Smart Meter installation warning!

[YoungBlood]

Does anyone else have these installed?

I got them put in a few weeks ago after an invitation to be upgraded to smart payg.
I actually really wanted them as it's suppost to make home top up a lot easier, and it all sounds great on paper, no keys needed and balance is shown on the IHD so no need to visit the meter.

In reality however it just never works!
The in home display can only get a signal next to the wall where the electricity meter is installed. I certainly can't have it in any room as advertised.

Apprently is uses wifi to connect and you have no control over the channel, it's locked with an installer PIN.

The gas meter connects and displays balance and useage maybe once every 3 days /useless, certainly not a constant live reading as it should be.

Now the display won't connect to the electricity meter at all, happily displaying a connecting to smart meter...constantly.

Advice from British Gas, turn it off and on again makes no difference.

It took a few phone calls to get my old balace transfered over, it was supposed to be automatic within 24hrs.

Top ups online don't reach the meter automaticaly as advertised, you have to input a 20! digit number onto the meter. (I miss you keys, all is forgiven)

So not a great start to smart meters.

This is the setup I have, apart from British Gas new version of the IHD
http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/node/2820

A rare glimpse of perfection.

This is it's life now.

Anyone having better luck?

 

[Trifid]

I guess they haven't heard of retina screens either. My eyes.

 

[Randomface74]

I need one of these to get a timed tariff for charging an EV overnight - can't get E7 here. Clearly only worth it if they work properly though.

 

[SilverTongue]

First of all no it doesn't use WiFi it uses GPRS. Also if the IHD is connecting to the meters then in the first I stance yiu should turn IHD off for 24 hours and then turn it back on and it should connect within the following 24 hours. If not call BG again and they should then replace the IHD for you.

The reason why the gas doesn't update as regularly as the electric is because the gas meter runs off of a battery so to save power it only sends an update to the IHD every half hour. However if you haven't used much gas in that period it may not show.

 

[YoungBlood]

First of all no it doesn't use WiFi it uses GPRS. Also if the IHD is connecting to the meters then in the first I stance yiu should turn IHD off for 24 hours and then turn it back on and it should connect within the following 24 hours. If not call BG again and they should then replace the IHD for you.

The reason why the gas doesn't update as regularly as the electric is because the gas meter runs off of a battery so to save power it only sends an update to the IHD every half hour. However if you haven't used much gas in that period it may not show.

The hub uses GPRS to send data to British Gas, but a form of wifi to talk to the IHD no? Well Zigbee radio, on a very similar frequency to most home wifi networks, whatever it is, it's not very strong.

I understand about the gas meter being battery powered, but there is no reason why it can't send an update to the IHD at least once every 24hrs to refresh the balance or even when a top up is applied. You are simply running blind for way too long a window, understand the point of these things is to display the credit balance at a glance.
Even if you could just request the balance by pressing a button to poll the meter would be great, but as it stands it's pretty rubbish, and certainly not how they market it.

I will keep it unplugged for a day, to see if it pairs to the meter again, but I'm sure there is a fault with the Comm hub. The HAN light is not lighting up at all, and usualy flashes red when it is not paired with the IHD, and green when it is happy.
British Gas can't help today, and yesterday I gave up after being on hold for 40mins, so happy for any other tips to make them whole again SilverTongue.

 

[YoungBlood]

Just an update, The problem was caused by a faulty communications hub.

For info if anyone else has this fault, WAN light green = all is good.
WAN light red = hub is looking for a signal, normal at times, if one gprs drops out it will seek another.
WAN light off = hub not commissioned or faulty. If you're on payg, no over the air top ups will reach the meter.

It took longer than it should to resolve, and no amount of switching it off and on again was ever going to fix it, but as soon as I got through to someone that could see that too, it was fixed within the hour! With updated firmware (I think) that now displays the gas balance 24/7, sync'd with the meter every 4 hours, perfect.

Smart meters are smart again

 

[£15]

Did they troubleshoot over the phone, or did they get someone out to do it on-site?

 

[YoungBlood]

They did the basic trouble shooting over the phone, but it was never going to be resolved without a site visit.
With the WAN light off, they can't do anything remotely,(at least for me) other then talk you off the phone with promises it will magicaly start working again.

I knew this, and eventerly talked to someone who agreed, who had the PAYG smart meter training and understood the hub was essential to PAYG smart meters.

They can fix some faults over the phone, they have the ability to reboot it remotely, boost the signal they use to transmit the OTA topups (I was told)

It's no big deal if it goes down on credit meters, it just won't send a reading to the supplier.

I was super lucky there was a technician working in the area (earliest date otherwise was January) installing PAYG smart meters and had a spare hub on the van, after CS called him he popped round and swapped it out.

This entails wiping the gas/electricty meters and de-registering them from the broken hub, removing all credit and leaving emergency credit on the meters, then linking them up to the new hub. (the same as what happens at original install) your old credit gets sent over the air a few hours later.

 

[Duke]

I guess they haven't heard of retina screens either. My eyes.

