Smart and scheduled charging

This page is a sub-page of Home charging.

Availability: optional per deployment; can be used depending on the business case of the individual operator. Intelligent charging additionally depends on live electricity prices being available in the deployment; without them there is no price data to plan against.

Where the modes live

Both modes are configured under Home, then Charging rules, on a registered home charger. A charging rule automates when the car charges at home; without one, the charger simply starts as soon as a car is plugged in and runs until it is unplugged or full.

Intelligent charging

Intelligent charging shifts the session into the cheapest hours instead of charging right away. The driver sets a "ready by" time, and the app plans backward from it in two steps. First it estimates how long the charge will take, using the car's current state of charge, its battery capacity, and its maximum charging power. Then it compares the forecast electricity price for each upcoming hour and reserves the lowest-cost block of time that is still long enough to finish before the ready time. The battery ends up just as full, at a lower total cost.

To set it up, the driver opens Home, then Charging rules, selects Intelligent charging, and enters battery capacity, charging power, and the ready time. Battery capacity is optional, but the duration estimate is only as good as the values behind it, so filling in everything produces a more accurate charging plan.

[IMAGE: Intelligent charging setup with battery capacity, charging power, and ready time fields]

The price data behind the planning is the same forecast a deployment can show on its Live prices screen: an hour-by-hour electricity cost outlook for home charging. Because it is a forecast, the final session cost can differ somewhat from the projection.

Scheduled charging

Scheduled charging runs the charger on fixed day and time windows the driver picks; price plays no role. The app starts charging automatically at the set start time on the chosen days and stops at the set end time. This suits fixed routines and flat tariffs, for example charging only overnight when the household is not otherwise using power.

To set it up, the driver opens Home, then Charging rules, selects Scheduled charging, and chooses the days, a start time, and optionally an end time.

Leaving the end time empty changes the stop condition: instead of ending at a clock time, the schedule keeps charging until the battery is full.

[IMAGE: Scheduled charging setup with day selection and start and end time]

One mode at a time

Only one charging rule can be active on a charger, either Intelligent or Scheduled, never both. Switching one on switches the other off, so the charger never receives two conflicting instructions about when to run. With neither mode active, plugging in starts charging immediately.

Important
A rule cannot be edited or deactivated while a charging session is running; the app asks for the current session to be ended first. Changes to a rule therefore apply from the next session onward, not to one already in progress.

Common questions

Why does Intelligent charging not appear in every deployment? It ranks upcoming hours by their electricity price, so it requires live price data; deployments without live electricity prices have nothing for it to rank, and only Scheduled charging remains meaningful there.

What happens when the entered battery or power values are inaccurate? The plan still runs, but the estimated charging duration is off, so the reserved window can end before the car is actually full or hold the session longer than needed. Correcting the values under Charging rules improves every later plan.

What does the charger do when the car is plugged in outside a scheduled window? It waits. Charging begins automatically when the next scheduled window starts, which is the intended behavior rather than a fault: the rule exists precisely to stop the charger from starting on plug-in.