OCPP 1.6J Explained: Why Protocol Compliance Protects Your Charging Investment

OCPP 1.6J is the open, vendor-neutral language your EV chargers use to talk to the software that manages them — and choosing hardware that speaks it properly is one of the most important decisions you can make to protect your charging investment. Get it right and you can mix charger brands, switch management platforms, and scale without ripping anything out. Get it wrong and you are tied to one vendor's prices and one vendor's roadmap for the life of the equipment.

This guide explains what OCPP is, what the "1.6J" part actually means, the handful of messages that do all the real work, and why insisting on genuine OCPP 1.6J compliance when you buy chargers matters more than any spec sheet. It is written for site hosts and operators, not protocol engineers, so we keep it plain. If you are still deciding whether you need management software at all, start with our guide to what a CPMS is and come back here for the technical foundation.

What is OCPP, in one sentence

OCPP — the Open Charge Point Protocol — is a free, openly published standard that defines how a charge point (the hardware on the wall) and a Charge Point Management System (the cloud software, like Origami EV Connect) exchange information. It was created by the Open Charge Alliance precisely so that operators would not be trapped with a single manufacturer. Think of it as the common language that lets any compliant charger and any compliant platform understand each other, the same way email works no matter who made your inbox.

Without an open protocol, every charger brand would speak its own private dialect, and your management software would need a custom translator for each one. With OCPP, a charger and a platform that both follow the standard simply work together. That interoperability is the whole point — it is what turns a pile of proprietary boxes into a network you actually control.

What "1.6J" actually means

OCPP comes in versions, and each version bundles a set of features. 1.6 is the feature set: boot and status reporting, remote start and stop, metering, smart-charging profiles, firmware management, and more. It is mature, well-proven, and — crucially for South Africa — it is what the overwhelming majority of installed and currently shipping charger hardware actually speaks.

The J is the transport: it stands for JSON over WebSocket. The charger holds a persistent, lightweight connection to the platform and exchanges compact JSON messages over it in real time. (An older SOAP-based variant existed, but JSON over WebSocket is the modern, efficient choice and what every serious deployment uses today.) So "OCPP 1.6J" simply means the 1.6 feature set, carried as JSON over a live WebSocket connection — and it is the protocol Origami EV Connect implements end to end.

The core OCPP 1.6J message flows, explained plainly

You do not need to read JSON to run a charging site, but understanding the few messages that matter helps you read your dashboard with confidence. Every charging session is really a short conversation between the charger and the platform. Here is the whole conversation, in order.

1. 1BootNotification — the charger introduces itself when it powers on: model, vendor, firmware version. The platform records it and tells the charger how often to check in.
2. 2StatusNotification — the charger reports its state: available, preparing, charging, finishing, or faulted. This is what lights up the live map.
3. 3Heartbeat — a periodic "I'm still here" ping. Miss a few and the platform knows the charger has gone dark, often the first sign of a connectivity or power problem.
4. 4Authorize — before a session starts, the charger asks the platform whether this driver or token is allowed to charge.
5. 5StartTransaction — charging begins; the platform opens a session record with a start meter reading and a timestamp.
6. 6MeterValues — periodic energy and power readings throughout the session, the raw data behind your kWh and revenue figures.
7. 7StopTransaction — charging ends; the platform closes the session, computes the energy delivered, and applies the tariff.

That is the entire lifecycle. Boot, status, heartbeat, authorise, start, meter, stop. When you watch a session unfold on our live demo, you are watching exactly these messages arrive in real time.

What each message means for you

Because the platform sees this live telemetry, it can also act on it: ramping current down with a soft-stop to protect your grid connection, throttling output across multiple bays for load management, and enforcing per-session kWh or time caps. None of that is possible without a charger that reports honestly over OCPP.

Interoperability: how OCPP 1.6J ends vendor lock-in

Here is the commercial heart of the matter. If your chargers only work with the manufacturer's own cloud, you are locked in. The day that vendor raises its fees, slows its support, or stops innovating, your only exit is to replace the hardware — an expensive, painful capital write-off, made worse by the fact that EV charging hardware is largely imported and priced in foreign currency.

Genuine OCPP 1.6J compliance breaks that trap. Because the protocol is open and standardised, a compliant charger can point at any compliant CPMS. That means you can:

• Mix charger brands on one platform — run AC units from one supplier and DC fast chargers from another, all on a single dashboard.
• Switch management software without touching the hardware, if a platform stops serving you well.
• Negotiate from strength — your hardware and your software are decoupled, so no single vendor holds your network hostage.
• Avoid stranded assets — a compliant charger keeps its resale and redeployment value because it is not married to one cloud.

Security: not just compliant, but authenticated

Open does not mean unguarded. A charger holds a permanent connection to your platform and can start and stop real money transactions, so that connection has to be locked down. Origami EV Connect uses OCPP Security Profile 2: every real charger authenticates with HTTP Basic Auth carried over TLS when it connects.

In practice that means each charger presents a unique credential on connection, the secret is verified against a securely stored hash (never kept in plain text), and the whole exchange runs encrypted over the wire. A charger that cannot authenticate simply cannot join your network — so a stranger cannot spoof one of your chargers or eavesdrop on session data. That last point also matters for POPIA: driver and session data stays encrypted in transit and is only ever handled by authenticated parties.

Why this protects the revenue, not just the tech

Protocol compliance is ultimately a business safeguard. Accurate MeterValues mean you bill on real energy. Clean StopTransaction handling means automated revenue settlement, with hosts keeping the majority share on a split agreed up front and configurable per host. And because the platform speaks the same language as every compliant charger, you can grow the network without re-engineering it each time. The economics of running a profitable site are covered in depth in our revenue playbook, and keeping those chargers earning through the grid's bad days is the subject of our piece on charging through load-shedding.

Because the software is built here rather than imported, it costs less than the overseas CPMS platforms, and we deliberately price a few cents under the big South African public networks on every kWh — so your site stays competitive without giving away margin. If you would like to see whether an open-standard platform fits your sites, request access and tell us about your network.

On the driver side, all of this is invisible — and deliberately so. A driver walks up, taps a QR code, pays in Rand by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, and charges. No app download, no account. Behind that simple tap, the OCPP conversation we have just described is doing all the work. You can see the full picture, and our pricing, on the pricing page, or read the technical docs for the implementation detail.

OCPP 1.6J is not a buzzword to tick off a procurement list. It is the open standard that keeps your chargers, your software, and your revenue under your control — the foundation that lets a charging network run itself rather than run you into a corner. Buy compliant hardware, run it on a platform that implements the protocol properly and securely, and your investment stays portable for the life of the equipment.