Octopus got my smart meter IHD working within a couple of weeks after over a year of British Gas being unable to do so. (And British Gas installed and commissioned the damn thing in the first place!)
Octopus are pretty good on X and phone. They are terrible via email.
Not an expert but I think you have to bump it yourself - pretty sure this came up the last time.
I just plugged my Leaf in and no it doesn't detect the free hour so I have to force a charge and hopefully remember to switch it off at 14.00 this time!! My set up is a little complicated though so it may be different with others. I have a OHME Home Pro which doesn't work with the Octoplus app yet. It tells you this when I click on it in the app and it opens the OHME app instead. The OHME app doesn't work properly with my Leaf as I have to unpair then pair it again every time I plug it in. The OHME app does know the cheap rate times overnight and uses them plus they changed the way it works a couple of weeks ago in which I had to disable the price cap and enable dynamic charging. It now charges the car at the cheap rate (7p per kWh) at different times of the day depending on if there is a surplus of green energy. I don't know how it knows this but it works.
Yeah think Octopus are generally the best these days. I did have issues last year where it took Octopus about 4 months to send someone out to fix my electricity smart meter. It wasn't fast and I did have to escalate to a complaint to get them to act but it did get fixed in the end. They did credit me some money to cover the annoyance. They always responded fast and tried to help. Luckily my readings were able to be recovered.
I'm looking into EDF's Ensure Tracker tariff, as this is cheaper than their standard tariff and isn't fixed. As far as I can tell, the only differences are lower standing charges and an exit fee of £25 per fuel.
To be honest, I am tempted. EDF's prices have been fairly competitive for me so far - any cheaper would mean locking into a tariff with a new supplier for a year, who would presumably also have exit fees too.
I've signed up to it. EDF did say that I'm tied into the tariff until next September (hence the tariff name "Ensure Tracker Sep25") otherwise I'll incur exit fees. But that doesn't really bother me as the tariff still follows the price cap, just with a discounted standing charge.
I don't remember when I last had a fixed tariff, even when the prices went sky high. I've been quite lucky so far in that variable tariffs almost always work out cheaper than fixed ones. I regard fixed tariffs as praying on people's fears of price increases.
I was absolutely broke when they went through the roof, and the upside of the tracker was less interesting than the potential risk of it going mad. I'm a bit less broke now so might be game for tracker again, but only if I can quantify the upside and it's worth it.
