Honda SmartCharge expanded?

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Clarity_Newbie said:
I declined the offer. I have no need for oversight by a large corporation which cannot be trusted.

Honda USA and their dealer network (sans the few that are honest) have proven to be inept, untrustworthy and greedy.

To each their own. I'll continue to charge as before.

Good luck
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Amen. I just plug it in with a no-data cable when I need to charge. Works every time. That meets my definition of a Smart Charge.
 
I was tempted by the KW count but after some reflection I decided I don't need yet another Big Brother Bot breathing over my shoulder and deciding for me when do I need to charge my car. I am very happy with my El Cheapo 'dumb' 220V charger that gets me ready to go soon enough. Besides, LV is mostly solar and also I don't want to be at the mercy of some unexpected "bug" that leaves me "uncharged" unexpectedly.
 
Ok, after some tweaking, this is working better.

You have to set your smart charge schedule to END at the time you want to be at 100%. Changed it to end at 6AM and it has been fully charged each morning by that time.

It is interesting to see the kWhs consumed.
 
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cyberteen said:
Anyone in San Diego or SoCal have this feature.? It says not available for me.


Sent from my iPad using Inside EVs
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I am in so cal and I have it. It just appeared in my app but now I'm trying to unenroll from this crap. It does weird things like my normal charge schedule is from 6pm-11:50am and it delayed my charge till later but what happens if I decide I need to leave early and my car is only half charged? And the app seems less responsive and keeps showing incorrect charge data like HondaLink likes to do.
 
wpc said:
I am in so cal and I have it. It just appeared in my app but now I'm trying to unenroll from this crap. It does weird things like my normal charge schedule is from 6pm-11:50am and it delayed my charge till later but what happens if I decide I need to leave early and my car is only half charged? And the app seems less responsive and keeps showing incorrect charge data like HondaLink likes to do.
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If you decide to drive early, then your car might not be fully charge even if you have it plugged in. The app will try to 'spaced out' your charging and will try to give you a full charge by the scheduled end time. If you think you will need the car before then, then you will want to do a manual override with the key fab and have it charge.

Somewhat annoying but it is good to keep track of how much electricity was used to charge the car for people who use the OEM level 1 charger.
 
megreyhair said:
If you decide to drive early, then your car might not be fully charge even if you have it plugged in. The app will try to 'spaced out' your charging and will try to give you a full charge by the scheduled end time. If you think you will need the car before then, then you will want to do a manual override with the key fab and have it charge.
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99% of the time I need to do a manual override because the charge schedule on hondas is crap. My schedule starts at 6pm and if I plug it in at 6:01pm then it will not charge unless I manually override. Probably the worst thought out charging schedule of any car I've seen.
 
and I checked a little while ago and the stupid scheduled charge time pushed my charge 1 hour into my expensive electricity rate and the car is still not 100% (85%) charged. So by smart they mean, they will smartly try to guess and get it wrong and charge you more in electricity. Thanks Honda
 
wpc said:
and I checked a little while ago and the stupid scheduled charge time pushed my charge 1 hour into my expensive electricity rate and the car is still not 100% (85%) charged. So by smart they mean, they will smartly try to guess and get it wrong and charge you more in electricity. Thanks Honda
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Did you set a stop time? Mine stopped charging at the stop time with 90% charge.
I enhancement I noticed was that it will charge even if you plug in after the scheduled charge time. I set mine to start at 7:30PM. I got home at 8:30P and plugged in. This morning I got a full charge. The old scheduled charge wouldn't have started if I plugged in after the start time.
 
megreyhair said:
Did you set a stop time? Mine stopped charging at the stop time with 90% charge.
I enhancement I noticed was that it will charge even if you plug in after the scheduled charge time. I set mine to start at 7:30PM. I got home at 8:30P and plugged in. This morning I got a full charge. The old scheduled charge wouldn't have started if I plugged in after the start time.
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I didn't know it would start by itself unlike the old schedule. The start and stop times are setup by my time of use electricity rates. So I start 6:10PM end 11:50AM. And even if I manually started it on the remote it would just stop. I set it to charge to 100% so it's not my stop charge rate setting.
 
megreyhair said:
If you decide to drive early, then your car might not be fully charge even if you have it plugged in.
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Correct me here if necessary, but isn’t it necessary to have the car plugged in whether or not the app is being used if the intent is to charge the battery?

Indeed, if it would normally take 2 hours to fully charge and it became necessary to drive again after one hour, the battery would not be fully charged. But it would have been charged for one hour, if simply plugged in without the app or any charge settings that might have delayed charging. Whereas, with the app, it is possible that it would not have been charged at all.
 
Landshark said:
Correct me here if necessary, but isn’t it necessary to have the car plugged in whether or not the app is being used if the intent is to charge the battery?

