Learn · 2 November 2026
Why ShiftCharge has no home battery app (on purpose)
Looking for a home battery app? Why ShiftCharge works in the background instead, so your battery runs itself and you don’t have to keep checking it.
Start 30 days free30 days free during the beta, then £4.99 a month or £49 a year if you choose to subscribe.
No payment is taken automatically when your free time ends. Battery automation stops unless you subscribe. Paid plans renew until cancelled; cancel any time. Your first payment is covered by our 30-day money-back guarantee.
People often ask where to download the ShiftCharge app. Right now there isn’t one, and that is a deliberate choice rather than something we haven’t got round to.
ShiftCharge is built to be set up once and then left alone. You connect your battery and your tariff, and from then on it plans and runs the battery every day without you needing to look. A home battery app you feel you have to open is, in a way, a sign that something isn’t doing its job.
Set it and forget it
Most of the saving from a home battery on a smart tariff comes from small, repetitive decisions: when to charge, how full to get, when to hold the charge for the evening, when to let solar take over. Those decisions change every day with prices and weather.
Making them by hand means checking prices each afternoon and adjusting timers in the inverter app. ShiftCharge does that for you, every day, so there is nothing to keep an eye on.
Why not an app anyway?
Apps are designed to be opened. Notifications, badges and live graphs pull you back in, and for a battery that mostly turns into watching numbers move. We would rather spend our time making the plan good enough that you don’t feel the need to check it.
It also keeps things simple. There is nothing to install or update, it works the same on every phone, tablet and computer, and new improvements reach you straight away.
What you get instead
The ShiftCharge website works on any phone. Home tells you in one sentence what your battery is doing and why, Plan shows today’s schedule, and Savings shows what it has saved you. You can pause it or make a one-off change in a couple of taps.
On most phones you can also add it to your home screen from the browser’s share or menu button, so it opens like an app with its own icon.
We tell you when something needs you
Leaving it alone only works if you trust it to speak up. If your battery stops responding or its connection needs to be renewed, we email you so you can sort it out. Otherwise, a short weekly and monthly summary shows how it has been doing.
If you don’t hear from us, the plan is running as it should.
Will there ever be an app?
Possibly, if there is something an app could do that the website can’t and that genuinely saves you effort. We won’t build one just to have an icon on your phone.
Common questions
- Is there a ShiftCharge app for iPhone or Android?
- Not at the moment. The website works on any phone, and you can add it to your home screen so it opens like an app.
- Do I need to check ShiftCharge every day?
- No. Once your battery and tariff are connected it plans and runs the battery on its own. We email you if something needs your attention.
- Can I still change what my battery does?
- Yes. From the website you can pause ShiftCharge or make a one-off change to the plan at any time, from any device.
- Do I still need my inverter maker’s app?
- Keep it for things like firmware updates and warranty checks. You don’t need it for day-to-day charging, because ShiftCharge handles that.
Want this running in your home?
Connect your battery and Octopus account in about ten minutes. 30 days free during the beta, no card needed.
Start 30 days free