Newbie Home Charging Issue (UK)

[Peterp]

Thanks. Will give it a go. Not doing much driving this week but will do on next charge.

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[Peterp]

This is how I set mine up and it seems to work but as the integration between Octopus/Ohme/Porsche is so flakey, I can’t be sure it will work for you, but here goes.
Octopus App - Register the Ohme charger in the app (not the car). This should then appear as a device at the bottom of the screen. When you select the device it will tell you it’s in Beta stage and controls should be done at the Ohme app. This is all assuming you are in the Octopus Intelligent Go tariff.
Ohme app - go to manage my EV’s then select manufacturer. You will get the option to login to your Porsche account but ignore this and proceed without login. Select your car and this should appear in Manage My EV. The app won’t be able to tell how much charge the car has but that doesn’t matter. Don’t set anything else on the app (timers/profiles/price cap)
Porsche app (or car) - firstly set your General charging profile to location independent, optimised charging and then 25% minimum charge. I’ve tried this setting at 25% and 85% either seem to work but if yours fails (red charging light on car) try changing the minimum charge. On the timer tab set Ready for Departure to 0600, set daily repeat and click each day, leave Air Conditioning off and finally set the charge limit to 85%.
If using app confirm both profile and timer and send to car. Leave direct charging off.
Leave the car unplugged. Switch the mains breaker off for 10 minutes then switch on. The charger will blink and after a few seconds stabilise. If you get a solid red at this stage, try rebooting again. Once stabilised, plug the car in and the charger should cycle blue and green and the car charging indicator should flash white then blue. In the Porsche app, the charging status will say pause and there will be a notification from Ohme advising that a dynamic charging schedule has been calculated. With mine, when I get the blue lights, everything works fine. The charging will stop and start depending on Octopus demand and the car will charge to a maximum of 85% . On occasion, if the car has a very low charge (10-20%), it may not achieve the 85% by 0600.
The only issue I have is that on completion, the charger goes green and solid red and I have to do a power cycle which I do with the car unplugged.
if you decide to give this a go, good luck and let me know if it works.

On another note have you used public chargers in the UK much? I used Ionity one in Chobam recently and it was great. I think we can use some Tesla ones but not all? Only those on the app? Not sure...

 

[Hazmo]

On another note have you used public chargers in the UK much? I used Ionity one in Chobam recently and it was great. I think we can use some Tesla ones but not all? Only those on the app? Not sure...

I haven’t done any long trips yet so all my charging has been at home (7.5p/kW). I have used the fast chargers with my previous car and they were very good if not rather expensive (70-80p/kW)

 

[kurand]

There are currently a few dozen open Tesla charger sites. Be carful with these as most have very short charging cables that are difficult to use with a Taycan.

 

[W1NGE]

This is how I set mine up and it seems to work but as the integration between Octopus/Ohme/Porsche is so flakey, I can’t be sure it will work for you, but here goes.
Octopus App - Register the Ohme charger in the app (not the car). This should then appear as a device at the bottom of the screen. When you select the device it will tell you it’s in Beta stage and controls should be done at the Ohme app. This is all assuming you are in the Octopus Intelligent Go tariff.
Ohme app - go to manage my EV’s then select manufacturer. You will get the option to login to your Porsche account but ignore this and proceed without login. Select your car and this should appear in Manage My EV. The app won’t be able to tell how much charge the car has but that doesn’t matter. Don’t set anything else on the app (timers/profiles/price cap)
Porsche app (or car) - firstly set your General charging profile to location independent, optimised charging and then 25% minimum charge. I’ve tried this setting at 25% and 85% either seem to work but if yours fails (red charging light on car) try changing the minimum charge. On the timer tab set Ready for Departure to 0600, set daily repeat and click each day, leave Air Conditioning off and finally set the charge limit to 85%.
If using app confirm both profile and timer and send to car. Leave direct charging off.
Leave the car unplugged. Switch the mains breaker off for 10 minutes then switch on. The charger will blink and after a few seconds stabilise. If you get a solid red at this stage, try rebooting again. Once stabilised, plug the car in and the charger should cycle blue and green and the car charging indicator should flash white then blue. In the Porsche app, the charging status will say pause and there will be a notification from Ohme advising that a dynamic charging schedule has been calculated. With mine, when I get the blue lights, everything works fine. The charging will stop and start depending on Octopus demand and the car will charge to a maximum of 85% . On occasion, if the car has a very low charge (10-20%), it may not achieve the 85% by 0600.
The only issue I have is that on completion, the charger goes green and solid red and I have to do a power cycle which I do with the car unplugged.
if you decide to give this a go, good luck and let me know if it works.

