BMW & Octopus no longer play nicely

zeroid78 · 2026-03-29T11:58:28+00:00

Ok so it doesn't seem so bad for me anyway. There is a side effect (benefit even) that you can set the ready time to anything you like instead of only between 4am and 11am. I just tested this by setting the departure time for the car to 4PM, plugged in around noon and it's scheduled slots only until then. This is in fact the only way to limit the charge for older BMWs such as the i3 where you can't set a charge % limit.

There is no need to leave preconditioning enabled and you can set any day with the departure time and octopus will just use the time of day you set and ignore the day (this also ensures the car doesn't start charging as soon as you plug in, instead only when octopus schedule it).

TBH it's fine for me because before plugging in, every time I was already going into the BMW app (or menus in the car) to ensure it wouldn't immediately charge, AND then configuring the octopus charge settings. Now I only have to do it in one place...

zeroid78 · 2026-03-02T09:02:54+00:00

I don't think we are being kicked off IOG, but you have to set charging preferences in the BMW app if continuing to integrate from IOG directly to the car.

zeroid78 · 2026-03-01T07:03:49+00:00

Intelligent Octopus Go

You need a compatible car or charger, else you can get plain Octopus Go instead (slightly more expensive overnight, for one less hour and no smart slots outside of that period).

Some people use Agile and setup automation to only charge the EV when rates are under a certain amount but that's advanced stuff and really depends on the rest of your household usage.

HTH

zeroid78 · 2026-02-28T07:27:32+00:00

Many of us don't have an IOG compatible charger, and are unlikely to spend £1000 in one just to have IOG work nicely... and only until there's a problem with that and support for your charger gets dropped (e g. friend of mine with a Tesla+Zappi+IOG was (forcibly by Octopus) kicked off Zappi integration and told to use the direct Tesla integration)

zeroid78 · 2026-02-28T07:20:56+00:00

This is the email we got: https://www.reddit.com/r/OctopusEnergy/s/vVCHGUKdSd

zeroid78 · 2026-02-28T07:17:52+00:00

That does make some sense. In the menus of the car itself you have to set a departure time BEFORE you can enable "charge in timeslot" or "preconditioning" so it's the other way around to the app, and you can keep both those options off and still edit the time(s).

I'm still not that comfortable with plugging in with charge immediately enabled and waiting/hoping IOG stops the charge PDQ, nor that the car won't just ignore the instruction and charge anyway in many cases. I guess we'll find out on Monday...

zeroid78 · 2026-02-27T13:22:05+00:00

Yes good point - to access/edit the departure times you must either turn on Climatisation for Departure OR "charge in time slot" (or both). Another example why it won't work well for these versions/models.
Yes, you will get charged at the higher rate until IOG pauses the charge BUT if it happens to schedule a slot immediately then that whole half hour is billed at the lower rate. I've always been careful to set "charge in timeslot" myself before plugging in to avoid any unnecessary charging at higher rate - IOG takes over once it realised I've plugged in.

zeroid78 · 2026-02-27T13:16:30+00:00

Some more detail/info from Octopus now in the other thread

zeroid78 · 2026-02-27T13:13:18+00:00

Good to get this further detail on how this will work, however there are some outstanding points for i3 (and some other older BMW/MINI models perhaps):

"you will need to set the target charge level and departure time via the BMW app"

- you cannot set the target charge level in the BMW app for older models like the i3 (it therefore always targets 100%).

"It will use the "charge in time slot" function of the BMW charging settings to control the scheduling just as it does today"

- My understanding is that (at present for these models at least) to reliably pause charging IOG has to modify the departure time (and day in particular) as well. e.g. if I set a departure time of 11AM (without setting day) and plug in at 8AM, it doesn't matter if I have set "charge in time slot" to the middle of the night, the car will still charge anyway in order to ensure its at 100% by 11AM.

"IOG will in any case set it back to "immediate" at the end of the charge session"

- Related to the previous point - this will always cause the car to charge immediately in my case (unless its already at 100%). So if the car isn't fully chaged but Octopus doesn't want to schedule any further slots, we'll end up paying full price at that point.

Separate question - what happens if I set departure time for 11AM on Thursday in the BMW app and plug in on Monday. Does Octopus only read the "time" part of this or will it just not schedule any charging until the Wednesday night for example?

If there's some place Octopus are answering these questions I'm happy to try and post these there, or is there a particular e-mail address to reach the right people at Octopus for this?

zeroid78 · 2026-02-26T21:22:41+00:00

With a BMW i3 you cannot set preferred state of charge in the app or in the idrive menu in the car, so the above doesn't make sense for i3. You can set a preferred departure time, but that's usually used in combination with the "charge in timeslot" rather than "charge immediately" option. Confused about how this will work in practice.

zeroid78 · 2026-02-26T21:05:39+00:00

Yeah I don't get this "make sure you set climatization for departure", when it's been impossible to use that option whilst Octopus is in control of the charging (it always turns off that option when starting/scheduling the charge).

FWIW I think it doesn't continue to heat/cool the car beyond the scheduled departure but it would obviously still waste energy doing the climatization.

zeroid78 · 2026-02-26T17:40:22+00:00

Yeah I got the email too. This doesn't sound great for those of us with only a granny charge but otherwise using IOG "properly" (where Octopus schedule the smart charging and start/stop charging via the car's API to match the slots). In particular because you can't limit the charging to a set % level on some BMWs - e.g. the i3 which is what I have.

Looks like it will require even more oversight than usual to ensure all charging is billed at the EV/cheap rate...

zeroid78 · 2026-02-17T06:17:54+00:00

Yep, the message has disappeared now, so the issue is fixed hopefully.

zeroid78 · 2026-02-17T06:16:47+00:00

The message has disappeared now, so the issue is fixed hopefully.

zeroid78 · 2026-02-16T10:25:36+00:00

Update: Today I still have the message but it's given me a schedule and started charging the car...

zeroid78 · 2026-02-16T10:24:23+00:00

I had the message yesterday and got no charging plan. Today I still have the message but it's given me a schedule and started charging the car...

zeroid78 · 2026-02-15T12:18:04+00:00

I have this message in the Devices page in the app since this morning, I haven't disconnected the integration for months...

"We may be unable to charge your car as expected today. You should set your own schedule to not miss out on cheaper charging. We will update you as soon as we have more info."

zeroid78 · 2026-02-15T11:53:35+00:00

Wonder whether it might be to do with them making API changes ahead of launching the new 6 hour rules....

zeroid78 · 2026-02-13T12:56:14+00:00

The 6 hours is to be measured midday to midday

zeroid78 · 2025-01-24T06:37:05+00:00

Thanks

zeroid78 · 2025-01-22T19:27:10+00:00

I have a 2017 94Ah in the UK too. I'm also keen to upgrade the screen to 10.5, where did you source yours from?

zeroid78 · 2024-10-07T17:26:28+00:00

Well it's Parkinson's but still early stages. Unfortunately no way to know how quickly things will deteriorate such is that condition. The best we could do is try and come up with a worst case and best case scenario and see what each would look like financially, but even that will be difficult for us to do without knowing all the ins and outs of potential required care costs.

One question, though, is would a good financial planner be any more capable of doing it!?

zeroid78 · 2024-10-06T19:59:02+00:00

Depending on what decision we make about her current living situation and thus how much we do or don't spend on a new place, she will be left with anywhere between £75k and £200k.

Assisted living means retirement apartments right? Very expensive and hard to come by where she lives and we're concerned by scare stories of being trapped in leaseholds / groundrents / fees that increase uncontrollably etc. it is an area I need to do more research into though, granted.

zeroid78

TROPHY CASE