Podpoint only working when WIFI off

[Deleted member 6369]

Hi all,

Anybody had any issues with podpoint? I have podpoint installed at my property and to be honest I very rarely use it, as I go into work atleast 3 times a week and charge it there, so I only charge at home when I am desperate. Its been working fine and suddenly, when trying to connect to my car, it will not charge (it keeps clicking on and off) To cut a long story short, customer service at Podpoint, suggested to turn off my home WIFI router and then try to connect to car, as you dont need WIFI and suddenly it now works! Has anyone had this before? And if so, would I always need to turn off my WIFI router to charge? FYI Podpoint came and fitted the unit originally.

 

[Gomev]

Hi all,

Anybody had any issues with podpoint? I have podpoint installed at my property and to be honest I very rarely use it, as I go into work atleast 3 times a week and charge it there, so I only charge at home when I am desperate. Its been working fine and suddenly, when trying to connect to my car, it will not charge (it keeps clicking on and off) To cut a long story short, customer service at Podpoint, suggested to turn off my home WIFI router and then try to connect to car, as you dont need WIFI and suddenly it now works! Has anyone had this before? And if so, would I always need to turn off my WIFI router to charge? FYI Podpoint came and fitted the unit originally.

Do you use the plug in powerline adapters for your internet. I had the same problem with mine. Removed them and relied on wifi and all OK.

 

[Cosmic Resident]

PodPoints revert to being a dumb, rather than a smart charger if they cannot connect to WiFi.

Seems to me then that PodPoint might be being a bit lazy in trying to sort your problem.

For testing purposes, just change the SSID on your router temporarily and leave it turned on. If you can then charge, the Podpoint unit would be the most likely culprit.

 

[Alb]

Exactly which unit do you have fitted?

 

[BigBear]

I know this won't really help the OP, but..... What's the apparent obsession with home chargers that have apps and those apps being able to constantly monitor charging etc? Surely, first and foremost we just want to plug in our car and charge, reliably. A home charger may be a "mission critical" way of providing a charge for a lot of people when they need to use it. The last thing that folks need is a charger that doesn't charge their car because it can't connect to some network or whatever. ALL charger manufacturers should have a standard that means that it's fallback is just to plug and charge, after all that is all that is REALLY required. The rest is just frippery and "nice" to have and I suspect a lot of charger designers etc, being of a techy persuasion, have been lead down this path by a requirement dictated by a standard arbitrarily applied for grant funding. (Dismounts high horse and pat's it gently.........) ?

 

[Petriix]

I know this won't really help the OP, but..... What's the apparent obsession with home chargers that have apps and those apps being able to constantly monitor charging etc? Surely, first and foremost we just want to plug in our car and charge, reliably. A home charger may be a "mission critical" way of providing a charge for a lot of people when they need to use it. The last thing that folks need is a charger that doesn't charge their car because it can't connect to some network or whatever. ALL charger manufacturers should have a standard that means that it's fallback is just to plug and charge, after all that is all that is REALLY required. The rest is just frippery and "nice" to have and I suspect a lot of charger designers etc, being of a techy persuasion, have been lead down this path by a requirement dictated by a standard arbitrarily applied for grant funding. (Dismounts high horse and pat's it gently.........) ?

Yes, chargers should default to working rather than not if they lose network connectivity. I would guess that most if not all are designed to do this, although I can't speak for the Podpoint unit. There is, however, a known issue with the MG EVs being a bit fussy about 'noise' on the power supply which can prevent charging. People seem to have particular issues with plug in wifi extenders and Sky Q boxes (which do similar). So it's not clear whether it's the Podpoint or the car with the wifi issue in this case.

As for the utility of the 'smart' charging features: for me, the primary function of my home charger is to divert excess solar power to the car. It is, therefore, quite important that it works as intended. I'd be pretty unhappy if my car suddenly started charging at 7kW right now. It's just started charging again because the washing machine has finished its heating part of the cycle and is merrily pulling 2kW which would otherwise be going to the grid. The network connection is only required to make changes to the mode or timers etc. The information is stored in the unit itself.

 

[Cosmic Resident]

What's the apparent obsession with home chargers that have apps and those apps being able to constantly monitor charging etc?

To be fair, as you have alluded to yourself in that post, the government has mandated that all new chargers that are eligible for the OZEV grant have to be smart, so drivers have little choice in the matter.

And IIRC, from next May, smart chargers by default must be set to only charge during night-time hours. (but can be overidden).

And people think Big Brother was only a TV program hosted (once upon a time), by Davina McCall

 

[Petriix]

To be fair, as you have alluded to yourself in that post, the government has mandated that all new chargers that are eligible for the OZEV grant have to be smart, so drivers have little choice in the matter.

And IIRC, from next May, smart chargers by default must be set to only charge during night-time hours. (but can be overidden).

And people think Big Brother was only a TV program hosted (once upon a time), by Davina McCall

It makes perfect sense to limit peak demand by default when considering mass adoption of millions of EVs. Pragmatic planning is far better than the possible consequences of leaving it to chance. The minor inconvenience of having your charging limited under rare circumstances is preferable to knocking over large parts of the grid if the frequency drops too low.

 

[Deleted member 6369]

Do you use the plug in powerline adapters for your internet. I had the same problem with mine. Removed them and relied on wifi and all OK.

I dont use no powerlinr adapters

 

[Deleted member 6369]

Exactly which unit do you have fitted?

