Smart Meters, they really aren't very smart are they.

Had one since December. SSE sent me a message to say it wasn’t working properly and need to ‘reset’ it. So far they’ve failed to turn up three times to do this job and now want to come back next week.

There are 2 house plots next door with meters connected. Apparently the billing department have got their meter numbers mixed up and keeping coming to check the numbers - it’s fun watching someone in high-viz beating their way through the bracket looking for something that doesn’t exist every few weeks.

seems its all being tested on the public

Well, most engineering companies don't have an entire mock-up country of 50 million customers on standby to do exact testing, so that's inevitable to some extent.

Mine works fine by the way.

is there made up numbers in that?

While I don't know the exact number, it's probably not far off. The sheer number of different firmware versions available for individual devices is quite high, and there are multiple manufacturers and revisions per device type... Then you have a number of different manufacturers of devices and the fact that a dual fuel installation has four individual devices.

They are all built to the SMETS2 specification so in theory these four indivudual devices should talk to each other just fine. The reality is they often require firmware updates in order to fix bugs where some devices won't talk to others. Firmware updates that will, occasionally, fix one issue and create another.

And this is just the issue of getting all four devices talking to each other in the home. Then there is the problem that each device must be able to communicate with the Smart DCC securely over the mobile network. It's not an authentication issue because they both comminucate sporadically, but could easily be a signal strength problem - although if the location of the comms hub showed spotty signal, they should have fitted a seperate antenna.

Also, to further complicate issues, there are two communication networks for smart meters. North & South. The north network uses a variation of mesh to keep meters talking to each other as well as the standard mobile signal used in the south, and during the time I was involved in the SMETS2 rollout these tended to be 'spottier'.

Strap in for a wait here... when they work it's great but resolving issues can take time. Suppliers are still learning, some are further along than others.

Well, most engineering companies don’t have an entire mock-up country of 50 million customers on standby to do exact testing, so that’s inevitable to some extent.

Exactly this. The meter manufacturers only had a fine amount of access to kit so had to rely upon suppliers installing various combinations of meters in their test labs in order to determine what did & didn't work together.

In the defence of Octopus I switched to them last week. Called them on Thursday evening and everything done by Saturday afternoon, including them connecting to the SMETS1 meter that Eon swore blind would never work again.

The only problem that I'm aware of is that they've run out of plush mini-octopus toys to send to new customers.

Since you seem to know what you are talking about @seriousrikk

although if the location of the comms hub showed spotty signal, they should have fitted a seperate antenna.

The display panel in our living room can barely communicate with the meter much of the time, but there's nowhere else to put it really. Can I get my supplier (Octopus) to boost the signal?

Do people really look at IHD units mine stays in box in a cupboard, I can see no use for it other than occupying a plug socket

The display panel in our living room can barely communicate with the meter much of the time, but there’s nowhere else to put it really. Can I get my supplier (Octopus) to boost the signal?

@molgrips I've not really had much to do with the devices side of it for over a year now, but as of early last year I wasn't aware of anything that could be done to boost the zigbee network strength in the home. The antenna that some hubs can have fitted are only for mobile signal (a massive oversight in my opinion).

While it is a zigbee system, it is also not possible to use a standard range extender, because every device has to be whitelisted by the comms hub - and to whitelist a device it has to be known about/approved by the DCC. Zigbee should be good for 100 metres... but it also shares the 2.4ghz band with a wide array of other devices. I recall troublshooting more than one installation where the devices would only talk to each other if the wifi router were turned off - which is naturally most unhelpful. Where all the devices in the home were compatible, switching to 5gz wifi would solve it, but again, it shouldn't necessary.

What Octopus may be able to do is provide you with a different display. Some of those IHD devices were shockingly poor at remaining connected even with good signal.

Don’t use the tabletop reader either. You’re either the type of person that switches off stuff your not using/watching/listening to anyway or your a lazy ****less idiot who’s behaviour won’t be altered by a little box anyway. Installer did tell me you could claim back the cost of electricity it used.

My smart meter has been perfect. Got it when I was with SSE, Bulb didn’t use it, then when I swapped to Eon they started reading it automatically without me having to tell them I had one or give any readings.

What Octopus may be able to do is provide you with a different display. Some of those IHD devices were shockingly poor at remaining connected even with good signal.

Ah yeah this one was installed by Ecotricity. I'll give Octopus a ring ta.

We had new meters fitted last week - kind of forced into it as the gas was full of condensation so you couldn't read the dials, the electric meter was a spinny dial thing from 1975 when the house was built, with equally old wiring before the fuse board.

