Just a long shot...
I've recently bought a BYD electric car and had an Ohme EV charger installed.
Does anyone have Ohme's server/connection details as I would like to see if I can connect to their API using OCPP 1.6 json ?
I've tried contacting the people on Ohme's HelpDesk but they don't appear to understand what I'm asking and think I'm talking about their mobile-phone app - which I'm not.
The QR code on the box the Ohme charger came in was... ohmeaws99e99 (I've changed the actual digits to 99s). So it looks as if Ohme makes use of Amazon Web Services (AWS) as that appears in the QR code.
The reason I ask is... the Ohme charger doesn't support BYD vehicles (yet) so 'percentage target charging' doesn't work. Not knowing this, the first charge I did I set the slider for the target to 80% and found the Charger ignored this and charged my car to 96%.
I've spoken to Support at Ohme and they told me that support for BYD is on their roadmap but could NOT give me an indication of when that might be. I told them that sort of negates the benefit of having a fully-automatic EV charger if the user has to perform the task manually.
I reckon I could use Node-RED on one of my Raspberry Pi(es) to control the charging time if I could "talk" to the EV Charger.
i.e. Turn charging On/Off using Ohme's API (as I have an OCPP 1.6 node within Node-RED that should work).
As a stop-gap measure I've extended the functionality of one of my Telegram Bots to manually calculate the charging time (screenshots below).
I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has an Ohme charger and has managed to connect it to Node-RED.
To be clear here Dave. OCPP is an open-source communication standard for EV charging stations. You charger is a "charging station" (OCPP abbreviates this to CS or CP). This is built in to the charger.
From what i found, your device DOES support OCPP 1.6J (ref)
So the question need to be asking is how do you set a custom URL for OCPP server on YOUR Ohme ePod charging station.
for example, in my cheap wall charger, it looks like this:
Thanks Steve - I thought my EV charging pod acted as a client and "talked" to the Ohme company's server (somewhere) - so what I needed to know is the endpoint of their server.
When I installed Ohme's mobile-app on my mobile phone I had to scan a QR code that I found one the box the charger came in, so I reckon my mobile-phone is talking to Ohme's server in the same way that the charging pod does. That's my "take" on the situation. I could be wrong.
According to this QUBEV Smart | Universal Socket it is OCPP compliant as is my cheap unit. I installed node-red-contrib-ocpp on my RPi, pointed my charger at it and now I can command it to RemoteStartTransaction and RemoteStopTransaction.
So, being on Octopus Agile, I can, from a NR dashboard display the 1/2 hourly rates, select which blocks I want (obviously the cheapest blocks, but i am always on the hunt for free and minus cost blocks) to setup schedules in node-red-cron-plus node to start and stop my charging.
Whilst i can not give you an answer to your question - i would give you some anecdotal info - we have a Nissan Leaf (purchased 2nd hand) - have only ever charged it at home with a granny charger (max 15amps) - came to us with SOH of battery at 92% - we have had the car for two years now and charge it purely from excess solar - the SOH of the battery has increased to 94% over that period - and we let it charge to 100%.
The car manufacturers (particularly with the LFP batteries) are being extremely conservative telling people not to charge to 100% - the car slows down the charging as it gets above 80% and uses that time to top balance the pack. As long as you do not go away for weeks/months at a time and leave the charger connected you will not create any issues. Presumably you will be looking for the best charging windows (in terms of price/tarriffs) so will not be pumping current at the car continually anyway
As to your specific question - Steve gas given you the correct info - you should be able to directly interrogate the charger through OCPP commands and this should return the desired info. Even though OCPP is a standard - it is evolving and most manufacturers implement additional features above and beyond the standard.
If you go at if from the API point of view - i believe you will in fact be trying to talk to their server to get the information out of there - rather than the OCPP endpoint (the charger)
My Ohme charger has a 4G SIM inside it so I assume it is using celluar to communicate?
I've found this article that is along the lines of what I'm looking for - only to discover that Ohme asked the author to remove the files he had produced.
Yes, but I believe it simply uses OCPP under the hood.
Why not (for now) forget about external APIs and investigate if/how you can communicate directly using OCPP - ask for your questions to go to technical support. In short, you have purchased something that (AFAIK) has OCPP 1.6J support - get them to tell you how to enter your own OCPP settings.
The issue is, if they ever go bust and shut down their proprietary backend servers, you end up with a nice wall ornament. With OCPP you can integrate with the other 99% of the EV infrastructure.
Senior Technical Support Engineer @ Ohme | Providing expert EV support
Being a "Senior Technical Support Engineer @ Ohme" and writing an article titled "The Pros and Cons of OCPP for Electric Vehicle Charging" I would be surprised if he couldn't help.
I would look at evcc.io. I went down the route of trying node-red with OCPP and it's way too much like hard work. I run evcc on a Raspberry Pi and use openHAB to start and stop it. I have a Wallbox Pulsar Max (which there's a evcc template for}. If your box will connect to your wifi you can use the Generic OCPP template and it will find it.
This is what is in the Install Guide. No mention of WiFi, just 4G SIM module.
Network/Internet Connection
Ohme Chargers use a 4G data connection. They are pre-configured in the factory to talk directly to the Ohme backend server.
Signal coverage in the UK is generally very good but it is important to ensure the customer is aware that the unit relies on a mobile phone connection for the smart features. Where it is known to be unreliable the customer should be made aware that the smart features of the Ohme unit will also be unreliable. Ohme cannot be held responsible for the installation location and issues with the public mobile phone network.
Where the unit cannot establish data transfer at the time of plug in, the unit will behave like a dumb charger and will not schedule the charging session.
Also found this on an Ohme Forum..
The charger itself does not run through your home wifi. It has its own 4g mobile connection.
Aah - ok ignore everything that everyone else said (its not too late to send it back is it ??)
Note sure what you paid for it - or why it appealed - but there are a multitude of units out there that will give you a lot more flexibility and freedom to choose how you charge. Your other issue (although i do not know the UK power grid) is that i am sure they will lock you into only certain power providers - by only supporting a limited range of tarriffs and/or time ranges.
Unless you got it for a fantastically good price - you are now locked into their service and have to hope they remain a viable business.
I would be doubtful that they will let you into their servers as most of these sorts of companies want to sell the mystique of AI to manage your charging etc.
Hi Craig,
Thanks for your useful and informative feedback.
I suspected what you said would be the end result.
I bought the Ohme charger as it seemed to be the most popular here in the UK. I did a survey on my housing estate and found nearly everyone had an Ohme charger of one sort or another.
I'm very new to this type of technology as I've only just purchased my first EV.
I started looking into how I could "talk" to the charging point when I discovered the charging point didn't support (at the moment) BYD vehicles and thus the "percentage-target" chaging wouldn't work. I've since heard from the dealership that the LFP batteries in BYD vehicles should be charged to 100% (so that takes away the above problem).
