Smart Tariff not so smart

We are going away for a long weekend tomorrow and with the current Agile prices and lack of solar I didn't want to spend holiday time managing the charge and the batteries.
I have bought a Raspberry Pi for Home Assistant and Predbat but I haven't yet set that up and between the Kirk Hill AGM and packing thought it was unlikely that I would have time before I go. So I thought I would try this new beta Smart Tariff.
It correctly integrated with the Octopus tariff and identified the cheap slots. I left it to do its thing.
It turns out after the fact that it only decided to charge for one one hour slot and a second half hour slot which with the temperature reduced charge rate was nowhere near enough to fill the batteries.
Now I have nine hours of expensive Agile ahead of me and only 55% of battery left - and that is despite going out for breakfast this morning.
Hopefully Predbat adapts to charging rate better. I will be managing the batteries manually now until I can get that set up.

pwdst You can run predbat in 'Monitor mode' to see how it works. You still have manual control on everything.
See documentation for predbat modes: https://springfall2008.github.io/batpred/customisation/#predbat-monitor-mode

Rob

That assumes I had time to install and configure Home Assistant and Predbat before I leave.
The GivEnergy solution was attractive because it was platform native and supported the tariff I use. Unfortunately the GivEnergy solution knows less about their batteries than I do.

pwdst There’s definitely a setup time and a learning curve with HA and Predbat, there’s a lot to it, and its not a 5 minute job to get it up and running and you be happy with it.

When you get there, Predbat will properly manage your battery and charge and discharge to give the lowest cost electricity. As Rob says, you can set it up and let it monitor what would happen before you turn it loose. Plenty of details in the instructions and help from others here on the forum

pwdst Yes, set up Predbat and HA when you get back.

I started my predbat journey in January 2024 and I researched what to do before I started. There are a couple of good threads going right back to the start here:
https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/4954-how-to-use-predbat-from-scratch/10
https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/4996-basic-config-of-predbat-after-staring-from-scratch
And of course:
https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/3696-first-night-live-on-predbat/2911

When you do get started, follow the predbat documentation, especially the installation steps. https://springfall2008.github.io/batpred/what-does-predbat-do/

I run predbat on a raspberry pi4. Don't try running predbat on an SD card. Get an SSD.
There is an excellent video here from Speak to the Geek, going through all the steps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAolAvektlw&t=15s

When I started, although I had tried HA several times in the past, I always gave up. I couldn't find things and I got lost. I followed guidance in threads and I learnt how to use HA efficiently along with learning Predbat.

Although getting Predbat up and running may seem daunting, you will get a lot of help from people of these forums who have all jumped through similar hoops.

Rob