Charge HQ Is Closed — It Says Some OCPP Chargers May Need Offboarding to Charge Normally

Charge HQ's live website now says the cloud smart-charging service is closed, and its current FAQ says it closed on September 7, 2026.¹² For users who connected a smart charger through Charge HQ's OCPP backend, the shutdown may require one last configuration change: Charge HQ says most OCPP smart chargers should revert to plug-and-charge when the backend is disconnected, but some may refuse to charge.³⁴

Charge HQ recommends disabling OCPP on an affected smart charger to avoid post-closure charging problems.³ That guidance is not a warning that every smart charger will stop working. The current Charge HQ and Amber support material reviewed September 7 does not identify a complete list of models that may refuse to charge after losing the service connection, while Charge HQ says most OCPP smart chargers should fall back to plug-and-charge behavior.³⁴

The shutdown itself was planned. Amber Electric announced on July 6 that Charge HQ would close September 7 and stopped subscription billing that day.⁵ What changed now is the service state: the planned date has arrived, Charge HQ's first-party pages show the service as closed, and the offboarding instructions are now post-closure steps rather than advance preparation.¹²

What the shutdown changes for charging

Charge HQ described its service as operating entirely in the cloud. It connected over the internet to compatible EVs or smart wall chargers and adjusted charging around home-solar production and off-peak periods.¹

Charge HQ's own guidance does not describe a universal hardware failure. It says most OCPP smart chargers should continue as plug-and-charge devices once the Charge HQ backend is no longer available, while some may need OCPP disabled before normal charging resumes.³⁴

Charge HQ also says it did not control users' solar inverters or home batteries, so offboarding Charge HQ should not itself change how those devices operate.³

Charging history is no longer available

There is a separate data consequence for former users. Charge HQ says charging-history CSV files had to be downloaded before the shutdown and cannot be obtained after the service is closed.²

Charge HQ also says personal data, payment methods and equipment-connection details will be permanently deleted within 30 days after the closure date. That deletion window is a stated post-closure policy, not a completed deletion as of September 7. The company says anonymized charging data may be retained.²

The service had U.S. relevance, but its U.S. scale is unknown

Charge HQ was not presented as Australia-only. An undated Charge HQ country-support page said the service worked in any country and had active users in more than 30 countries, while Apple's U.S. App Store still carries the Charge HQ listing with the developer's closure notice.⁶⁷

Those sources do not establish how many U.S. or Canadian users were active when Charge HQ closed. The practical advice is therefore narrow: former Charge HQ users with OCPP-connected smart chargers should check the service's offboarding guidance and their charger's own configuration rather than assuming either that nothing changed or that every charger has stopped working.³

Sources

Footnotes

1. EV Charging from Home Solar / Charge HQ homepage — Charge HQ Pty Ltd, dynamic page observed Sept. 7, 2026. https://chargehq.net/ Current first-party surface showing CHARGE IS CLOSED and describing Charge HQ's cloud smart-charging function. Does not establish an exact shutdown time or user count. ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Closing Down FAQ — Charge HQ Pty Ltd, dynamic support page observed Sept. 7, 2026. https://chargehq.net/kb/closing-down-faq Current first-party source for the Sept. 7 closure wording, post-closure charging-history availability, and Charge HQ's stated data-deletion policy. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. Offboarding Your Equipment — Charge HQ Pty Ltd, dynamic technical support page observed Sept. 7, 2026. https://chargehq.net/kb/offboarding Charge HQ's guidance for OCPP offboarding, including its statement that most OCPP smart chargers should revert to plug-and-charge while some may refuse to charge. Vendor guidance, not an exhaustive model-by-model compatibility test. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

4. Charge HQ shutdown FAQs — Amber Electric, updated July 9, 2026; observed Sept. 7, 2026. https://help.amber.com.au/hc/en-us/articles/47082377569805-Charge-HQ-shutdown-FAQs Amber's customer-support guidance that most chargers or EVs should revert to manual control while some OCPP chargers may stop working and require offboarding. Written before the shutdown and not a model-by-model charger test. ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. We're saying goodbye to Charge HQ — Amber Electric, July 6, 2026. https://www.amber.com.au/blog/were-saying-goodbye-to-charge-hq Primary owner announcement establishing the planned Sept. 7 closure and July 6 subscription-billing stop. The July announcement does not by itself establish the completed Sept. 7 service state. ↩

6. Does Charge HQ work in my country? — Charge HQ Pty Ltd, undated support page observed Sept. 7, 2026. https://chargehq.net/kb/does-charge-hq-work-in-my-country Historical company statement that the service worked in any country and had active users in more than 30 countries. It does not provide a dated or current country/user breakdown. ↩

7. Charge HQ — U.S. App Store listing — Apple App Store, U.S. storefront, observed Sept. 7, 2026. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/charge-hq/id1583649869 Establishes U.S. storefront presence and carries developer-supplied closure text; it does not establish active U.S. user scale. ↩