Manage your charger without a subscription (2/3): manage your charge cards yourself

Part 2 of 3 in the series Manage your charger without a subscription. Part 1 covered connecting automatically via OCPP. Now: your charge cards.

Several people often charge at one charger: you, your partner, a second car, sometimes a visitor. A charge card (a tag in your dashboard) keeps that apart. In this part you'll see how to manage your tags yourself under Tag authorization • no subscription, no separate management portal.

Your tags appear automatically

The moment someone taps a card at your charger, that tag shows up in the list. You don't enter anything in advance • if it's still empty you'll see "No tags yet. Swipe a tag at the charger to approve it here." A new tag waits for your approval.

What you do per tag

• Approve or block. Approve a tag so it may charge, or block one you don't recognise.
• Give it a name. Call a tag "Tesla", "Partner" or "Second car" • easier to find than a long code.
• Pick a colour. Each tag gets its own colour, so your session overview shows at a glance who charged what.

Who may charge?

Two settings together decide who gets power. At the top is the Allow charging without a tag switch: turn it on and any car you plug in charges, no card needed • handy at home behind a closed gate. Turn it off and a tag is required.

Below that, under Tag authorization, you choose:

• All tags • any tag may charge.
• Allowed tags only • only the tags on your whitelist charge. Handy if your charger sits on the street or driveway and you don't want an unknown card pulling power.

Adding a new tag in five minutes

Click "Approve next tag (5 min)". The button turns into "Tap the new tag now" with a countdown. The next card you present at the charger is approved in one go • after that the window closes by itself. That way you add a driver without typing a code.

Why this matters

Anyone with several drivers on one charger wants two things: control over who may charge, and the sessions cleanly separated. Tag management handles both. And it's the basis for the final part: once your tags have a name, you can attach a price and pull a tidy invoice from them.

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Previous: Part 1 • Connect via OCPP, the rest runs by itself. Next: Part 3 • Per-card pricing and invoicing.