Optiwatt: Tesla & EV Charging Reviews

by TennisGuy818

I downloaded Optiwatt about a week ago. Optiwatt worked perfectly fine for my first charge.

I needed to charge my car tonight from 39% to 80%. Optiwatt showed me information at 43% to 44% for 7 mins 39 secs then showed me 53% to 54% for 9 mins 4 secs and again showed me 63% to 64% 6 mins 10 secs. What happened to the rest of the charge? My car is still being charged and it’s not showing anything at this point…really disappointed how Optiwatt is working out!

by 123456789JRB

I thought I had found the perfect app to control the charging of my EV and preset days when I would need full charging. However, regardless of the time I set for economical charging, Optiwatt caused my charging to begin in the middle of the afternoon when electric rates are highest. I tried resetting everything! However, after the third time my charger turned on in the afternoon, I deleted Optiwatt .

Note: After deleting Optiwatt and rating it 1-Star, I received an e-mail from the CEO of the company. He convinced me they had fixed the bug, so I agreed to give it another go. Unfortunately, Optiwatt is still not working correctly. Believe it or not, AFTER I deleted Optiwatt , it reached up from the grave and charged my Tesla beyond the set percentage AND during peak hours.

Furthermore , after reporting these ongoing issues, I heard nothing from the company. Therefore, “fool me twice” applies. I have deleted Optiwatt for the second and final time.

by Shanpin

Potential is there to be a great app. I was able to select my electric provider but not able to find the right plan. As a workaround, I was going to manually enter the schedule but Optiwatt and website are both buggy in that I wasn’t able to save the schedule.

Charging by cheapest or optimized is not based on my electric provider’s schedule. Would be ideal if it was using the rate schedule entered - except earlier issue.

Would be good to be able to base the gas rate on local prices and also customize assumption on another gas car previously owned.

Would be good if you were able to configure pre conditioning.

by OnCampus2K

Trying out Optiwatt to keep track of my charging costs. Last night I charged in 1 session from 55% to 80%, but Optiwatt said I charged twice; once from 65%-69% and a second time from 74% to 78%. Where’s the rest of it? No way to accurately track my costs if it only sees small parts of my entire charge. Fix this, and you’ve got a good app!

by Fuzzygreenballs

For being a free app it’s actually not too bad at all.

But the one thing I think it desperately needs is the ability to customize mpg and fuel costs for comparison sake. App currently defaults to a vehicle that gets more mpg than the previous vehicle I sold for my Tesla, and it miscalculates the cost of premium fuel per gallon (a good .50¢ below current fuel costs).

Would really like to make an accurate comparison, being able to enter customizable fuel values (mpg and fuel costs) would be a tremendous help.

by Vn1286

I don’t usually write a review here but I see Optiwatt with 4.8 stars which doesn’t reflect true to me. At first I liked Optiwatt and didn’t realize a phantom drain. Later on I easily noticed that Optiwatt was the cause of phantom drain. It killed the battery 3-7% a day easily. Now I disable Optiwatt the battery drains 0-1% in a week(I don’t drive the car for a week). I might not use Optiwatt properly or something but it’s not acceptable if Optiwatt create phantom drain.

by Tnj440

Still wondering if I can get my past charging data into Optiwatt . You presumably have access to the car’s data, would be great to have the past data (just bought the car in march) rather than just since Optiwatt install date. Other apps do this.

by Dregan

I really like Optiwatt, but there are some customization things that I would have liked to have seen. The first being that it forces you to compare the cost of fuel versus the BMW, but I am more interested in the cost of fuel versus the vehicle I just dumped to buy my Tesla (a Ford F-150). Obviously fuel consumption in the F-150 is higher than a BMW so their comparison isn’t really giving me an accurate fuel savings. Little things like that which would truly polish it out.

by No1Pencil

The perfect app for Tesla owners with roommates. You can easily isolate your electric spend to make sure the roomies are not paying your charging costs! Easy to set up and use!

by Upnorth85

I initially tried Optiwatt but could not get it to charge during unlisted electricity company’s off peak hours. So I removed Optiwatt . I then got an email for a survey. I responded the reason for my removing Optiwatt . The developer worked with me to get Optiwatt working. Now it works perfect better than the Tesla App. I have never seen this level of engagement by any App developer so far. I would happily paid a monthly fee for Optiwatt to keep them in business and reinvesting in Optiwatt . Optiwatt now uses the weekend and off peak hours to charge my Tesla. I don’t need to schedule on daily basis.

by Kennymb5384

Had some initial issues getting it set up, it after those were cleared up, Optiwatt is pretty awesome! Very cool seeing how much I am saving and what I pay to charge my car at home! Recommend for any Tesla owner!

by Chuck Muchmore

It is so much fun to watch your consumption and the expense of electricity versus gas. You will find that the assumption for gas is hi because they use premium fuel, and I never did. In any event it is an excellent app and gives you a lot of information that is very helpful.

by NinaJava

Tesla released some features that try to do what this app does, but it’s not even close. This one is so automatic, I love it. I barely pay anything to charge now!

by Mrcash

Great for tracking savings and scheduling full charge for trips.

Responsive developers. We noticed an charge start time calculation error (caused by my power companys policy) and they fixed it in the next release.

by Dmurph24

I’ve been using Optiwatts website for a few months and even though I don’t have a time of use electric plan I still find the analytics, preconditioning, and scheduling features extremely valuable. Optiwatt version is no different. Love it

by EuroSnob

This is an amazing app that safely links to your Tesla and utility account to give a very detailed view of how much your are spending home charging your Tesla. The developer is also very responsive in addressing bugs as well. Highly recommended!

by Akkipatel_94

Really needed one of this kind of app that measures how much kwh charge my car took while charging. Also measure and keep eye on cost basis kwh takes while in charge. Now I can have accurate kwh cost takes my Tesla so at the end I can better have exact cost to tax file in miscellaneous. I really like Optiwatt and can recommend to any EV owners.

by Chopralal

Optiwatt connects to your Tesla account and shows in a live manner how much you are being charged by your utility company (~) when you are charging your car at home with your Tesla charger and beyond. It also compares the cost of an ICE comparable car (Like a BMW etc) to provide the cost of the filling a gas tank. Really loved the concept and it’s free!

by ElectricAli03

Great app with excessive features to fulfill all of your hearts content. I only use Optiwatt for my electricity costs, yet it can also be used to allow your Tesla to be chared during off-peak electricity hours in order to help you save money if you have a bill that varies depending on time of day, peak usage, demand, etc. Great app, would definitely reccomend for any Tesla owner. Best of all, it’s completely free to use!

by Caseybro

I’ve been looking for an app to track my home power usage since I live with roommates and want to track my charging usage. There are several other apps that do this but all charge fees, Optiwatt does it wonderfully and gives lots of other helpful information like the electricity price based on your power bill, and how much you’ve saved compared to a gas car. Only wish I could change the mpg it compares it to, since my old car got 39 mpg and it compares it to a car that gets 28 mpg