I don't use Octopus and might be missing something but as a rule of thumb never combine My Porsche App Profile or Timer settings when using a 3rd party app due to comms conflicts leading to a red error.

Always use the 3rd party app (exclusively) if leveraging off-peak charging / intelligent charging,.

If using a non-intelligent charging EVSE / app / provider / non-Porsche EVSE always run the 3rd party EVSE / charger in 'dumb mode' (no programming whatsoever).

I use OVO + Charge Anytime OVO App for intelligent charging and have a Porsche PMCC EVSE / charger. My Porsche App is not used when charging at home and so no profiles (general or location dependent) are active.

If I want to have a pre-heat timer set on my Porsche App then I ensure that this timing doesn't conflict / compete with the OVO timings (both time periods are mutually exclusive and no overlap).

 

[senwar]

Must be honest I’m considering swapping from octopus to ovo charge anytime. I think octopus are brilliant to be honest but my Mrs does not understand the concept of cheap charging and as a complete technophobe is driving me insane.

So may as well go with something that’s cheap for EVs 24/7. Happy wife etc etc.

 

[W1NGE]

Must be honest I’m considering swapping from octopus to ovo charge anytime. I think octopus are brilliant to be honest but my Mrs does not understand the concept of cheap charging and as a complete technophobe is driving me insane.

So may as well go with something that’s cheap for EVs 24/7. Happy wife etc etc.

It's not cheap 24/7 - only certain times within your period of charge which you can't control. Overnight and weekends the window is greater but don't assume that everytime you want to charge you'll always get the low rate.

 

[senwar]

It's not cheap 24/7 - only certain times within your period of charge which you can't control. Overnight and weekends the window is greater but don't assume that everytime you want to charge you'll always get the low rate.

Oh right. I thought Ovo was always at the 7p rate for the car. Will stick as is then.

 

[kurand]

I charge my Taycan using OVO Charge Anytime. I’ve adjusted the ready time setting in the app to various different times during the day, plugged the car in and have always charged at the low rate (when Porsche servers are working). I don't recall what the contract states about charging at the low rate, but it seems to work anytime.

 

[ss782b]

I charge my Taycan using OVO Charge Anytime. I’ve adjusted the ready time setting in the app to various different times during the day, plugged the car in and have always charged at the low rate (when Porsche servers are working). I don't recall what the contract states about charging at the low rate, but it seems to work anytime.

Same here, as long as you use the smart charge option via the schedule and not ‘urgent charge’ it is always the lower rate @senwar

 

[W1NGE]

Oh right. I thought Ovo was always at the 7p rate for the car. Will stick as is then.

Best to check the details / small print before jumping ship.

You can always override with OVO Charge Anytime if you want to top-up straight-away and when you do this the £ charge is at the full rate.

If you typically charge of an evening, overnight, weekends anytime then you will almost always certainly get the 0.07p rate. The app will tell you when it plans to start the process based on the departure time you set and this will be one of the windows when the tariff is low.

 

[Hazmo]

Best to check the details / small print before jumping ship.

You can always override with OVO Charge Anytime if you want to top-up straight-away and when you do this the £ charge is at the full rate.

If you typically charge of an evening, overnight, weekends anytime then you will almost always certainly get the 0.07p rate. The app will tell you when it plans to start the process based on the departure time you set and this will be one of the windows when the tariff is low.