Or 'high resolution' as people called it before Apple's marketing department came up with that

 

[Bego2K]

Had mine installed around 6-8 months ago. Mines been great! got hive installed too

 

[Jonno8888]

Hi All

I know this is an old post, so I hope it's OK to resurrect it. I've been trying to find info about smart meter pairing since E.on have installed a new one for me. if you think the above IHD is archaic you should see E.ons new LCD monochrome display, with a massive 1 hour battery life. I've found these are made by a company called Chameleon Technology and use zigbee to connect and I wanted to change the IHD for a newer colour model. I have a secure liberty 100 meter and the gas meter sends its info to that and the meter in turn broadcasts to the IHD and sends to E.on. On boot the IHD shows what look like mac addresses for each fuel/meter but apart from that I can;t progress any further. I'd also like to switch the backlight off in the IHD but even that's not available. They now supply the IHD3-MS and to be honest it's crap. Anyone know where to start?

Thanks

 

[Puzzled]

Aren't prepay tariffs still really expensive? (I know not everyone can switch over to credit but if you can you should)

Would depress me having that cost screen next to the pc, just watching the credit roll down as you browse ocuk.

 

[Kainz]

Just been hunting around on the web for solutions to this as ours has gone up the duff with the same error as OP's post! We've had ours for 6 months now without issue...

 

[tom_e]

Aren't prepay tariffs still really expensive? (I know not everyone can switch over to credit but if you can you should)

Would depress me having that cost screen next to the pc, just watching the credit roll down as you browse ocuk.

No, the difference these days is marginal compared to a standard tariff at least.

 

[Jonno8888]

I've read that they only allow 3 mac addresses on the HAN. The two meters and the IHD so I guess it's a no go unless you can spoof a mac addy on a IHD which I doubt. Seeing as these things are on ebay they're probably useless unless the providers allow a different mac address if you switch off one IHD and try another. E.on are releasing an app called E.on See which shows you usage but this would mean more frequent sends from the meters to the supplier. It's in beta now

 

[mejasonT]

British gas not so smart, the remote display is Ok i guess. I'm still trying to figure out what its actually telling me, its not accumulating the Kwh so i can see what my bill might be - it only shows 3 days last readings so you cant calculate say a month of usage. overall the smart meter is a waste of space and uses electricity durr. We have just switched fuel providers and now the remote has gone blank, how can the butt hole politicians and big 6 charge for new meters or even think about doing so when we are already charged for a meter and connection to the home its called a standing charge. in case everyone has forgotten that's what it is for (rental of their equipment). So i understand that the GSM part wont transmit readings any more but why wont they leave the remote able to read the meter to save me having to rearrange the bedroom to read the meters, her indoors kicks off every time i have to go into the cupboard. They think they are going to charge for this in the future. yet another tax if your a conspiracy theorist. I cant say BGs website is any better still no real tools to help analyse your bills. When we left during the transition between suppliers we were put onto the standard tariff - a 20% hike in unit cost, really. The big plan to get us all to save energy is just giving the big six a chance to charge more for fuel - its a supply and demand thing, as we use less they will charge more. Its a false economy. The 4% green tax placed on the big six to make them become greener has had no effect whatsoever, rather than being ethical they simply passed the tax on to the customer and did sod all to clean up their act - I know i worked in the Oil & Gas industry. Oh some will correct me and start bleeting about renewable s - Government grants are paying a huge amount towards windfarm and solar installation the rest we are paying for on our bills. They are currently overhauling the electric and gas networks, having spent years rolling in profit and spending nothing on infrastructure, now yet again the customer is fronting the bill for the upgrades. Smart meters pull the other one - smart would indicate some form of intelligence and knowledge the big six appear to lack both.. So Now im calm, has anyone figured a way of pairing the remote so at the very least i can read the meters without a BG (british gas) account.

 

[mejasonT]

Oh here is a new one for you. if you leave a supplier they immediately terminate your online account, Ok reasonable i guess until you realise your whole years figures and bills are only accessible via the online account. I don't think the inland revenue will accept your apology for not presenting your receipts if you get a tax audit. My accountant just shakes his head - what can we do those in charge of the asylum are worse than we are.
If you think very hard about this it has further implications, what was your usage last year, how can you compare suppliers etc

 

[Deleted member 77746]

It's a gimmick there's nothing smart about them!!!

 

[Mr.Shabz]

My British Gas IHD has got a nice red warning triangle on the display currently, turns out my bill for March has not been generated by the Smart meters either. So after a call to BG they say a firmware update on some meters has borked the OTA updates of the meter readings, even though i can see all the readings in the online portal.

They need 5 working days to investigate

 

[mejasonT]

Has anyone considered the legality of our gas and electric meters. say you are a pub landlord decanting spirit or a shop keeper using a weighing scale, there is a legal requirement for your equipment to be annually calibrated and are governed by weights and measures law. When is the last time your energy meters were checked, has anyone requested having a meter checked - it end up a total ball ache. How do the fuel companies get away with it.