We're a week in and absolutely no connection from meters to either Octopus or the display unit doofer. I know they say it can take a few weeks....buuuut. 🤔

I've had smart meters for a couple of years now with Octopus, it means I can get offpeak cheap electric to charge the car which is nice.

The gas meter though had never connected and sent anything to Octopus, a month or so ago the battery went flat in the gas meter and it cut our gas off! Credit to Octopus though, they arrived withing 3 hours and fitted a new meter and got the gas back on.

The new meter did work for about 2 weeks but now hasn't sent anything to them since 17th August, who knows if it will wake up again?

Also my indoor display used to work and show electric use, they gave us a new one with the new gas meter and now that doesn't show anything.

Talking to my neighbour last night he says his gas meter display went off a few months ago (battery flat apparently, he did report it to them) and he's waiting for a new meter. He has no idea if his is still counting up or whether he's getting free gas.

I'm sure eventually they'll get there....

Idiotic system sold to a gullible public as an 'advance' in technology.
What a waste of resources in making, shipping, installing and running these things, which make absolutely no difference to real world demand. But some folk think they're very pretty. Not all new tech is wise; just because we can do a thing, doesn't mean that we should.
I absolutely refuse to have one. I have a traditional meter; I can read it. I already reduce my electric use as much as I reasonably can, without sitting in the dark, staring at the fireplace. Ho hum...

I wanted one for when my solar panels are fitted to take advantage of export fee on any excess, seems like at this rate I'll be feeding free electricity back to grid

Idiotic system sold to a gullible public as an ‘advance’ in technology.

Well they allow you to have cheap electricity at different times of the day or even vary the price every half an hour, which can be vary useful. They also remove the need to employ people to drive round everyone's house to read the meter, which is also rather wasteful.

So I don't see it as 'idiotic' or 'sold to the gullible'. Especially since mine was free.

Free, as in added on to customer bills.

And are they cheaper than paying meter readers?

Especially when I read my own mechanical meter and post the results to a website for them.
There must be millions of these things, they're not free and they also consume power themselves.
Yes, I can see the benefit if you can adjust output from PVs to battery vs grid, but surely in that situation a sophisticated control system would be part of the setup anyway..?

Especially when I read my own mechanical meter and post the results to a website for them.

You think everyone is going to do that?

Well they allow you to have cheap electricity at different times of the day or even vary the price every half an hour, which can be vary useful.

The 'dumb' meters in the last two houses I have owned did this, for the last 20 years. It is called Economy 7 / Economy 10 / Total Control Total Heating and other such things.

Especially when I read my own mechanical meter and post the results to a website for them.

I would rather have stayed with our old meters - but see my comments about both being original to the house and waaaaaaaaay past their prime, including not being able to see the gas numbers.

The phrase 'digital meter' would have been more accurate, but then some [s]Tory donor[/s] erm [s]rich energy company[/s] erm, energy supply company could not have sold the government some nice lucrative earner on the promise of 'but efficiencies!' which 'Smart' suggests.

Especially when I read my own mechanical meter and post the results to a website for them.
There must be millions of these things, they’re not free and they also consume power themselves.
Yes, I can see the benefit if you can adjust output from PVs to battery vs grid, but surely in that situation a sophisticated control system would be part of the setup anyway..?

my mum has smart meter (that does work)  it has stopped the need for her to send me the reading every month and for me to upload to website and if wasn't done within the hour I got a call asking if I got the readings as she hasn't had the email yet...🙄

You need the smart meter to work to get the export fee back to grid, without that just giving free electricity away.

https://www.energy-stats.uk/octopus-agile-outgoing-export-northern-scotland/

The ‘dumb’ meters in the last two houses I have owned did this, for the last 20 years. It is called Economy 7 / Economy 10 / Total Control Total Heating and other such things.

Yea...... but even those are enjoyably bonkers in their operation.

Ours was "economy 5+2" or something similar.

You got the cheap late night rate. And two random hours in the afternoon when the grid had an excess to boost the storage heaters.

Would have been much more useful to have a smart meter that gave you a clue when you should put the dryer on 😂

Would have been much more useful to have a smart meter that gave you a clue when you should put the dryer on

THTC would decide when my heaters would come on - and for how long. Some Scottish Power person used to sit in Perth and look out the window and guess* how cold it was. Crazy.
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*sorry, informed by digital tools and expert backgrounds subject knowledge.