oh...yes, it is any charge point, no specific brand required
the only requirement is for the purchase and installation be in the same invoice as the PV system (it's the PV system that allows the VAT-free status)
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EV general discussion
- Thread starter Ricochet J
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the only requirement is for the purchase and installation be in the same invoice as the PV system (it's the PV system that allows the VAT-free status)
Man of Honour
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With reference to this BMW "lockout" thing, Nissan has supposedly made huge changes to what used to be Nissan Connect now renamed to my Nissan, I say supposedly because it looks the same apart from a new section added so you can book servicing etc through it. The problem with this update is that nothing can connect to the Nissan app any longer so useful apps such as My Leaf and infuriatingly the OHME app no longer work and I imagine that this is what has happened to the BMW app as well. I have IOG paired to the charger but had the charger paired to the car so it could read the SoC of the battery but this no longer works because it cannot connect to my Nissan account. For charging the car I have to tell the OHME app what percentage the SoC is at when I plug in. The charger then talks to Octopus and between them they work out a schedule, for example my charge time tonight is between 04.05 and 06.30. The problem with this is that the charger cannot keep track of the battery so it either undercharges or overcharges compared to the 80% I want it charged to. This ranges from 76% to 99% which isn't a problem during the day as now that the Nissan app is up and running after a month of downtime I can monitor the cars charge and stop it at 80% but most of my charges have been overnight lately hence the big variation in charge levels. It's more of a annoyance but everything worked fine right up until Nissan screwed it up.
Soldato
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how come it's so far off? I have zappi control on mine and whilst I can only request in 5% intervals (it changed a few months back when I could do to nearest percent) the charging consistently gets to within 2% of what I ask for )
octopus know the model of my car so if I ask for 20% it knows exactly how much to add. the only wobble is any change due to battery health, or weather / charging losses.
octopus know the model of my car so if I ask for 20% it knows exactly how much to add. the only wobble is any change due to battery health, or weather / charging losses.
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@ChrisD. Ohme can't charge from solar which is another strike against it.
While export rates are currently higher than overnight rates so charging from solar is not the done thing at the moment. However, the current trend is export rates going down and overnight import rates going up. Since I've had EV's the 'gap' between the two has been as high as 10p, it's now between 4p and 6p depending on your combination of supplier and tariff.
I've also seen people post on here about the fronts of the Ohme Pro units falling apart due to UV exposure which is 'not great' for a product which is meant to be outside.
The way the product is designed just looks untidy IMO. The unit requires a visible junction box as it comes pre-wired with a tail that needs to be joined to the supply cable. It also doesn't have any cable management so you end up with the cable draped over a hanger somewhere.
Compare the above with the Hypervolt and the Zappi (not a looker but no worse than the ohme), both have cable management built into the unit itself and just looks so much tidier both when in use and out of use.
Another thing to consider is control, the Zappi has physical buttons and a screen on the device, you can program every function on the device directly so if the cloud goes down you can still use it as a 'smart' charger. Zappi and Hypervolt both have eithernet and WiFi, Ohme is cellular only which you may get charged for in the future. All 3 support home assistant but I think all 3 route commands via their cloud service only.
I would get the Hypervolt or Zappi if it were my money. If you care about how it looks, consider Anderson (£££).
As for towing, happy to have a chat but you are not wrong about issues when charging out on the road. That said, newer models are getting ~180 miles range now (>100kwh battery so IX3, EX60) and there seems to be new pull through chargers opening up every other week at the moment but yes, it could be a lot easier if there were more, a lot more.
We usually do 3 or 4 trips per year where charging is required en-route, pretty much always need to un-hitch as we travel at peak times. The longest I have done is 320 miles which needed a 2 charges behind our older Y. Again, with these new models, the stops are not that much longer than you would probably stop for anyway.
While export rates are currently higher than overnight rates so charging from solar is not the done thing at the moment. However, the current trend is export rates going down and overnight import rates going up. Since I've had EV's the 'gap' between the two has been as high as 10p, it's now between 4p and 6p depending on your combination of supplier and tariff.
I've also seen people post on here about the fronts of the Ohme Pro units falling apart due to UV exposure which is 'not great' for a product which is meant to be outside.
