Home First
A simpler home-first mode. It prioritises running the home from your own solar and battery first, minimises grid dependence, and avoids optimiser-led battery export.
Private beta rollout
This page explains the mode logic, not just the label.
All of these modes sit inside the same wider platform: daytime EV-battery protection where supported, whole-home reporting, and vendor-safe controls. The difference here is what the battery is trying to optimise once those guardrails are in place.
Battery protection still sits above the mode
If your setup qualifies for the flagship daytime drain fix, that protection remains the first job regardless of the mode selected underneath it.
Mode choice changes the operating priority
The question is not whether the battery can charge or export. The question is what outcome should win when value, reserve, and home demand are competing.
Availability still depends on your stack
Real rollout still depends on inverter control support, telemetry quality, tariff setup, and whether the current private beta safely supports your hardware mix.
Best fit
Best for battery homes that care more about using their own stored energy well than about squeezing every export or arbitrage opportunity from the tariff.
Primary goal
Keep battery energy available for the home later, with less grid dependence and no optimiser-led export behaviour.
Decision check
Is your main goal to cover the house reliably from your own solar and battery rather than trade the battery for extra upside?
When this mode wins
- Homes that want calmer, more legible battery behaviour and fewer moving parts.
- Users who care about evening home coverage more than export revenue.
- People who want tariff-aware charging only when the home genuinely needs extra battery for the next expensive period.
When another mode is better
- You have an export tariff and want the battery to actively trade import and export spreads.
- You are trying to maximise earnings from price volatility rather than preserve household energy.
- You want a mode that will opportunistically export whenever margins improve.
What it does in practice
- 1
Calculates the protected battery level needed by the end of the current cheap window for the next expensive period.
- 2
Allows cheap-window discharge only while the battery remains safely above that protected level, then switches to hold when it reaches it.
- 3
Charges in cheap periods only when the battery falls below the protected level rather than chasing a high state of charge.
- 4
Keeps energy back for later home loads instead of dispatching it to the grid.
- 5
Works well when a home-first operating style is more important than market-style optimisation.
Guardrails and stop conditions
- Protected-floor logic, reserve protection, safety triggers, and unsupported control capability can stop charging actions.
- Outside cheap import windows, the mode will not top up just to fill the battery for its own sake.
- This mode intentionally leaves export optimisation off, even if export prices look attractive.
Compare with other smart controls
Most homes should choose the operating goal first, then choose the mode. These related pages make the tradeoffs explicit.
Autopilot
The best starting mode for most homes. Autopilot decides when to charge, hold, or export by balancing tariff value, home coverage, refill confidence, and your protected minimum battery SoC. Choose Balanced for a calmer default or Aggressive for stronger value seeking.
Manual Control
A support-style page for advanced users. Manual Control keeps the automation framework in place but follows your fixed current choices more directly, with safety caps and backend guardrails still applied.
Tariff pages where this mode matters
These tariff playbooks are the clearest places to see where this control style becomes commercially relevant.
Octopus Go battery and EV optimisation
Octopus Go is simpler than Agile on paper, but homes still need to know whether the fixed off-peak window is serving the car, the battery and the house in the right order.
Octopus Tracker visibility
Octopus Tracker is simpler than Agile, but homes still need to relate daily rate changes to heating, charging and battery behaviour.
Octopus Intelligent Go coordination
Octopus Intelligent Go creates EV-led charging windows, but battery logic, charger behaviour and whole-home demand still need to be interpreted together.
Use cases that usually point toward this mode
These whole-home problems are often where this control strategy becomes the practical answer.
Stop Octopus daytime EV charging from draining your home battery
This is the flagship 1app.energy wedge: stop the daytime EV-battery conflict first, then layer in cheaper-period battery charging and broader whole-home coordination.
Solar and battery optimisation for smart tariffs
This is the core 1app.energy use case: understanding whether solar, battery reserve and tariff timing are working together or fighting each other.
Using battery storage to buffer heat-pump demand
For all-electric homes, battery storage can protect comfort and cost, but only if the reserve strategy is tuned to real heating behaviour and tariff opportunity.
Integrations commonly paired with this mode
These integration pages explain the device context where this smart control style usually shows up.
Solis
Connect Solis hybrid inverters to 1app.energy to see live solar, battery, grid and home demand in one place, then automate battery charge decisions around tariff windows.
Enphase
Connect Enphase systems to bring microinverter solar data into the same decision layer as tariffs, batteries, EV charging and heating demand.
Tesla Powerwall
Tesla Powerwall households care about whole-home orchestration, tariff windows and EV interactions, making them a strong fit for 1app.energy’s cross-device model.
Related reading
Use the overview hub for the big picture, or jump into the comparison blog for a quicker narrative walkthrough.
Smart Controls overview
See the full smart-control model together and use the overview hub to narrow the choice before you commit to one strategy.
Which smart control mode should you use?
Read the comparison blog for a quicker narrative walkthrough of where each mode tends to fit and where it can disappoint.
Product context
The smart control is not the whole product.
These modes decide how the battery should behave. The wider platform still includes the daytime EV-battery fix, whole-home visibility, tariff context, and vendor-safe control paths across the rest of the home.
See the wider productPriority access
Check whether Home First fits your home.
If your priority is lower grid dependence and simpler battery behaviour, we can review whether the current private beta matches your hardware and tariff mix.
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