EV charger draining battery since new app

Ever since the new app was launched the GE EV charger drains the battery when charging regardless of whether the toggle is set in the app not to.

Is anyone else experiencing this? It means we have to accept we’ll completely drain our batteries each time we want to charge which is frustrating when we usually charge overnight

Either Charge your home battery at the same time or Pause Discharge your battery.

duplada the EV charger used to manage that - that’s the whole point of having the GE charger with the rest of the GE system.

Irrespective, that manual process isn’t working for some reason - wondering if the EV charger is overriding manual settings

Dabz I think things have changed since GES introduced the Premium option. There reccomendation is no longer to use the cloud option 4 but to use the local Option A in the EV config. Then create a single 24 hour schedule so that you only have to plug in the EV to charge. The cloud option to not Discharge the house batteries is not supported anymore. I ditched my GE EV charger for a Zappi far superior.

duplada If there's a Premium subscription, does the option not to drain the batteries come back/start working again?

I can't say as I got rid of my EV charger before the new app was released but I don't think it will work without a Premium subscription. Did you not read all the information in the GES email regarding EV chargers and the cloud?

Complete, remote EV charger functionality is currently included in the free Standard Tier, because local control is not fully supported.

We’re looking at ways to improve local EVC control, which will benefit tinkerers as well as app users. We reserve the right to move more of the EVC control over to direct local mode, avoiding the cloud costs, in the future.

I have heard that the GivEnergy EV Charger (EVC) won't function if it can't connect to the GivEnergy servers. How can I ensure it continues to work?

There is currently no expectation of the EVC servers going offline. However, if you want to ensure that your GivEnergy EVC will still work even if it's disconnected you can do either of the following:

1. Register your id tag(s) to your EVC using the GivEnergy App or Portal and tap it on the EVC to start or stop a charge. This will continue to work even if the EVC is offline because the EVC itself keeps track of registered tags.
2. Create and enable a schedule on the EVC using the GivEnergy app or Portal that charges the car at the times you require. This will cause the EVC to start a charge at the scheduled time as long as a car is plugged in, regardless of whether the EVC is online, because schedules are stored on and executed by the EVC itself. If your vehicle supports setting a schedule, it is recommended to set a 24-hour schedule on the EVC and a more specific schedule on the vehicle.
   Please note, Plug and Go (also known as Plug and Charge) will not function if the EVC is not online as this functionality is provided by the GivEnergy servers. You don't need to turn it off, but please be aware that plug and go will not activate if the EVC is offline. If you would like a charge to start as soon as your EV is plugged in, you can create a 24-hour schedule as described above.

duplada yes read all that and all makes sense, but it doesn’t mention the functionality of pausing the batteries when a charge starts etc.
I can still access all the settings via the cloud portal (for the charger) and all are still correct. I can also see the charger remotely so it’s strange how just one feature has stopped working

It's probably because it is a Cloud feature and you have to pay for cloud access.

If you are not a Premium subscriber, you could subscribe to Axle which would instantly give you Premium Access, Test your EV charger again, If you delete the Axel authorisation in the Portal it immediately downgrades you to Standard Tier again.

duplada Complete, remote EV charger functionality is currently included in the free Standard Tier, because local control is not fully supported.

My recollection was that you'd get free premium access since it couldn't be controlled locally.

DD My recollection was that you'd get free premium access since it couldn't be controlled locally.

Maybe the feature is no longer supported?

I remember a post from a while back where another user was having trouble with the Do Not Drain setting which had worked previously and then ceased to function. He found that if he unchecked the option and then started the charge and reapplied the option, it then worked as before.

I think this screen shows the issue - while you can still access the EV charger through the cloud portal even without a Premium subscription, all the settings become null & void so it's, in effect, a dumb charger and just takes power from any available source including the batteries and solar.

This is probably enough to convince me to go Premium because £4.99 is equal to roughly 3 charges per month where the batteries drain and force the house to use that power from the grid instead at 24p/kWh. We have 2 EVs in the house

Dabz Out of interest, which tariff are you on ?

DD OVO fixed loyalty, 21.1p/kwh with charge anytime at 14p/kwh. I thought it was 24p standard to be honest

I think I’ve also done my maths wrong - I was assuming 7kWh of battery charge would come from the grid after depleting during charging but when it’s sunny most of that would be recharged for free

Out of nowhere the EV charger is now working as it used to, without discharging the batteries