Frequently Asked Questions

Octopus Watch can only verify your credentials once consumption data is available on you account. You can verify if this is the case on your personal dashboard of the Octopus Energy website. In addition, Octopus Watch includes a link to a credential validator which can help you pinpoint exactly what the issue is. You can access the validator right now by clicking here.

If you only recently switched to Octopus Energy or to the Agile Octopus tariff, it may take up to a week before consumption data is available. Once consumption data is available, the Octopus Watch app will be able to verify your credentials. Until then, feel free to use your postcode instead to see the live Octopus Agile rates.

Smart meters have unreliable connections. It happens quite often that a smart meter is not sending through data, or that the governing body is not correctly processing the data. Octopus Watch only shows the information of a day when it can verify that all the information is correct (i.e. when there is consumption data for all 48 half-hour slots). If a day is missing Octopus Watch automatically updates the data as soon as it becomes available.

Missing days usually appear over time without any interaction needed on your end. If more than 7 days have passed you should get in touch with Octopus Energy as they can look into your details and even do a force pull of the data directly from your meter. To contact Octopus Energy regarding this issue please send an email to smart@octopus.energy.

Octopus Watch works on all Apple Watch devices able to run WatchOS 5, all iPhones able to run iOS 13, and all iPads able to run iPadOS 13.

To set up Siri Shortcuts, have a look at these instructions.

Octopus Watch works on all Android devices with Android Lollipop 5.1 or better, or FireOS 5 and better. This includes all Android phones and tablets being sold right now, as well as older devices such as the 2015 Amazon Fire 7 tablets.

No. At least not right now. Google restricts the integration with Google Assistant to a number of categories (finances, food, transport, workouts). As soon as these restrictions are lifted Octopus Watch will get integration with Google Assistant.

To conserve memory, Android aggressively kills off apps running in the background. Android learns which apps you use – so it can keep these apps in memory – and which you do not use. Because the amount of time spent in the Octopus Watch app is fairly small, this learning doesn't work well. You can avoid this problem by long pressing on the Octopus Watch app icon, tap “App info” , tap “Advanced” , tap “Battery” , tap “Battery optimisation” , choose “All apps”  in the drop-down menu at the top, scroll down (in the long list) to “Octopus Watch”  and tap it. In the new screen that pops up choose “Don't optimise” . This option tells Android not to kill the app when it is running in the background and memory gets low. Don't worry – Octopus Watch is very conscious about battery and data usage and does not need Android to optimise it's usage. However, if you want to, you can also update the widget manually. To do so, simply resize the widget or delete it and add it again.

Predicting upcoming rates is both a science and an art. The technology that drives rate predictions in Octopus Watch has been developed in-house and is designed to give both accurate short term predictions, while giving indications of what the future could bring.

Predictions that are more than 24h in the future are always less accurate. Distant predictions are based on less data and show bigger swings. On average, 70% of the predictions are accurate to within 2p/kWh. Predictions within the next 24h are 80% accurate to within 2p/kWh. Industry reports, plant availability information, and stabilising weather predictions make it possible to further improve predictions for the next 12h. These predictions are 90% accurate to within 1p/kWh. Further improvements are made as the 4pm cut-off time for next-day prices is reached.

Octopus Watch always presents you the most accurate predictions. This allows you to see in a single graph both the accurate near-future predictions as well as the long-term estimates. In Options in Settings you can choose to always only show accurate predictions by limiting the graph and table to 24h. If you feel more adventurous you can opt for the 48h setting.

Octopus Watch always uses the reliable 24h predictions when you enable the use of predictions to find the cheapest slot to run an appliance or charge an EV. This ensures that reliable information is used so you can you only use electricity when it is at its cheapest.

Rate predictions are continually improved. Without any interaction on your side – not even an app update – the predictions get better over time. This is because we are continuously adding new sources of information and improving the current prediction engine. The current prediction engine is v1.2 (26th June 2020).

CO2 values for the upcoming rates are estimates and are updated every three (3) hours. Weather predictions play an important role in estimating the CO2 values and we all know how quickly the weather can change in the UK. On days with highly variable weather it can be that CO2 estimates on one device are off compared to another device because they were retrieved at different times and estimates have changed since the last check. These values will sync up again as time passes and both devices retrieve the latest estimates.

If you have generation (e.g. PV) or storage (e.g. a wall battery) in your home then the baseload calculation is likely inaccurate/wrong. The only data available to Octopus Watch is your consumption in 30 minute increments. This data is gathered before it enters your home, and as such cannot account for the generation or storage of electricity in your system. We are actively at work to combine heuristics and artificial intelligence to still derive an accurate baseload value. However, this is a lengthy and complicated process. If you want to help out – and you have generation/storage – you can do so by providing data from your house. Get in touch via contact@smarthound.uk to learn more about how you can help out.