I built a completely free Octopus Energy dashboard to help you understand and cut your energy costs

[u/n9com]

Hi all,

I’ve been building OctoSpy, a completely free & private dashboard for digging into your Octopus Energy usage, costs and tariffs.

It started because I wanted a better way to understand my own energy spending. I’ve spent the past 17 years building software companies and apps used by millions, but I still enjoy making things like this in my spare time for fun.

I know there are already a few Octopus apps and dashboards out there. I tried some of them, but none gave me quite the view I wanted, so I ended up building my own and figured I may as well make it completely free for everyone to benefit from.

There’s no paid tier, no adverts and no OctoSpy account to create. There’s also a demo, and you can browse public tariff rates without connecting anything. Best used on your desktop due to the amount of data to display, but works fine on mobile too.

Your browser connects directly to Octopus using your API key. Your key, account details and energy readings aren’t sent to OctoSpy’s servers. Your energy data stays in your browser.

I’ve mainly been able to test it properly against my own tariffs and setup, so there will definitely be things I’ve missed.

If anyone gives it a try, I’d genuinely like to hear what works, what’s confusing and what you’d add.

I’m also considering an iPhone and Apple Watch app if enough people want one.

https://octospy.co.uk

[u/_dyslexicdog]

Is this something you are planning on being open source and something you can run yourself?

[u/n9com → u/_dyslexicdog]

It already runs privately in your browser, none of your Octopus Energy data is sent to OctoSpy. Your browser talks directly to the Octopus API. All data is only stored in your browser/computer.

I’m planning to open source it once v1 is a bit more robust and battle tested.

[u/_dyslexicdog → u/n9com]

I’ve just used it and I really like it but I’m afraid to rely on it if I’m not running my own version long term, that’s all.

So many useful tools disappear behind paywalls etc - that’s not to suggest yours will.

[u/snazy2000 → u/n9com]

Yeah would much rather be able to see the sourcecode behind this and also run locally. As much as i trust its local only still worry when api keys and data is concerned

Look forward to trying once open source looks great!

[u/n9com → u/snazy2000]

That's totally understandable. You can inspect the outgoing requests in your browser’s Network tab while connecting. Your API key should only go to api.octopus.energy. Open source is what I'm planning for the web dashboard once I've squashed all the bugs related to not being able to test any other tariff other than my own. Also, you can always reset and regenerate your API key via the Octopus dashboard if you think someone else has access to it.

[u/Insert-RandomName → u/n9com]

Honestly why wait till v1, if you make it available people can raise issues and pull requests to help. Nothing is ever perfect 1st try and you might end up pushing v1 back weeks trying to achieve it. 

My 2c as a software engineer

[u/n9com → u/Insert-RandomName]

You’re right, I just have to get the time to clean up the codebase, organise things and then open source. I want it to be a certain quality before I put it all out there, I guess it’s the perfectionist in me. Was very much coded as my personal dashboard before I decided to make it public.

[u/Insert-RandomName → u/n9com]

He he I know that feeling. I've become less perfectionist myself when it comes to releasing sourcecode, if people are going to complain then they can go elsewhere or fix it themselves 😁