RTS (Radio Teleswitch Service) Shutdown Update

You’ll be grand, I’m sure.  Don’t worry if the red light on your heater switch doesn’t appear bang on 1.30 as I’ve noticed my lights come on 5-10 minutes later.  The actual cheaper rate, though, DOES kick in on the half hour exactly (you can confirm this by watching the IHD).

Thanks.  Yes,  it was a couple of minutes after 1.30 then I heard it give a little click and storage heater started to charge and immerser came on.  All good so far.  😀

Make sure the rate changes too, and keeps doing so. 

This was my dads cupboard with old THTC meters - this is quite an old granite flat - maybe late 40’s or 50’s construction, lath plaster walls etc

This is with the new meter installed 

Nice!

One question: the meter shows in the bottom right-hand corner of the display that the switched (i.e. offpeak) circuit was off [o´o] when the photo was taken. The TimeGuard switch has a red lamp indicating that it was live, which might mean that whatever it’s timing was drawing power. Is this switch for something not wired to the offpeak circuit, so potentially on at peak times and thus rates? Or did you configure it to be on only during offpeak periods? 

Well here we go again - another no show by the OVO engineer to install a smart meter!!  This is the second time I have had an install date and no engineer shows up - no text, no phone call -nothing, even though their email 3 days before states that the engineer will phone or text on the day of the install. Another sitting at home all day when I have more important things to be doing.  What annoys me most is the total and utter waste of 2 days.  Surely it is at least a matter of courtesy to inform the customer if the engineer cant make it for whatever reason. At least that will be another £30 in compensation. 

Will now have to wait until OVO get round to contacting me again to offer a new date - at this rate its going to be next year before I get the new meter installed.  An official complaint will be going in this time. And I again get a text message asking how satisfied I was with the engineer today - you can guess the response to that question.

I would also appreciate if any of the Ovo Community Moderators could investigate why this Smart meter install failed again.  I am sure I am not alone in this and what makes it so galling is that I see my neighbours getting their new meters installed without a hitch. Grrrr

It's a water heater on the 24/7 side of the board. On THTC this used to be charged at cheap rate. We removed the 120l hot water tank and fitted 15l water heater, no bath and electric shower. My dad controls this manually, could be programmed but he does not like that. 

We had very good text Comms from the metering engineer on day of appointment. 

I wish I had but just------nothing.  If the engineer could just let me know he wouldn’t make it I could get other things done during the day.  My appointment was for 10:00am so no excuse from them.

Early days but my new smart meter appears to have gone without a hitch.  Kept fully informed by OVO and the engineer when he would be here.  Meter fitted on Monday and all seems to be working perfectly on Economy 10.  IHD connected immediately and the meter seems to be sending readings to OVO already. 

Hi @metalsman,

I’m sorry to hear this.

If the engineer failed to attend without at least 24 hours notice of a cancellation, you may be eligible for a standard £30 compensation known as Guaranteed Standards of Performance (GSOP) payment.

Please contact our Support Team to get this appointment rebooked.

This thread may be helpful: 

Hi @Mo59, 

I’m glad to hear everything is going well for you so far!

Update on the saga of no show engineers.  Spoke with CS at RTS smart meter install (@Shads_OVO, your link with the phone number above to the support team for smart meter installs for RTS shutdown is incorrect as I found out to my cost yesterday) with a new smart meter install date of 28th November.  Lets hope its 3rd time lucky or its the Energy Ombudsman  and the Task Force thats my next port of call. Compensation for no-show of £30 added to my online account.

I’m sorry to hear this @metalsman, I’ll find out if there is a specific number for RTS smart meter bookings. Do you have the number you called with success? 

I’m glad to hear the appointment has been re booked & your compensation is on it’s way. 

The phone number is 0333 034 1622. I had to log into my online account and go to the smart meter install tab and it came up with the specific  number for RTS replacement as it recognises from your account that you have an unusual meter setup. Hope this helps.

