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

[Zarbie]

Hi all,

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

Octopus Energy | Homey

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

[J273]

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.

[Zarbie]

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

[Darren_McCarthy]

Hi,

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

thanks,

Darren

[J273]

Hi there,

Sure im using these:

The saving session was opted in through the email/website and app version 1.0.10

[Zarbie]

Hi Darren, and welcome… hmmmm not sure what that could have been down too, have you tried removing and re-adding it. It shouldn’t have gone offline but will have a look and see if i can make any improvements

[Zarbie]

Hi Darren. I’ve reviewed the changes in 1.0.10 and found a possible cause: the app can currently mark the whole electricity meter unavailable when Octopus does not return a current tariff price, even if the smart-meter usage connection itself is still working.

Before removing the device, could you please let me know:

• The exact unavailable/offline message shown in Homey
• Your current app version
• Whether the gas or export devices are still updating
• Whether your tariff changed recently

Please try restarting the Octopus Energy app in Homey and using the device’s Repair option first. If it remains offline, could you send an app diagnostic report and share the report ID? I’m looking at improving the health handling so a temporary pricing issue does not unnecessarily take the whole meter offline.

[Zarbie]

Thanks @J273 , that screenshot is very helpful. Those are the correct Saving Session triggers, and being on Tracker should not prevent them from working.

Could you also share the date and start time of the session, and confirm that the Flow was enabled before the session? The 60-minute trigger is checked every 15 minutes, while the started and ended triggers fire once and are not replayed if the Flow was added after the app had already recorded the event.

As you were opted in through Octopus and were using version 1.0.10, I’m also treating this as a potential integration issue. I’ve found that errors returned by the Saving Sessions API are not currently producing a useful diagnostic message, so I’ll improve that logging and verify the live API response.

[Darren_McCarthy]

So restarting and reconfiguring makes no difference.

If I hit “try to repair” I get a weird file not found error.

My export is working just fine.

Here is the diagnostic report ID.

a420f63d-09f7-4d04-a96a-c974879e3239

thanks

[Zarbie]

Thanks @Darren_McCarthy . The diagnostic confirms that this is an app issue rather than your physical smart meter going offline.

The import meter is being marked unavailable because Octopus returned no tariff rate covering the current time. Your export meter continues to work because its tariff response is unaffected. Reconfiguring or re-adding the import meter therefore repeats the same request and does not resolve it.

I’ve implemented a fix that:

• uses a bounded latest-rate fallback when a long-lived fixed or non-dynamic tariff rate is omitted by the normal date window;
• prevents a temporary missing price from taking the whole meter offline; and
• automatically rediscovers the active tariff and retries when needed.

The log also exposed a separate Octoplus points API change, which has now been corrected.

The file-not-found message in the Repair screen appears to be a separate issue. I’ll investigate that as well, but you should not need to remove and re-add the meter for this fault. I’ll post again when the corrected test build is available.

Thanks for sending the report - it pinpointed the problem.

[Zarbie]

Version 1.0.13 is now live in the Homey App Store

A particular thank you to @Darren_McCarthy for reporting the electricity meter problem, sharing the diagnostic report, and helping identify the underlying issue.

This update fixes the condition that could mark an electricity meter unavailable when Octopus temporarily omitted the current tariff rate.

It also:

• Adds tariff rediscovery and a bounded fallback for fixed and non-dynamic tariffs
• Updates the Octoplus points integration
• Updates Saving Sessions and Power Up support
• Adds Saving Sessions diagnostics

Existing meter devices should recover after Homey installs the update; they should not need to be removed and added again.

If the problem continues on version 1.0.13, please submit a new diagnostic report and include the approximate time it occurred.

Octopus Energy in the Homey App Store

The separate Repair-screen file-not-found report is still being investigated.

[Darren_McCarthy]

Hi,

Thanks for the new build. It’s removed the initial loading error but it’s still not reading everything as the .9 release was. It also shows a connection error in the status. If I force on the mini connection option it is pulling the correct live readings through.

Diag report @ 11:25

3da71705-b283-4493-b4ad-47630ab7c44a

Thanks,

Darren

[Zarbie]

Just back from rugby coaching!

and Sigh! … will dig into this tonight @Darren_McCarthy !

The new diagnostic confirms that 1.0.13 fixed the original startup/offline behaviour, but it has not resolved the missing import price for your tariff.

The app is successfully reaching other services: export, carbon data and Home Mini live readings are working. The remaining connection warning is being triggered specifically because Octopus is still returning no import rate covering the current time. Re-adding the device produced the same result, so please don’t remove or reconfigure it again.

