Wanted a charger installed in the basement carpark of an apartment block in preparation of getting an e-car in the near future.
Specified in the initial email exchange ‘Since there’s no network / wifi in the basement…’. Part of the requirement was also that eventually the installed chargers will have to be part of a building-wide system.
The recommended (and now installed) was the evnex X7 - installation went OK, ‘commissioning’ seemed to be a bit difficult with the lack of network issue. Somehow it was bought online using a combination of hotspotting off a mobile phone at the time, but I’ve not been able to recreate this myself from an iphone hotspot (to an ipad near the charger) - the signal around the garage area is too weak perhaps. I just get the 2 Hz blue flashing which never changes.
I guess my ‘question’ / gripe is after reading through these forums for a week is:
There is never going to be an ability to use this as a useful smart charger since it’s all network / Evnex server dependent for everything. Was also told at commissioning that the RFID fobs can’t work since there is no network. To prevent others using it, I’ll also now have to purchase a padlock to lock the switch on the isolator that feeds the charger.
The discussion about the OCPP server - from my very limited understanding - this is tied to Evnex forever? How can this charger become part of a building-wide system in this case, since there are several other chargers (Tesla) already installed.
Assuming oneday a garage wifi system is installed for all chargers to talk, will all the OCPP chargers actually be able to coordinate if my charger is tied to Evnex OCPP? (apologies if I’ve got this all wrong - I’m really learning from first steps here). I’ve not received any documentation on how the charger actually works (network requests and how that part of it happens in network and non-connected instances) and can’t find any good info on the web about it either, just the very simple user info.
The lack of ability to operate the charger from the phone app, when the app clearly has bluetooth connectivity is a huge disappointment, as is the RFID tag situation. I feel this was not a good choice of charger for installing in a no-network location.
Sorry if this comes across as more of a rant than a question but I’d definitely urge the app and system as a whole to be able to be set as a ‘local-first’ without loosing so much functionality. I’m sure I’m not the first to be put in this situation in apartments with underground garages.
Paul
Hi Paul.
I’m sorry to hear that your charger isn’t meeting your needs. Evnex chargers have been designed to use a network connection as we used to supply a lot into public charging scenarios where it’s important to approve and track all usage. The OCPP standard was designed for this too (although it now encompasses much more).
With most drivers wanting the ability to view and control the charger remotely, we’ve stuck with this approach even for residential applications. One day we might extend the Bluetooth capabilities beyond being used to join WiFi networks, but since the majority of applications need to be able to communicate to things like other chargers (for load balancing), inverters and batteries (for energy management) and the internet (for providing session data and fault diagnosis), it hasn’t been a high priority for us.
The X7 can use an external antenna which might make it possible to connect to a cell network? If you think that’s likely to be successful we can try going down that path.
What was the problem when trying to hotspot? Did the Bluetooth connection work and if so was the phone listed as one of the visible networks? On some phones you have to ask the hotspot to use “backwards compatibility mode” to ensure it has a 2.4 GHz access point (the charger can’t use 5 GHz). If you want to attempt that again our support team can assist you if you ring them.
Regarding building load management, there are options other than OCPP for this. Tesla chargers actually don’t use OCPP at all so will definitely need a different method, and once your building reaches that stage you can reach out to us to see how we would interoperate with whatever is chosen.
Kind regards,
Tom
Thanks Tom - that’s very helptul and great to see responsive assistance.
I didn’t know about the possibility of an external aerial - that may or may not be useful in my case, but willing to give it a go. Is there documentation on that? Physically I see there’s a black plug under the charger (just can’t bring myself to call it a charge point for some reason) beside where the electrical feed goes in. Is this removable and an aerial would plug in there?
I tried again last night, iphone in compatibility mode to create hotspot and ipad pro for comms to charger, but didn’t know that I need to do anything with bluetooth aso - that would be on ipad (at the charger) or on iphone that’s about 18 m away from charger / ipad.
I’m thinking my issue might be that since the installer techs used their phone as a hotspot the charger might save the network credentials of that device, and when I try to use mine it ignores it? I’ll try again tonight and experiment with bluetooth and see if I can see a charger in there.
I did download the ‘installer’ app also to see if that might be useful for changing network settings but didn’t want to click pas the ‘I’m a certified person’ thing in case it voided warranty so that stopped that.
Also, very happy to see the evnex app has very good visual accessibility in terms of clean interface and large text, and also that it seems to work on an old 1st gen ipad air that I’ve just installed on right now to assist with this - nice work from your app developers.
If this is getting too much in the weeds I’m happy to try calling phone support to get this working.
Paul
In the Evnex app, under General Settings > Connectivity settings you can tell the charger which WiFi network to connect to. The phone uses Bluetooth to do this, and it will overwrite any previous settings so it shouldn’t be a problem that your installer has already done this previously. The Evnex app asks the charger which WiFi networks it can see, and then tells it which one to connect to (along with you providing the password).
In your case it sounds like you should use the iPad next to the charger to open this menu, and the iPad will then talk to the charger. If that doesn’t work you could do that with the phone instead - as you note it is quite an old iPad so it may not have the full capability of the latest app.
If it doesn’t work for you it is probably best to call the support line so they can work through it with you. They are also the right people to call to ask about the external aerial. It’s not directly under that plug and would require an electrician to open the charger and connect internally.
Kind regards,
Tom
Tom - thanks, some good success.
Took awhile to find the best signal for iphone to receive but was able to use both ipad air gen 1 (ios 12.5.8, evnex app 3.7.0) and ipad pro m1 (ipados 26.7.7, evnex app 3.38.3) both at 2 m from charger to rename, connect and lock/unlock charger.
Then tried with just iphone 14 pro (ios 18.7.7, evnex app 3.38.3) at ~21 metres as crow flies (and across 7 cars) from charger and was able to connect and lock/unlock etc also.
Part of the time to get good connection was the slow blue pulse would start a long time before the ipad screen would show the waiting spinner thing, which I probably interrupted a few times thinking the connection was down - obviously from ipad you connected to iphone you can’t see how healthy the mobile / data connection was but it was stable for 10 minutes of testing.
Thanks, that’s pretty much what I was needing to do (connect and lock).
I assume firmware updates would happen this way also, but wonder how viable this would be if they are large and it takes a long time and the connection drops when cars leave the garage. Hoping an interrupted wouldn’t crash the update process and/or brick the charger? (you don’t need to reply to this, more of pondering how updates will go when it happens).
Yes we can do firmware updates that way. They aren’t too large - the whole process typically takes 1-2 minutes including download, update and reboot. The download has to complete before it will attempt to update itself, so it’s not a problem if it gets interrupted. The important thing is to make sure you don’t lose power during the update step, but it doesn’t need connectivity at that point.
Kind regards,
Tom
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