Integration considerations

Copy linkDevice linking recommendations

To maximise market reach and ensure the best possible performance, our universal recommendation is for you to encourage all users to link a compatible charger. A paired vehicle and charger will provide a more reliable and future-proof connection that can allow you to target a wider range of flexibility use cases.

Instead of deciding if you should ask a user to link their charger, the decision becomes how you should frame the request. We recommend a simple, two-path approach based on the vehicle's standalone capabilities, which you can determine using our Vehicle Capabilities Table.

Copy linkScenario A: For incapable or unreliable vehicles

Frame linking as mandatory. The user cannot activate your smart charging program without linking their charger. This is critical for unlocking your market reach to previously ineligible vehicles.

Copy linkScenario B: For capable vehicles

Frame linking as highly recommended. While the user can proceed with the vehicle alone, strongly encourage them to link their charger. This provides tangible performance and reliability gains, including faster plug-in detection , a reliable control fallback if the vehicle's is offline, and returns chargeRate from the charger when it cannot be provided by the vehicle.

Copy linkUX recommendations

This section outlines our recommended user journeys for 1) prompting a user to link their charger and then 2) successfully guiding them through the necessary steps. Based on our experience, following these flows is critical for maximising end user adoption and avoiding common pitfalls.

Copy link(A) Use contextual onboarding

Avoid asking your user to link both their vehicle and charger in a single onboarding flow. Instead, create a sequential flow where the charger is introduced as an optional enhancement (or mandatory to link) after the vehicle has been successfully linked.

Copy link(B) Communicate the "why" clearly

Be transparent about why you are asking for charger access. Use benefit-oriented language.

Copy linkExample A - Mandatory charger linking for incapable or very unreliable vehicles

Prompt the user to link their charger after successfully linking their vehicle. The prompt is persisted and charging is disabled until they link their charger.

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You could even consider surfacing that a charger is required before initiating the vehicle linking flow

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Copy linkExample B - Optional charger linking for improved reliability and performance

Prompt the user to link their charger immediately after linking their vehicle. The prompt can be dismissed and charging remains enabled even without the charger being linked.

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Copy link(C) Unlinking chargers

Provide a way for users to unlink their chargers but make the implications of doing so very clear to users and ask them to confirm the action before continuing:

When a charger is mandatory, unlinking it will disable smart charging entirely. If confirmed by the user, revert back to Example A prompting and requiring them to link a charger.
When a charger is optional, unlinking will not disable smart charging but it will not be as reliable. If confirmed by the user, suppress any prompts to link a charger but provide a path for them to link a charger again through additional settings (example below)

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Copy link(D) Be aware of the persistence of capabilities

To provide a stable user experience, vehicle capabilities that have been unlocked by the charger will be persisted across charging sessions as long as both devices remain linked to the user:

Your app should continue to show that they remain enrolled in smart charging during this period, even when the vehicle is unplugged or away from home.
Interventions, which are connected to these capabilities, will be suppressed and won’t be surfaced to users to take specific actions which are unnecessary.
If we believe that the conditions to persist the capabilities are no longer valid we will reset the state at which point capabilities will return to being false and any unresolved interventions would be resurfaced to the end user.

Copy linkRollout considerations

For new product launches

If you are launching a new managed charging use case with Enode, we recommend designing for and integrating both vehicle and mandatory/optional charger linking flows from the beginning.

This ensures the greatest market reach and most reliable performance for all potential users from day 1.

For expanding existing use cases

If you are already live with a vehicle-only managed charging use case, consider following a phased approach for charger expansion that balances overall implementation effort, risk and reduces time-to-value. Each phase below naturally builds on the last.

Phase 1: Introduce charger linking as an optional reliability boost

Goal: Immediately improve charging reliability and performance and test the charger linking flows with minimal user friction.
Target: All existing users who have already linked a vehicle.
Approach: Add charger linking in your app as an optional enhancement (see UX Recommendations - Example B)

Phase 2: Target and fix known reliability issues with mandatory charger linking

Goal: Improve charging reliability, customer satisfaction and user retention; Reduce cost to serve.
Target: Users who are running into reliability issues when managed charging plans are executed. Identify these users via support tickets, high API error rates / lower plan success rates, or specific vehicle brands that are generally considered to have lower reliability (see vehicle capabilities).
Approach:
- Make charger linking mandatory for the target users or brands (see UX Recommendations - Example A).
- If you have decided to support reliability 1 vehicles (see vehicle capabilities), we highly recommend rolling this out incrementally and evaluating the performance per brand to ensure it meets your use case’s requirements (i.e. target 1 brand at a time and limit a subset of users initially).

Phase 3: Expand market reach to incapable vehicles with mandatory charger linking

Goal: Expand your addressable market to users with incapable vehicles who were previously ineligible for your managed charging program.
Target: Users with vehicles identified as incapable of start/stop charging or reporting their location (see vehicle capabilities) but who own a compatible charger (see charger capabilities).
Approach:
- Update program eligibility screens and decision rules to allow incapable vehicles to be linked when accompanied with a compatible charger.
- Enable the relevant brands for linking within your app AND through the Enode Dashboard.
- Make charger linking mandatory for all users who link an incapable vehicle (see UX Recommendations - Example A).

Copy linkSupported features

Improved telemetry

Charger identification: Vehicle APIAPI responses include an attribute, pluggedInChargerId, identifying which of a user's chargers is currently plugged into their vehicle. By default, this attribute will be null and will only be populated if 1) both assets are linked to the same Enode userIdAND 2) Enode has determined that the vehicle and charger are currently plugged into each other.
Improved charge rate handling: When a vehicle doesn't report a chargeRate, we will fallback to using the charger's, providing more consistent and accurate charging information.
Faster plug-in detection: Reduced plug-in detection time by leveraging power signals from both the vehicle and charger.

Unlocked vehicle capabilities

Linking a charger to the same user unlocks previously unavailable vehicle capabilities:

Charging control: Vehicles gain isCapable: true for startCharging and stopCharging the moment a charger is linked.
Location detection: Vehicles gain isCapable: true for location when it can be inferred through the charger’s location that has been explicitly set by you in Integration Step #2
Smart Charging eligibility: Vehicles that previously lacked control capabilities are now eligible for Smart Charging.

Unified control

Unified Control allows you to manage charging using the Vehicle APIAPI and leverage any supported charger linked to the same Enode user. When a vehicle is plugged into its charger you will benefit from:

Seamless orchestration: Send commands to the Vehicle API as usual. Enode automatically coordinates with the charger for optimal control.
Fallback compatibility: If the vehicle is unplugged or connected to a different charger, control remains unchanged via the vehicle only.
Smart Charging enhancement: Vehicles with Smart Charging enabled automatically leverage charger controls when executing their plan.
Scheduling enhancements: Vehicles using Schedules automatically leverage charger controls when executing their schedule.