I also see a separate Octoplus points authorization error. That is not causing the connection warning, but I’ll make the optional points integration handle unsupported accounts more quietly.

Could you confirm the exact name of your import tariff and whether it is single-rate or Economy 7? I’ll use that tariff information to extend the fallback and improve the connection-status wording.

Thanks again for the follow-up diagnostic. It has identified a second tariff-rate edge case rather than a smart-meter or Home Mini problem.

[Zarbie]

Hi @Darren_McCarthy — thanks, that diagnostic (3da71705…) was exactly what I needed.

Quick context on “.9 read better”: in v1.0.9 the app quietly kept showing the last price when it couldn’t fetch the current one, so it looked fine but could’ve been stale. From v1.0.10 it stopped pretending a stale value was live — which is why you’re now seeing the gap surfaced.

Your report shows the current tariff price specifically failing (everything else — account, meter data, and the Mini live readings you enabled — is working), so it shouldn’t really be flagged as a “connection” problem. The next build fixes that: a missing price now shows as a small advisory instead of a connection error, and the device stays online.

I’ve just also added targeted (privacy-safe) logging so the next report will tell me exactly why the current price is missing for your tariff — without exposing your account/meter details. Two things that would really help:

1. Once the next update lands, please grab a fresh diagnostic while the price is blank, and note the rough time.
2. If you don’t mind sharing: is your electricity import on a flat/fixed tariff or a time-of-use one (e.g. Agile/Go/Cosy), and single-rate or Economy 7 (day/night)?

That’ll let me confirm the root cause and, if it’s a stored-tariff mismatch, the new build should correct it automatically. Appreciate your patience!

Will ping out to everyone with the link to the test build when i am finished with it…

[Zarbie]

Hi @Darren_McCarthy , quick update as promised.

Version 1.0.15 is now available on the Homey Test channel:

Octopus Energy | Homey

This release was built directly from the diagnostic you supplied. It:

• Stops a missing tariff price being reported as a general connection problem.
• Keeps the meter online while the price is temporarily unavailable.
• Attempts a guarded recovery if the stored tariff variant does not match the one currently advertised by Octopus.
• Handles unsupported Octoplus points accounts quietly.
• Adds privacy-safe diagnostics explaining the shape of any remaining price gap without exposing account or meter details.

Please install the Test version and leave your existing meter device in place. If the price remains blank after it has refreshed, could you submit one more diagnostic while it is blank and let me know the approximate time?

again, It would also help if you could confirm the exact name of your import tariff and whether it is single-rate or Economy 7.

Version 1.0.15 is also under Homey certification and will publish automatically once approved.

Thanks again for helping investigate this.

I am also doing some planning later based on @David_Piper great work to see where we can integrate and align some features across our apps. basically… if you see the issue… i will be here working on the app anyway!

JZ

[Darren_McCarthy]

Sure not a problem. I am on

Tariff Name Intelligent Octopus Go
Product Type Variable

However, I am on the trials for VPP for battery systems. So this is a trial with an Intelligent Go tariff along with battery systems under Octopus control. (Think octopus flux) Maybe that is getting in the way?

[Darren_McCarthy]

Hi loaded the test version.

21:14

7e8cc427-62a9-412b-a533-0eefcafc70c8

all definitely going in the right direction.

Many thanks for all your efforts:)

[Zarbie]

ace going to dig into it now… world cup half time… so a perfect time!

[Zarbie]

Thanks @Darren_McCarthy , that diagnostic cracked it. The meter and account connection are healthy; the remaining issue is specific to the Intelligent Octopus Go product used by the VPP trial. Octopus identifies it as an IOG tariff, but its public tariff endpoint returns no price rows for that account-specific product.

I’ve now added a guarded fallback which reads the day and night rates from the active Octopus agreement and includes both the normal overnight period and Octopus smart-dispatch windows. I’ll put this into the next Test build for you. Thanks again for testing this so quickly and providing exactly the diagnostic we needed.

[Zarbie]

Hi @Darren_McCarthy ,

Thank you again for the diagnostics and for helping test this.

I’ve now published version 1.0.16 to the Homey Test channel. It adds guarded support for the newer Intelligent Octopus Go four-rate tariff contract identified during the investigation, while keeping household and EV-specific rates separate.

You can install it here:

Octopus Energy | Homey

Please keep your existing Electricity Meter device rather than deleting and pairing it again. Once updated, could you let me know whether the current household price now appears?

If it remains blank, please submit another diagnostic while the price is missing and include the approximate time. That will show whether your account exposes the expected tariff contract or another variant we still need to handle.

Thanks again for your patience and detailed feedback. It has been extremely useful in narrowing this down.