Behind the Wheel of Fortune

You get one spin per thirty days, per gasoline. Each month we now have 100,000+ fortunate winners, who’ll every take dwelling something from 1p to £512 power credit score.

Submitting meter readings isn’t precisely enjoyable, and never many individuals understand how essential common readings are to conserving your power account in examine. We needed a enjoyable strategy to have interaction prospects to submit readings, that additionally rewarded them for his or her additional effort. So, just a few of our devs started working creating the Wheel of Fortune. 

We’ve had quite a lot of questions on how the Wheel works. Is it actually random? How many individuals reeeeeally win? WHY HAVEN’T I WON YET? 

So we needed to take some time to elucidate extra about it. So, right here it’s – the reality behind the pleased spinny wheel, straight from one of many very builders who constructed it, Gilly… 

Why did we construct it?

Meter readings are completely very important to our enterprise. They’re the muse of every part we offer for purchasers. Meter readings are how we will inform how a lot power you employ, which we have to provide you with an correct invoice. On a bigger scale, we’d like to have the ability to calculate how a lot power our prospects use altogether, in order that we all know how a lot inexperienced power we have to purchase from our renewable sources to place into the grid. With out correct meter readings, we now have to resort to that the majority fickle of instruments: estimation. That’s not good for anybody. Nobody likes an estimated invoice which may see you pay an excessive amount of, or – if it’s too low – set you up for a shock larger invoice sooner or later. Common meter readings assist us perceive your power utilization over the 12 months, which helps us work out how a lot an everyday month-to-month fee for you need to be.

So we encourage all our prospects to offer common meter readings nevertheless they’ll. Again within the early days (once we nonetheless measured prospects within the 1000’s, and our workplace was one flooring of a condemned constructing in Soho) we questioned whether or not we might provide individuals a reward for submitting readings on-line. We needed to do that to avoid wasting our hard-working and proficient power consultants from an excessive amount of copying and pasting of meter readings from emails, and encourage prospects to make use of our tremendous straightforward on-line operate to submit theirs as an alternative. This protects our prospects and our group a little bit time. 

Although we’re completely all the time pleased to assist with any question, our tech group like automating little work-arounds like this, so our group are freed as much as assist with the actually complicated issues that want somebody to jot down a private response, or be there to take a cellphone name, that no quantity of automation or intelligent know-how can resolve. It’s what they’re nice at. The extra we will get our know-how to do for them, the extra environment friendly our enterprise is, and the cheaper we will make your power payments.

Why a wheel?

Somebody requested “Can we make a little bit of a recreation out of it? One thing you’ll be able to play while you give readings on-line?” The thought went via varied evolutions from there. First, it was going to appear like a slot machine. Then we settled on a wheel, considering it could be enjoyable to supply totally different sorts of prizes. In September 2017, we began work on a prototype. Then different issues got here up, after which it was Christmas, after which extra issues. Lastly, in April 2018, the identical week we have been shifting out of that condemned workplace constructing and into one other down the street, we lastly launched THE WHEEL! At the moment, the month-to-month prizes on provide have been £5 and £50 credit, and one £500 grand prize. That was over £1000 a month in an try and get extra common month-to-month readings and take the load off our power specialists

As time went on, and our buyer numbers have grown, it appeared honest to supply extra prizes to win. We’re now providing £1 prizes, in addition to £64 prizes and a £512 grand prize (as a result of we like 8s) – and now have 100,000+ winners each month. We present the quantity of people that have gained every month while you give us a meter studying, so you’ll be able to see what number of of our prizes we’ve given away. Or you’ll be able to take a look at the feed of winners right here #BlessedByTheWheel.

Then enter Octopoints. The fantastic octo-currency that you just earn in the event you’re part of the Octoplus scheme and have a working sensible meter. When you spin the wheel and are signed as much as Octoplus, your rewards are Octopoints! These Octopoints can then be transformed to money in your on-line account or redeemed in our retailer everytime you like.

Technical stage: 🌶️

We assign the prizes randomly all through the month, and we present what number of prizes have been gained to date while you submit a studying. Once you spin the wheel, our prize randomiser checks whether or not your spin wins a prize, after which we present that within the wheel. 

Speak is affordable, present me the code. 

Technical stage: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

The interface of the wheel is inbuilt React, and is backed by a few REST API endpoints. The spinning animation is managed via CSS. The very earliest, most embryonic expression of that, was a cat that all the time landed on its toes. The considering there may be that the UI shouldn’t present any direct enter into the prize randomisation, because it might show to be exploitable. All of the randomness ought to come from the backend system. So the UI is only a enjoyable strategy to show the identical form of course of that might occur in the event you clicked on a button (which, in the event you have a look, is what the wheel truly is).

The interactive ingredient for the spinning was coded from first rules utilizing trigonometry (thanks Mrs Edwards, my secondary faculty maths trainer).

Once you spin the wheel, it sends a POST request to fetch the prize, and we replace the section of the wheel that we all know it’s going to land on (due to the predictable animation).

Good meter prospects

When you’re a wise meter buyer, you may get an additional spin each month – only for being sensible! If you would like to play, simply head to your on-line account (you may see a hyperlink subsequent to your meter particulars while you’re eligible to play!) or simply get in contact and we’ll ship the hyperlink proper via.

Not but a wise meter buyer and need an additional spin on the wheel? Register your curiosity right here and we’ll be in contact as quickly as there are appointments accessible in your space.

Rewarding our loyal prospects

We love our prospects, and we strive all kinds of video games, competitions and tasks that we predict are a enjoyable method of getting individuals to interact with us. We’ve given away cuddly toys, drive days, even a model new Tesla! However in the event you’re in search of a easy, forged iron reward from us, all you should do is use your referral hyperlink and get some family and friends to hitch us too. We’ll provide you with and them £50 of account credit score after they be a part of us immediately. No randomisation, no spinning, simply £100 to share and our heartfelt thanks.