The way the product is designed just looks untidy IMO. The unit requires a visible junction box as it comes pre-wired with a tail that needs to be joined to the supply cable. It also doesn't have any cable management so you end up with the cable draped over a hanger somewhere.
Compare the above with the Hypervolt and the Zappi (not a looker but no worse than the ohme), both have cable management built into the unit itself and just looks so much tidier both when in use and out of use.
Another thing to consider is control, the Zappi has physical buttons and a screen on the device, you can program every function on the device directly so if the cloud goes down you can still use it as a 'smart' charger. Zappi and Hypervolt both have eithernet and WiFi, Ohme is cellular only which you may get charged for in the future. All 3 support home assistant but I think all 3 route commands via their cloud service only.
I would get the Hypervolt or Zappi if it were my money. If you care about how it looks, consider Anderson (£££).
As for towing, happy to have a chat but you are not wrong about issues when charging out on the road. That said, newer models are getting ~180 miles range now (>100kwh battery so IX3, EX60) and there seems to be new pull through chargers opening up every other week at the moment but yes, it could be a lot easier if there were more, a lot more.
We usually do 3 or 4 trips per year where charging is required en-route, pretty much always need to un-hitch as we travel at peak times. The longest I have done is 320 miles which needed a 2 charges behind our older Y. Again, with these new models, the stops are not that much longer than you would probably stop for anyway.
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the OG zappi looks like a toilet bowl
hypervolt gets my vote (well they already have my business since i bought one)
it has cable management, integration is good + solar, and connects via wifi/ethernet...the hypervolt also looks decent enough, so there's no need to pay the extra for the anderson imo
Soldato
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Another vote for hypervolt. Appears to be well made and it works over over WiFi and the app seems solid enough.
One thing I didn't consider when getting our Hypervolt.
Cable length, I just went with the shortest 3m(?) as it reached where I needed it to.
In hindsight especially now we've got two EVs with ports at opposite ends of the cars I'm considering grabbing a longer cable just to give us more flexibility on how/where we park the cars and still be able to charge.
Cable length, I just went with the shortest 3m(?) as it reached where I needed it to.
In hindsight especially now we've got two EVs with ports at opposite ends of the cars I'm considering grabbing a longer cable just to give us more flexibility on how/where we park the cars and still be able to charge.
The shortest is 5m, hypervolt also do 7.5m and 10m.
However I don't think you can swap the cables out once installed (or it may be uneconomical to)
Cheaper to get an extender instead, now that it's already installed.
Really easy to swap the cable out on the Hypervolt, costs about £100 for a longer one.
Extenders are on sketchy ground in terms of safety.
Oh it is!? That's amazing! I bought the 5m one as well...was thinking about getting a 10m one in the future. Good to know it's easily swappable. My google-fu previously said it was expensive
If you're happy to do it yourself and it is literally just undoing a chocolate block style connector and putting the new tails in then it's cheap, if you had to pay a sparky to do it then yeah you're probably in the realms of almost the cost of the unit.
Man of Honour
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I have no idea, maybe the OHME system is just pants. Last nights charge ended up at 88% despite being set to 80%. This is also my second OHME charger in less than three years as the original was replaced earlier in the year after going offline all of the time. If this one fails I will be buying a different make.
What about for the charging head?
Edit oh nvm just googled and see it comes as a full cable set with the charging head.
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Have you calculated how much time you have wasted talking about EV's, accessories and other things, commenting or posting about them? If you spent all that time and energy earning money, you could have afforded to actually install a charger, and probably have a fleet of BEV's, fully insured and still be quids in.
Another Hypervolt user here! I opted for the 10m cable and im glad I did in the end as it gives me a lot more freedom on how to park the car 
A lot of users talk about poor WiFi but that has not been my experience, I suspect its mostly people with poorly placed routers and the like. I use the CT's for the energy dashboard in HA and they dont seem to have left any gaps in the data yet so I can only assume it doesn't disconnect all that often
A lot of users talk about poor WiFi but that has not been my experience, I suspect its mostly people with poorly placed routers and the like. I use the CT's for the energy dashboard in HA and they dont seem to have left any gaps in the data yet so I can only assume it doesn't disconnect all that often
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