I think its called The universal charger? Which iv looked up on podpoint website

 

[Deleted member 6369]

I know this won't really help the OP, but..... What's the apparent obsession with home chargers that have apps and those apps being able to constantly monitor charging etc? Surely, first and foremost we just want to plug in our car and charge, reliably. A home charger may be a "mission critical" way of providing a charge for a lot of people when they need to use it. The last thing that folks need is a charger that doesn't charge their car because it can't connect to some network or whatever. ALL charger manufacturers should have a standard that means that it's fallback is just to plug and charge, after all that is all that is REALLY required. The rest is just frippery and "nice" to have and I suspect a lot of charger designers etc, being of a techy persuasion, have been lead down this path by a requirement dictated by a standard arbitrarily applied for grant funding. (Dismounts high horse and pat's it gently.........) ?

Agree 100% - they make it more difficult, by trying to become unique! I ended up using the granny charger to give me a few miles, but again its my fault for letting it get so low!

 

[Alb]

I think its called The universal charger? Which iv looked up on podpoint website

So it's a Solo 3 then (the "Universal" designation refers to it being untethered).
Have you tried setting up the home network again as shown in the home user guide?
It seems to me that you need it for the App to function correctly.

 

[Deleted member 6369]

So it's a Solo 3 then (the "Universal" designation refers to it being untethered).
Have you tried setting up the home network again as shown in the home user guide?
It seems to me that you need it for the App to function correctly.

I havent tried to set up the home network again. But my understanding is that you only need the app if wanting to use the scheduling and i am happy to use without app! Its just odd hows its acting, as never had this issue before

 

[Deleted member 6369]

I have got an update from podpoint and they sent me an article (please find this below) which was related to MG ZS EV, but seems the MG5 EV has inherited the issue! Its related to homplug adaptors! I am with sky, so would be great to get other peoples view on how they overcomed the issue, as podpoint cant do anything! I have tried to unplug the extender only and I am still unable to charge.. I am forced to turn off the router!

Powerline Based WiFi Extenders May Disrupt MG ZS EV Car Charging UPDATE

Some owners of UK electric vehicles, particularly the MG ZS EV, who struggle to get their cars charged at home are finding that the culprit can sometimes be tra

www.ispreview.co.uk

 

[Ozzie1989]

Most smart chargers default to 'dumb' chargers when they can't find a connection to the internet. This is to prevent them becoming useless if you loose you're broadband for some reason.

The fact that it stops working when it is connected suggests a problem with the charger itself and I would ask them to remove and refund you as it's not fit for purpose and doesn't meet the rules of the grant if it doesn't work in smart mode.

Plenty of other chargers around that just work without excuses.

 

[Gomev]

I have got an update from podpoint and they sent me an article (please find this below) which was related to MG ZS EV, but seems the MG5 EV has inherited the issue! Its related to homplug adaptors! I am with sky, so would be great to get other peoples view on how they overcomed the issue, as podpoint cant do anything! I have tried to unplug the extender only and I am still unable to charge.. I am forced to turn off the router!

Powerline Based WiFi Extenders May Disrupt MG ZS EV Car Charging UPDATE

Some owners of UK electric vehicles, particularly the MG ZS EV, who struggle to get their cars charged at home are finding that the culprit can sometimes be tra

www.ispreview.co.uk

I had problems with a Rolec, it would start and stop charges within about 10 seconds continually. This related to powerline adapters putting the ethernet through the house electric wiring (and therefore through the EVSE to the car. I removed these and it solved the problem with the car/charger. I now rely solely on wifi.

 

[pjmuk]

I have got an update from podpoint and they sent me an article (please find this below) which was related to MG ZS EV, but seems the MG5 EV has inherited the issue! Its related to homplug adaptors! I am with sky, so would be great to get other peoples view on how they overcomed the issue, as podpoint cant do anything! I have tried to unplug the extender only and I am still unable to charge.. I am forced to turn off the router!

Powerline Based WiFi Extenders May Disrupt MG ZS EV Car Charging UPDATE

Some owners of UK electric vehicles, particularly the MG ZS EV, who struggle to get their cars charged at home are finding that the culprit can sometimes be tra

www.ispreview.co.uk

When you say unplugged the extender, have you unplugged all extenders? Extenders have to be at least 2 or more to work! E.g. you probably have one next to the router, and another one by the TV box, or in a remote room. You need to unplug them all!

 

[Deleted member 6369]

When you say unplugged the extender, have you unplugged all extenders? Extenders have to be at least 2 or more to work! E.g. you probably have one next to the router, and another one by the TV box, or in a remote room. You need to unplug them all!

When you say unplugged the extender, have you unplugged all extenders? Extenders have to be at least 2 or more to work! E.g. you probably have one next to the router, and another one by the TV box, or in a remote room. You need to unplug them all!

I only have one extender. So I have the router, plugged in and then a extender in my room, where I work from. I have 2 devices, the router ans extender

 

[Cosmic Resident]

I only have one extender. So I have the router, plugged in and then a extender in my room, where I work from. I have 2 devices, the router ans extender

Sounds to me like you have a Wi-Fi repeater, not powerline extenders.

 

[Deleted member 6369]

Sounds to me like you have a Wi-Fi repeater, not powerline extenders.

Is there an alternative to turning the WIFI off , with having a wifi repeater?