Indeed, if it would normally take 2 hours to fully charge and it became necessary to drive again after one hour, the battery would not be fully charged. But it would have been charged for one hour, if simply plugged in without the app or any charge settings that might have delayed charging. Whereas, with the app, it is possible that it would not have been charged at all.
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Well that's what I'm saying here. Assuming you have a 2 hour charge, If you plug it in for 1 hour and there's no guarantee that it will charge at all. If your window is let's say 1PM - 5PM and you plugged in at 1PM, it might not do anything till 3PM so if you leave in 1 hour at 2PM you will leave with no additional charge. This is what was driving me crazy and there's no way to opt out after you've opted in.
 
wpc said:
Well that's what I'm saying here. Assuming you have a 2 hour charge, If you plug it in for 1 hour and there's no guarantee that it will charge at all. If your window is let's say 1PM - 5PM and you plugged in at 1PM, it might not do anything till 3PM so if you leave in 1 hour at 2PM you will leave with no additional charge. This is what was driving me crazy and there's no way to opt out after you've opted in.
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I’ve never signed up for or used Hondalink. It is possible to delete the app, reinstall and start from scratch?
 
Make sure to set the **Minimum** charge level, it defaulted to 0% which means they are fine with the car being @ 10% and not charging when plugged in... set mine to 40% for now and hoping it does a better job... wish I could set the min to like 80% or something though.
 
Help…

I enabled this “feature” and have now tried to remote start my car to no avail from the HondaLink app. I am regretting initiating this “feature”because, like some of the previous comments, I believe it is utter garbage. I have some other choice words, but I will refrain.

This morning, I was walking the dog and already had a full charge on my battery still plugged into the 240 line at our house. While out for a walk, I wanted to remote start the climate control for my ride to work. It continued to no longer be able to connect after going through the full sequence (sending command… waking car… etc.). I tried to do it with it still plugged in and also then unplugged. No dice.

I can remote start the climate control still from my fob. That’s not a problem. All of this happened yesterday when I installed the smart charge option. How do I go about removing this from within the app? I tried deleting and reinstalling the app to no avail. Please help. I wish I never enabled this option. I appreciate the help.

Thank you in advance.
 
Dean Chao,

The information on unenrollment is great. Can you provide the "how to use" instructions? I have my SmartCharge set up for 40% minimum and 85% maximum state of charge. The charge times are 6pm to 6am. What do I do to recharge using SmartCharge? Do I need to plug in before 6pm or can I plug in after 6pm. After I plug in do I need to click on "Charge Now" or do I just do nothing (and the SmartCharge session will begin). I often get an error message (something about a connection failure) when I click on "Charge Now." Does my SOC need to be below 40% for a SmartCharge session to begin?

I am mainly using SmartCharge (I live in central Indiana where the power is mostly coal produced) to stop the charge at 85% without having to time things. Also, with the energy used output, I no longer need to use a energy measuring device if I want to see how many KWH's were used in a charge session.

Thanks, LeoP
 
I was enjoying the smart charge features for a good 3 days and I get this email today. I'm in PA

Dear Clarity Driver,

You’ve found our secret pilot feature called Honda SmartCharge. This feature is currently being tested in certain areas and is not ready for US wide release. We’ve detected you are outside the testing area and therefore this feature is not ready for you yet.

We’ll let you know when the official release is happening. In the meantime, if you would like to learn more about Honda SmartCharge, please visit HondaSmartCharge.com.

Thank you for driving a Clarity!
 
@leop I've only played with this for a few days. But from what I gathered, once you set it up you can see how the SmartCharge plans to charge the Clarity by going to "Charge Schedule" on the main screen. It shows you how it plans to charge the battery. So for example, if you are fully charged or if you are outside of the charge time, you may see a full orange bar. Otherwise you may see some green or a full green bar depends on Honda's calculation. Combining that with the time, it gives you a forecast of charging schedule.

I don't know how they come up with the math though. I found that it assumes I use 110v even though I have 220v charger. It also doesn't take into account my solar panel and PG&E fee schedule (I am in California).
 
I had my first charge session with SmartCharge last night. It did work, and reported the kWh pretty accurately, at 5.0 kWh, against my meter reporting 5.05 kWh, and my Emporia app showing 5.004 kWh.

The Charge Events timing didn't really correlate very well to what I observed in the Emporia app. For example, I plugged in the charger at 8:44 PM, with a 12 AM scheduled start time, but observed that the charger drew full amperage immediately after the plug-in for 5 minutes. After the cycle was completed, the app didn't show that charge period having occurred. Beyond that, the actual, observed Charge/Not Charge periods didn't really match very closely with what the app reported, during the 12 AM to 3:17 AM charging period.

I'm not too worried about the accuracy of the displayed periods, assuming that the app was in fact accurately following the true minute by minute utility power source environmental status, but I have no way to verify that, as far as I know. If the utility publicly shares the moment-by-moment power source status, I would be happy to go back through the observed cycle events to verify that SmartCharge is actually accomplishing something, or just providing a feel-good illusion of environmental responsibility.
 
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