[APP][Pro] Octopus Energy — Dynamic tariffs, usage, export and smart energy automation for UK users

Apps
1

Hi all,

I’ve submitted a new Homey app for Octopus Energy:

The idea behind the app is to make Octopus Energy much more usable inside Homey, especially for UK users on dynamic tariffs such as Agile, Go, Intelligent Octopus Go, export tariffs, Economy 7 and other Octopus products.

A lot of this came from wanting Homey to react to real Octopus tariff data rather than treating energy pricing as static.

What does it do?

The app brings Octopus account and meter data into Homey, including:

  • Electricity, gas and export meter devices
  • Current unit rate
  • Standing charge
  • Usage and cost
  • Account balance
  • Cumulative import/export support for Homey Energy
  • Half-hourly tariff pricing
  • Export rate tracking
  • Carbon intensity / renewable data
  • Flow cards for dynamic pricing automation

Dynamic pricing and automation

The part I’m most excited about is using Octopus 30-minute tariff data directly in Homey flows.

For example, you can build flows around:

  • Price changed
  • Price drops below a threshold
  • Price goes negative / plunge pricing
  • Price level changes between plunge, cheap, normal and expensive
  • Cheapest half-hour starting
  • Cheapest charge window starting or ending
  • Export rate rising above a threshold
  • Standing charge changes
  • Saving Sessions
  • Free Electricity sessions
  • Intelligent Octopus Go smart-charge dispatches

This means Homey can start to make decisions around when electricity is cheap, expensive, negative, green, or worth exporting.

For example, tomorrow I have several negative pricing periods, so I can now use Homey automations to change routines automatically during those windows — charging batteries, shifting loads, changing behaviour, or triggering other smart home actions.

Homey Energy

The app includes cumulative import/export support so Octopus electricity and export data can be represented in Homey Energy.

That said, I do think there is still a wider Homey Energy gap around dynamic pricing. Ideally Homey Energy would understand things like kWh price, standing charges, export rates and time-of-use tariffs as first-class concepts. This app does not change Homey Energy itself, but it does expose the data and Flow cards needed to work around some of those limitations today.

Setup

You’ll need:

  • Your Octopus Energy API key
  • Your Octopus account number
  • A supported Octopus electricity, gas or export meter/tariff

The app then discovers the relevant meter devices from your account.

Feedback welcome

This is still early, and I’d really welcome feedback from other Octopus / Homey users.

I’m especially interested in:

  • Agile users
  • Intelligent Octopus Go users
  • Economy 7 users
  • Solar/export users
  • Battery users
  • Anyone trying to automate around cheap, expensive or negative pricing periods

If you test it, I’d love to know what works, what breaks, and what Flow cards or capabilities would be useful next.

Cheers,
JZ

2

Nice app, Is this fully compatible with other non dynamic tariffs?

I’m on the tracker tariff and setup a flow for a saving session but the flow didn’t run.

3

Thanks for trying the app @J273 . Tracker is supported, although it changes price daily rather than every half-hour, so features such as usage, costs, current price and standing charge should work, but Agile-style cheapest-half-hour and plunge-price automations will naturally be less useful.

Saving Sessions are separate from your tariff and should work on an eligible Tracker account, so the Flow not firing may be an issue I need to investigate. Could you let me know which Flow trigger you used, the date and time of the session, your app version, and whether the session appeared and was opted into in the Octopus app?

Thanks for reporting it. I’ll use those details to check the Saving Sessions integration.

Also if there are any particular features or capabilities that are missing or you need, let us know!

Cheers
JZ

4

Hi,

Since the .10 release the electricity meter (import) has gone offline. How can I fix this?

thanks,

Darren