No hardware needed
The app connects to your car through your car brand's online service. You do not need a smart charger, a dongle or any other hardware. Any charger works, even a standard wall socket.
How it works
- Your car sends data to its brand: your car already sends its battery level, charging status and location to Tesla, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen Group or another brand.
- The app connects to that service: with your permission, smart charging reads your car's data through the brand's official interface.
- Commands go through the car brand: when smart charging starts or stops charging, the command goes to your car brand's service first, then to your car.
What this means for you
- Any charger works: charging is controlled through the car, so the charger does not matter.
- Nothing to install: add your car in the app with your car brand's account.
- Security of your car brand: all data passes through your car brand's own systems.
- Official connections: smart charging uses the official interfaces of Tesla, BMW Group, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen Group.
Why the data in the app can be hours old
Cars only send data when they are awake. A parked car goes to sleep and sends nothing until it wakes up again, so data a few hours old is normal. A Tesla, for example, falls asleep after about 15 minutes.
Why a command sometimes does not work
Your car brand can accept a command while the car does not carry it out. Common reasons:
- The car is in deep sleep and cannot be woken.
- The car is outside its smart charging location.
- The car brand's service has a temporary outage.
- The car is installing a software update.
Smart charging checks whether the car actually started or stopped, and tries again if needed.
If smart charging seems down for everyone, check the status page at statuspage.incident.io/gridio. Gridio is the company that runs smart charging for the app.