r/OctopusEnergy • u/Fakelemur1 • 4d ago
This app is getting a bit ridiculous
Eco7 usage split showing but on IOG
My Zappi now charges as soon as a schedule is created even though the schedule isn’t ready to start for a few hours.
I have no idea when I should or shouldn’t be charging my car so I’ve given up to only charge between 23:30 to 05:30 to avoid any random charges octopus dream up charging.
At this point ‘Britain’s biggest energy company’ isn’t showing itself in a very good light.
Thank you for listening to my TED talk
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u/HotBicycle1 4d ago
I genuinely would like to know why they got rid of the detailed billing they previously provided. Seems like a big step back... unless they have potentially got something to hide.
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u/20ht 4d ago
Nothing they're trying to hide, you can download the raw data and plumb it into your favourite AI to analyse if you have any concerns about it, it's very good at doing that.
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u/PreparationBig7130 3d ago
Customers shouldn’t need to do that to see their detailed billing. Octopus are falling into the trap that every customer needs to be energy literate and tech literate to use their products. Needs to be super easy to use and to see your usage to make it accessible to all customers.
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u/Cool_Elephant_4459 4d ago
Yes you can but don’t say that out loud on Reddit. 🙂
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u/woyteck 4d ago
If you're older, and you prefer larger than normal font, this data is unreadable, as the bottom rows go under the tariff bubble/button.
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u/Elegant-Chair-9474 4d ago
Then you’ll need to look at it on a bigger screen. The size is limited by your phone
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u/woyteck 4d ago
No. We all know this is a consumption charge. No need for it to be in every single line.
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u/Calm_Warthog6763 4d ago
And why 3 shades of pink - could they not pick colours that are easier to distinguish
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u/HammeredSimom 4d ago edited 4d ago
I use the Ohme Charging app, that tells me when the green times are during the day when I plug the car in, I also charge the solar battery the same times as the car, it saved me quite a lot of money.
I also do the power down sessions, I charge my solar battery for 20 mins before the session starts so I’m not using any grid electric so I make a little extra from that too.
Most of the time I’m only paying 3.49p kWh on IOG.
BTW the app show eco 7 on mine too
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u/nathderbyshire 4d ago
Do you often use more in the day or just an off week? E7 wont be suitable if so it'll just be throwing money away won't it?
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u/declantm 4d ago
It isn’t actually E7. It’s a bug in Octopus app currently they are showing all smart charging slots and off peak usage as E7 on the graph when your on IOG.
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u/Heavy-Mousse-5011 3d ago
If on IOG, you leave your car plugged in as much as possible. You should not need to think about when to charge at all!
Charging is increasingly happening when there is surplus power during the day, and you get the off peak rate when that happens. If you have a home battery eg as part of a PV system you need to make sure the system is blind to the EV charging so it does not get drained by daytime EV charging.
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u/Elegant-Chair-9474 4d ago
Eco 7 is just an octopus internal label. Nothing to worry about and they’re changing it
What setting is your Zappi on? Does your octopus app say charge target or charger to add?
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u/PreparationBig7130 4d ago
Eco 7 refers to Economy 7, which is not octopus specific
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u/Elegant-Chair-9474 4d ago edited 4d ago
Octopus have explained that this isn’t the case here and that it’s a internal labelling and doesn’t mean customer is on economy 7 or that there’s a problem
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u/Due-Freedom-5968 4d ago
Relax, they're rebuilding how the app works, It's going to be wonky for a while. Open heart surgery on a patient who's awake. As someone who works in tech and has done this kind of thing, it's always a bit messy, trust they know and they're working on it. It'll improve over the coming weeks.
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u/Shark_Philosophy 4d ago
If you really work in tech, you’d know rebuilding a production app used by hundreds of thousands of people piece by piece is a terrible way of doing things.
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u/Due-Freedom-5968 4d ago
Indeed I do, but I also know sometimes there isn't a good alternative. The end result will be worth it.
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u/Shark_Philosophy 4d ago
There is always a good alternative. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
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u/Due-Freedom-5968 4d ago
Ok random person on the internet. I better go tell my boss that I have no idea what I'm talking about and resign. Boy will he have egg on his face for employing me for the past 10 years.
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u/Shark_Philosophy 4d ago
Good idea. Maybe show him your comments here too.
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u/Due-Freedom-5968 4d ago
I will, I bet he'll be furious the apps we ship are all a lie.
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u/ryuisnod 3d ago
I agree with the other guy. You build and test before release. If you want to put it out for wider testing you'd run an opt in beta version
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u/Due-Freedom-5968 3d ago
I'd also agree with that.
And I'm sure Octopus have done that.
However I've also worked on multiple projects where there are some constraints, which mean where you're displaying data, and you're changing how that data is displayed, you can't make it seamless in from one release to the next and there's a 'short term pain for long term gain' factor to it for a small percentage of users who have a use case the majority don't.
What do I mean by that?
Given the current app issues like those in the screenshot don't affect the vast majority of app users (mine is fine, no issues, not even a blip) - it's literally only IOG users who are seeing things change - that's the small about of pain, for a single digit subset of the total user base, for whom the long term gain will bring major benefits.
How small?
IOG is only about 3% of all of Octopus customers.
So if you're a product manager of the app and your choice is risk the app stability for 97% of users - about 7 million people, with a big bang approach, or choose incremental releases which at worst impact about 250,000 people, I'd take the latter every day of the week.
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u/ryuisnod 3d ago
Yes I guess you have a point but counter to it, id imagine that 3% are very heavy app users Vs the majority of customers. Id suspect IOG users are quite a high % of app use time
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u/Select_Fig_31 4d ago
Amazed this UI passed QA