The only way to guarantee you trigger the automation when the car charges is to use a power monitor on your charger. If power > 1kW, start charging batteries. If power < 1kW stop.

Correct, the off-peak sensor comes on whenever you are getting off-peak energy regardless of whether or not the car charges. Sometimes Octopus charge the car to a couple of minutes but you get that whole half hour cheap. This does vary depending on your vehicle though!

Thank you, glad you liked it

It's actually not that complicated as automations go. The best way to learn I find is to take apart someone else's automation and figure out how it works.

So the short answer is no. But don't let that stop you 'taking control' of the blueprint and editing the automation to your exact wants.

If the Octopus off_peak sensor is on, you are being charged cheap rate. In most situations this is safe, for example if your Zappi is integrated with IOG. If you used an Ohme charger or some vehicle integrations then it's different because Octopus know if your car is full or not.

No, you can just leave it alone. It needs to be in scheduled charge mode but the automation will keep adjusting the times. You won't see the times reflected in the app but you can look at the time slots in GivTCP to confirm what is happening.

Thank you so much, that’s very nice of you. I hope you find the automation as useful as I do

Nope, I looked at PlayStation development and decided it was too much hassle. Looks like it won't be on Fire TV either going forward because they've changed the OS from Android to Vega so I can't easily port the code over