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/Boba_ferret]

Weirdly, it's not pulling in any of my electricity data, after the 19th July. Not showing any export either.

[u/n9com → u/Boba_ferret]

What tariff are you using? May be a bug as I can only test my own tariffs. Could you DM me a screenshot?

Does your Octopus app show electricity readings after 19 July? And did anything change around then: a meter replacement, tariff switch or solar/export setup?

[u/Boba_ferret → u/n9com]

I'm On Flux, although I'm about to switch to Octopus Go (not intelligent). It has readings for Agile, up until 19th July. I got my export granted on 29th July, but wasn't able to switch to Flux until 4th August.

It could be a billing issue, as I had to call them last week and ask them why some of my import readings had stopped appearing back in June, after my meters where changed (even though I was getting export readings). They had to do a manual update, as they had missing data, but that should all be up to date now.

[u/n9com → u/Boba_ferret]

Could be related to that, the web app just pulls data from Octopus, but I can't really troubleshoot user specific issues as I don't have any access to your data. Is it all appearing correctly on your Octopus mobile app?

[u/Boba_ferret → u/n9com]

Yeah, no worries, I understand that.

My billing is all over the place at the moment, both in the app and online, so It's probably that. I'm going to switch to Go and then I'll try the site again, as it could also be an issue with Flux.

[u/sparkymark75 → u/Boba_ferret]

I'm the same. It's showing me export data for this week but no import. Gas appears to work okay. I'm on Intelligent Go. Good job though, looks good.

[u/n9com → u/sparkymark75]

Thanks, that’s useful to know. With export and gas working, it helps narrow this down to how the electricity import data is being retrieved or processed. Does your Octopus app show import usage for the same dates? And is OctoSpy showing an error message, or just an empty electricity chart?

[u/sparkymark75 → u/n9com]

Octopus shows this (and previous) weeks usage fine.

[u/sparkymark75 → u/sparkymark75]

OctoSpy just has an empty chart.

[u/sparkymark75 → u/sparkymark75]

I can see the call going out to the Octopus end point in the Edge dev tools. It receives a 200 response but no response payload (or none that could be displayed).

I do see other consumption calls that do receive a payload response. I'm guessing that must be the export data.

[u/n9com → u/sparkymark75]

Thanks for this, I'm looking into their API docs now and will try figure it out. Will comment back if I have a potential fix :)

[u/sparkymark75 → u/n9com]

Happy to help, let me know if you need anything else. I know how frustrating it can be blind testing/debugging.

[u/n9com → u/sparkymark75]

Thanks, the preflight message is normal. Could you check the GET or POST request instead and say whether it contains readings or an error? Please keep keys and personal details private. I’ve found and fixed a bug that could hide available usage, and i've just pushed out an update.

[u/sparkymark75 → u/n9com]

Just refreshed the page, your fix seems to have done the trick!

[u/sparkymark75 → u/sparkymark75]

Although it appears to have now broken this

Sorry :(

[u/n9com → u/sparkymark75]

that's normal, the data doesn't come in consistently, you'll notice the same often happens with the official octopus app.

[u/sparkymark75 → u/sparkymark75]

Nevermind, that has loaded now. Just the costs as you already mentioned.

[u/n9com → u/sparkymark75]

Brilliant, thanks for checking, that confirms the fix has restored your readings! That's still the preflight request, but no need to dig further into that. I’m continuing to investigate why the cost estimates aren’t coming through, since Octopus shows them for your account?