GivEnergy 4+

This is one of those apps that means you have to disable auto app updates on your phone.

They release a new version each week because its Monday rather than because its ready. So each week you get a different set of bugs to try out, features come and go again. The trick seems to be to keep loading versions until you find one where the stuff thats important to you happens to be there and work, then be careful not to update again for a long time.

Last weeks is the one for me. Only the little battery charge status icon on the home screen is broken, showing empty all the time unless you just restarted the app. Since the charge is reported as a percentage next to it, this isn't a big deal.

It currently lacks some important functions of the web site. Like controlling when and how much charge to load from the grid each day. Thats one of those things the app used to do and is currently missing.

My favourite feature of the app is the ability to connect to your inverter directly and show updates every 10 seconds. Better than smart meters for a live view of where your money is going and to figure out how to reduce your energy use.

27 Jan
This update had fixed some previous issues - remember me feature on log in screen works. Tapping on icons now brings up the data related to the icon and an added feature of string graphs is back again, all good and much nicer graphics than old version. However, the data related to grid import and export is still way of accurate.

25 jan
The old version at least kept me logged in this update doesn’t remember my log in details, click on any icon and get a blank screen. When it does work the information about import/export never matches anywhere near what my smart meter says. The only accurate info is the amount the panels are generating and the level of my battery. But since most of the time the app doesn’t work even that data is useless.

21 Dec 24 Update - just updated the app. Immediately before it worked fine and now it refuses to accept my login. “There was a problem getting your config”. I can still log in with the web site, so it’s the app that is broken.

FURTHER UPDATE - Figured it out. This is now another app that IGNORES your browser choice and FORCES you to use Safari to log in. If the dev really wanted to make the app secure and not merely pander to Apple, they would use a banking app style encrypted log in and not force you into using a single known app.

Previous Dec 2024 Update - getting a bit frustrating as the app rarely accepts charge timings on the first attempt. Same thing deleting settings; it takes two to three goes which is a real pain if you have numerous timings. Could do with a ‘zero all’ option to clear times; also the option to set whole half-hour times, as Agile tariffs are half-hourly and most (if not all) cheap tariffs are set to the hour or half hour. Still preferable to the old app.
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At last we can add multiple charge and discharge schedules on the app without needing the Web portal. Excellent!
Still a few little niggles, like power in and used not always correctly adding up but this is small beer compared to the improvements.