Use Ireland’s extensive public charging network to charge your electric vehicle with the easy to use ecar connect app from ESB.
The app displays all charge points on the public charging network across Ireland in real-time. It enables you to register and pay, to swipe to remotely start and stop charging, to monitor and track usage, and to manage your own personalised account.
For more information visit www.esb.ie/ecars and www.facebook.com/ESBecars.
Been fortunate that Northern Ireland has had free use of the ESB chargers. This changed this week to a chargeable service which I have no issues with provided the cost is cost efficient. I have a hybrid car and charged my car yesterday on the new price plan totally shocked and disgusted to find out it would have been far cheaper to put fuel in instead of electric!!! Wouldn’t mind so much if ESB network was reliable but almost all chargers in my home town have been broke for months and the app is just poor says chargers are unavailable yet when you go they are working or when you get there and try to ‘swipe’ to use the charger there is a network error
Very poor service only tolerated as it was free but now I have to pay (which I don’t mind) I want a good service
Will be closing my account as soon as I’ve used my £20 initial payment (which will be 4 charges at most)
Unfit for purpose
I feel compelled to write a review for what is quite possibly the worst app I have ever encountered. There are so many problems here it’s hard to know where to begin from a user experience perspective – the app opens onto a practically useless interface. If you were travelling and in need of a charge point, the app should be finding you and offering you options and locations for charging - not the other way around.
The most obvious thing for an app of this kind to do would be to pinpoint your location on a map and clearly display charging points in your area - after asking in the first instance permission to locate you of course.
The fact that the text within the app is difficult to navigate (unnecessary menus) etc, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The written information on the app is a combination of location details and reference numbers which identify charging points, which make it very difficult for users to understand and navigate – overly complicated.
A number of features within the app including the bell alert are difficult to find and understand, and also rarely work. As stated by other users, the details regarding a point being ‘FREE’ as in free in cost and ‘FREE’ as in available are confusing at best - just change this by putting a € or £ symbol in front of the cost?!?In a world where simplicity and ease of use is essential for good business it baffles me how this app is still on the market. I just visited the App Store and have seen a new ESB app - I have no idea if the new one is a direct replacement for this one(??) and if so, surely this app should be removed from the App Store.
For users who attempt to use a charging point on a second output (for example the rapid charge point) when another car is already connected (to the CCSS output for example) the app offers no information as to why you are not connecting or a clear indication that is not in fact possible. Instead it shows you are ‘whirring wheel’ which implies that the app is trying to connect you. I encountered this problem recently after years of using this network and having never had this occur before - just luck over the years I guess. The fact that I didn’t know about this not being possible is further reinforcing the need for much more user-friendly information from the app or displayed on the machines, or better still - both!!
The physical machines themselves (which all appear to be different in appearance with various screens and buttons across the network) have no de
Easy and reliable
The app is easy to use and mostly reliable.
The only issue is that when selecting a charger everything is displayed as FREE, to see the availability you have to drill into the selection. Would be nice if it would show the real availabilitythe first place.
Great source of charging network info.
Easy to use, comprehensive history section of charger use, very useful alert function, great for checking live status of charger.
Great experience
Fantastic improvement over the previous app, very intuitive
Crap
Worse than before we were paying for charging
Garbage
Won’t even download
Missing Fast Charging Points in Belfast/Antrim
Fast charging points at Junction One, Antrim; IKEA and Boucher Road Charles Hurst Nissan, Belfast all missing.
