Octopus home mini unboxing - what does it do?

I signed up for the waiting list for an Octopus Home Mini a couple of months ago, and this week, a little box landed on our doorstep.

So what's in the box?
How easy is it to set up?
And why did I want one?

In this video I talk through this little piece of kit and what it might mean for our low carbon lifestyle.
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[martinbaum]

thanks - have ordered. A huge fan of Octopus Energy - in a different league too the others.

[Group]

When I scanned your code it opened my app but just took me to the normal start screen. Good to see they thought of that scenario.

[duncanheyes]

Great video, received ours at the weekend an excellent bit of kit designed by Octopus and is far superior to the IHD.

[PGvideoinc]

Thanks for this video. My mini arrived today and wouldn't connect. Watching your video identified that the unit needs to pair to Bluetooth to get on tke wi-fi, Octopus instructions say nothing of this!!!

[stevenbarrett]

I too signed up for a mini but nothing arrived, meanwhile our ALPHAESS solar software shows what we are using, we often charge the car when making 4kw off the solar and the 5Kw battery is full so a free charge or put the washing machine or dishwasher on during the day for the same reason. Usually we charge the car to 80% at night and top off the house battery on cheap rate so overall our bills are kept as low as possible, this mini would be a useful addition to the measuring kit we already have

[ianh]

Great video, love the fact you kept saying "WE " as in family i take it, are they interested do they have the app, do they actively watch their usage, mine on the other are going to go bonkers when mine arrives, i have the "ivie bud" plus the the octopus app already, i kinda mention it their eyes roll over and say if i need it, ill switch it on, it just causes arguments, so ill say nothing and connect it and hide it, i find the app is not accurate, its under my acutual usage, my ivie is set a little higher cost wise so no surpises, wonder how the mini will be, thanks again Tom 🐙

[edwardpickering]

Makes sense to get one and so much nicer than those horrible smart meter displays. Have been using the Loop app before I heard about this, but like you say that's about 24 hours out of date for the data.

[RockinJohnny]

Got mine today but it wont pair, shows up on my mobile phone in available devices, I click it and it says pairing then dosen't show up on paired devices, tried and tried. I give up.

[hal-rekabi]

I wonder if it will work in parallel with the IHD.

[jimgardner]

So does this completely replace the IHD display attached to the Smart Meter ?

[Muppetkeeper]

You can integrate it into Home Assistant and have pretty dashboards, allegedly

[MrGeeyess]

Received mine today and it is impossible to set up. I have the Octopus app on my phone and the smart meter display. Follow the instructions, read the QR code and that is where it departs from all the various youtube channels on this subject. All it does is take me to a page demanding my credit card details. fill in the details and it then displays a message in a foreign language (might be Spanish) the only word I understand is "error". Have cancelled the card in case it's a scam. Will try to phone Octopus tomorrow as this has caused me too much stress for one day.

[SudhaSpeaks]

I got this, I dont find this useful esp. if you have smart meter installed for gas as well. If you had just electricity, then this may be good. I am using the visual Geo Usage monitor. It also converts gas readings from hideous m3 to kwH. If I had to pay for this, then I would not buy. On hind sight I would not have registered to get this device.

[danielwalls]

Excited for mine. Got the email Tuesday and I am now just waiting. How long did yours take to arrive from the confirmation email?

[davidfellowes]

How does the mini work when the home is drawing electricity from a battery storage system, or is this mini data only when you are drawing from the grid. I believe, the former is the case. With a storage battery and solar system the grid connection is live but only small flows back and forth occur until a real demand for electricity is initiated, with the main electricity flow coming from your batteries throughout the 24hrs, so not clear how these all would work together with the mini. Or, is the mini looking at the home itself and one's overall system and informing Octopus of the specifics of that system. What data is it actually access? Can you answer this, please?

[garysanders]

didnt seem to work very well with the solar panel tariff so its been unplugged again

[Cheadlebiker]

I asked octopus energy 4 times for a home mini and this guy Mfundo sent out a IHD a in-home display what I already have so I’ve given up asking for one.

[IPC]

I was sent one but do not really see the point as I use the Hugo app which I find very useful

[TP-jmgy]

My Mini is "on its way" apparently. Unfortunately, the APP does not support older Androids - shame .:-(

[PURPOOKS]

I prefer the smart one as it shows me gas aswell