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Independent build · Energy & EV · In personal use

Turn energy signals into a useful decision.

Tariff and carbon signals turned into useful charging windows and automation.

PowerPilotBuilt and used personally

01 / problem

The problem to solve

EV owners can access tariff and grid-carbon data, but the data alone does not answer the practical question: when should I charge, and what difference will that choice make? The product problem is turning changing energy signals into a decision that is simple enough to act on.

02 / decision

The decision

I chose to test the whole decision loop rather than build another energy dashboard: understand the outlook, choose a charging window, automate the action and then see what happened.

03 / approach

How I approached it

The native iOS app combines Octopus tariff data with UK grid carbon-intensity signals and turns them into a 24-hour charging outlook. I connected recommendations to automation rules and usage insights so the product can move from information to action and then make the result visible.

04 / outcome

What changed

PowerPilot is in personal use and includes unit tests. It surfaces estimated cost, carbon impact and completed charging activity, giving me a direct way to test whether the recommendation-to-action loop is understandable and useful. Any savings shown by the product remain estimates rather than measured customer outcomes.

05 / What I take forward

What I take forward

A useful recommendation must be understandable enough to trust and simple enough to repeat. Personal use lets me test that loop directly.

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