being used or energy provider) or the ability of the OVO charge anytime app being able to talk to the car via the Kia app? If more the latter I would assume it either works or doesn’t or is this only for some customers and not others? I imagine network connectivity would play a big part as well if you are relying on the mobile network connection to talk to the car vs home WiFi (I will be relying on this). 

It’s very much down to the car software and the supporting software platform on the Kia side of things - that’s where the bottlenecks appear to exist. Hyundai/Kia BlueLink is known for being very unfriendly to anything outside of itself, making it a nightmare to integrate basically anything - every Smart Charging setup in Europe constantly breaks because of it.

Hyundai makes good cars… But terrible software...

I get it’s a software problem but I’m trying to establish how it manifests itself. Do you have direct experience of charging a Kia EV with the charge anytime tariff and direct to vehicle connection?

I don’t myself, but I do monitor this Forum and a few other places and I chat with the team a lot.

It’s been known to be a nightmare for other suppliers too - we’ve seen quite a few Octopus customers moan about it for example.

​@Blastoise186 is right and other suppliers have issues as well. If you go with Octopus then the issue there is that the frequent polling that takes place between IO and the car causes the 12V battery to discharge which results in the car having to recharge it from the HV battery at frequent intervals and this can sometimes trigger a fault condition where the car refuses to charge the 12V battery and everything dies.

Another thread is that the car doesn't always report its position correctly and OVO will not recognise that the car is at home which is a requirement for charging via the car.

It's all a bit of a mess. It's not to say other cars are fault free but I think Kia are close to taking the top prize for uncooperative hardware / software.

Peter

Hey ​@WileyC,

Kia are still in “beta testing” which means there’s likely to be performance or stability issues when using them. As ​@Blastoise186 and ​@Peter E have pointed out it’s not been calm sailing for our Kia customers with numerous issues being reported. 

Consider whether the advantages of using Charge Anytime outweigh the potential disadvantages, such as stability issues. If the negatives are greater than the positives, it might not be the right option for you at this time. We are optimistic that improvements will be made, but this relies on Kia enhancing the stability of their systems so that we can officially support their brand.

All ..thanks for the responses @Chris_OVO does OVO have any sense of when progress might be made with Kia or is it just totally unknown?

Pretty much all up to Hyundai/Kia I’m afraid based on what the Charge Anytime team has told me. Unless they’re up for playing nice, there’s not much anyone else can do…

So sadly, there’s no known timescales either...

Hey ​@WileyC,

As ​@Blastoise186 said there’s no known timescales sadly at this stage. It’s very much in the hands of both our internal teams working on the partnerships with the brands to the brands themselves. 

I’ll keep my ear to the ground and if I hear anything then I’ll tag you! I should be on a call with the Charge Anytime next week so I might be cheeky and add it into my agenda for the day 😇

Many thanks!

I had an email from Ohme saying that Ovo will no longer support Ohme with Charge Anytime after 15th July 2025. I called Ovo support and followed all the instructions required to disconnect my Ohme and connect my Kia Niro EV to Charge Anytime instead. 

My problem is that it's not working correctly. As far as I can see, the Ovo Charging App takes so long to talk to the car that it's completely out of sync. 

I recently plugged my car into the Ohme charger, and it shouldn't have charged at all. Instead, it charged to 100%, whilst the Ovo Charge Anytime App thought that the car was unplugged.

Yesterday I used the Charge Anytime app and it did eventually work and log the power used, but it charged the car to 100% instead of 90% (as set).

I'm not impressed so far - for me, this is currently an unworkable solution. The Ohme solution used to work without issue. Also, expect to be charged full price for the power that was used today as it doesn't show up in the app. 

It's just not working correctly and should have been fully tested before withdrawing support for Ohme!

Anyone else having similar problems?

Hi ​@bishopbn ,

Generally, it’d be best to check in with the team for this kind of thing. Try 0330 175 9678 or chargeanytime@ovo.com and they’ll dig the logs for you.

Thanks for the phone number. I already emailed the OVO team. I was just interested to hear from anyone else with a similar experience. Definitely some timing issues with the system. 

Morning ​@bishopbn and a warm welcome to the OVO Forum 😁.

I’ve added an EV badge to your profile so that other Forum members can recognise you. 

Apologies for the difficulties you’re experiencing since going through the vehicle for Charge Anytime. It seems that Kia EV’s can prove difficult, and we have seen other Forum members saying similar. 

if you search ‘Kia’ in the OVO Forum search bar you’ll see there are also other posts that might be worth a look.

I hope this helps.

Hi,

Thanks for the link - sounds like there are issues with Kia in general.

I was originally advised to buy Ohme as it was compatible with Charge Anytime, and frankly caused no issues. My customer experience has now nose dived due to a less than perfect solution via Kia.

I’m in the same boat as everyone else and have a Kia Niro EV. It used to charge perfectly via Ohme, but Ovo have pulled the rug on that one! The problem, as I see it, is this:

You have to make sure that your charger will always charge at 100% regardless of time or tariff.

Charging is then controlled via the app and the car itself.

The issue is that the app and the car only seem to communicate randomly from 30 minutes to several hours. As soon as the car is plugged in it begins to charge and control of that charging only happens when the car and the app talk, which is somewhat random.

My first charge went OK and the app eventually picked it up. My car was, however, charged to 100% instead of the 90% that I had set. The next day I plugged the car in again and it charged from about 95% to 100% without that app ever seeing it.

This is not a great solution and having shelled out for an Ohme charger feel a bit let down. I installed the Ohme 2 years ago as a second charger as my Zappi wasn’t compatible either.

Any chance that Ovo will support the Zappi charger?

Hi Kia EV drivers….Kia have had a new app out for a while now and I’m wondering if things are getting better at all for direct to car charging for Kia EV owners? Any comments most welcome.

The new app is a bit slicker than the old one, however, the response is about the same. Connecting to the car from the app has never really been a problem.

The biggest issue is that the Charge Anytime app fails for several reasons:

1. It can take from minutes to a couple of hours to update the car’s status.
2. It doesn’t control charging and the car always charges to 100%
3. It fails to report all the smart charging, probably a function of 1. above.

Here are some suggestions to make smart charging partially work,

1. Set the maximum AC charge in the app and then do the same in the Kia app e.g set both to 90%
2. Plug the car into the charger, set the charger to maximum charge and then PAUSE charging. The car will be connected but not charging.
3. Check the Charge Anytime App from time to until it has seen that the car is plugged in and connected.
4. Un-pause the charger and let the car charge.
5. After charging check that your credit matches the power used by the charger.

Hope this helps someone.