I read somewhere that they bill you at the full rate for all consumption then issue a credit the following month for the low rate usage. Is that the case?

 

[kurand]

Yes, that’s how OVO Charge Anytime billing works - you get a credit the following month.

 

[clivep]

Hi

I’ve yet to achieve any consistency. In the last 4 weeks I’ve only managed 4 charges which worked correctly. Last night I had the My Porsche app reporting a charging error. When I went to check the car at around midnight it was charging fine so no idea what’s going on. My current set up is as follows:

My Porsche app - charging profile minimum charge 85% and optimised charging. Timer profile max 85% charge by 6.00am on daily repeat.

Ohme app - car added but not logged in via My Porsche login. No timers or schedules and price cap disabled. I also unplug and reset the charger from the app pretty much every day and if all else fails, I turn off the MCB protecting the charger for 10 minutes then turn on again.

Ohme app configured for Octopus Go Intelligent tariff.

I’ve tried many different combinations of price caps, Ohme schedules, Porsche timers and profiles and what’s frustrating is that on occasion, it works on the first night but not the next yet nothing has been changed.

Ohme asked me to provide images of my installation which I did over a week ago. Still waiting for a response from their technical team. Based on my experience, I’d avoid Ohme and Octopus. Maybe for those who manage to get it working it’s good, but for those of us who can’t, the support is dismal. I’m going to give it another week and if it’s still not working, I’ll have the charger removed and returned to Ohme.

I also reached out to Porsche a week ago and no response either.

If you have any success, please let me know as I’d be interested in your set-up.

 

[clivep]

I have a Taycan 4S+ MY21 delivered Nov20.

I have the original Ohme Home charger and use Intelligent Octopus for home charging.

I started with the Octopus App using Enode API and had numerous problems so Octopus advised I should use the Ohme charger (Ohme and Ovo are the only two chargers currently capable of doing this).

I do not recommend setting any timers or profiles if you are smartcharging - Octopus recommend against this.

Until April 24 the Ohme App did not have the Porsche API and therefore could not connect to the car to read the SoC so I have to set the charge needed to be added. This should not in theory exceed 6 hours at &kw ie 42kw ie 50%.

I set a charge schedule to add a % charge by say 8.30am on the Ohme App which is set to IO and the charger does the rest...it shows an indicative charge schedule but this may change. It sometimes charges as soon as as I plug in (it always does a very short test charge then switches to standby).

If the charger is paused the Taycan will show a CHARGING ERROR and a red shading on the charging bar on the app. DO NOT WORRY...or disconnect....the car will restart several times overnight and finish by the stated time or earlier with the additional charge always added. I have had no problems using this process for 9 months.

In April the Ohme App offered me the log in to my Porsche ID ie they have now acquired the Porsche API (they had not notified me, I have been chasing this since December 20!). I perhaps foolishly used this option. The car smartcharged as normal with the added advantage that because it could read the car's SoC I did not need to calculate how much to add....I said 80% by 10.30am in the charge schedule on the Omme app and the charger did the rest.

HOWEVER: I have since discovered that I have lost the car's data signal to Porsche Connect so it is not possible to use any App functions and the App is not updated from the car via the Porsche server. I have tried fuses, PCM factory reset (so now can only operate as a guest user in the car) and the issue is further complicated by a windscreen replacement which happened after this (so I cannot be sure when the data signal was lost - or Porsche have not told me yet).

Ohme have after some persuasion admitted that the handshaking protocol does not seem to have been operating as intended and think that the Porsche server may have disconnected me during the process. Noone has yet advised me how the connection can be restored (the windscreen company brought along the Porsche diagnostic tool and used Porsche remotely - they said they could not detect a fault!).

Therefore I recommend that you DO NOT LOGIN TO PORSCHE ID ON OHME unless you are prepared to lose signal permanently. Ohme say they have about 150 Taycan users and I am the only one to have reported this fault (they did not say how many have tried the API) but this could be a problem restricted to the early Ohme charger, not the new version.

I would be pleased to hear if anyone on the forum has used the login successfully.

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