Just watched the BBC Panorama programme this evening on smart meters. All very disappointing & worrying with so many not working correctly smart meters. Even more extraordinary, absolutely no mention of the RTS switch off next June which supposedly means thousands & thousands of people will have no choice except to add to the woeful statistics. Why has this RTS situation been told to or been picked up by the media. What is going on here? Is it as desperate as we are being told?

And that’s exactly why you shouldn’t just blindly believe what they put on TV without checking for yourself.

Looks like I’m in for a long week...

All I was asking is why nobody in the media has picked up on the RTS switch off & what it means for people/smart meters!

Ohhhh OK, sorry! I thought you were after something else!!!

FULL DISCLOSURE: @Blastoise186 works in the Film & TV/Film & Media industry these days, but remains in an IT Admin role and doesn’t work for any news vendor, outlet or publisher. His views are his own and also don’t reflect those of OVO. Likewise, he has no control over what gets published in newspapers or broadcast on TV. He doesn’t even write the news either! :)

Now that is an interesting question. Honestly wish I could answer that, but the truth is I genuinely don’t have a clue. The closest I’ve got is basically the guide I wrote for this thread you’re in now, and the one I wrote a few years ago. Both of them have been reviewed by OVO’s teams at least once and as far as we know, they’re accurate.

My only guess - and this really is just a guess so please don’t send the lawyers after me - is that perhaps the RTS side/element of the story “wasn’t as interesting” or noteworthy enough to make the final cut perhaps?

If you think about it, big scary “Smart Meters are broken for everyone” story is what gets the headlines and makes the money. Some teeny tiny RTS Story that only affects a “small number” of customers just doesn’t have the same level of appeal to it.

I can only find this number referenced by a customer in another RTS topic. I’d advise reaching out to the support team who can put you through to the correct department. I’m sorry for any confusion caused.

Not much happening on this forum section so I thought I’d post a wee update - briefly.

A whole month now since out RTS switch to smart-meter E10 !

Difficult to be certain (yet) but things appear to be functioning - and we (still) have heating and hot water - woohoo. Have been manually monitoring daily/hourly consumption via the visual display/monitor - just to keep a paper record in case of any future ‘discrepancies’ or ‘inaccuracies’ when we finally get our first bill !!!   Impossible to decipher the minimal figures showing up on our account pages so far despite the blurb assuring me that our meter  IS  sending in readings “every half-hour”  - hm …

I will be fascinated to see what bill eventually surfaces and whether it makes any sense - but I’m not happy that putting up accurate figures to my account is simply not being done … yet - all I can see is the standing charges ! and the final THTC readings ! £20 +/- … if only that WERE the whole picture ! hah

More anon…

PS.  As my credit balance is pretty healthy right now I thought I’d request a bit of a refund … seasonal bonus etc ? Anyway - request denied : as, apparently, we haven’t been sending in meter readings over the past 28 days !!! !!!  Aaaaaaargh    Smart-meter efficiency automated advantages !!! aye

Does my confidence in the system remain high ?   You tell me.

It takes up to six weeks before everything settles in properly following a meter swap. Taking a refund during that time is generally not recommended - it’s best to leave the credit in the account until after the six weeks are up.

At very least, we strongly recommend you wait for the first bill that references the new meter before considering taking a refund.

HM…

that first bill could be THAT bad ?!

it had better be accurate : not yet convinced the switching prices/times for E10 setup is actually doing its thing properly - and hard to monitor right now : yes, early days, but I’m watching !!!

While the IHD (what we usually call the ‘visual display/monitor’) can be helpful as an indication of what’s going on, it’s not a really good way of checking whether your bills are accurate. Think of it as a quick reference, not an accurate representation.

First, ‘readings every half hour’. This is just one of the misleading terms I come across when dealing with electricity consumption. This should be posted somewhere:
  

  
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘minimal figures ...’. When your account is up and running smoothly, you should see meter readings listed  by peak and offpeak register on the Meter readings page. These are the numbers used to calculate your bill.

You should see usage data on the … errr …  Usage pages. Half-hourly figures are on the Day tab, below the pretty bar chart.

If either of these listings is missing or incomplete, be patient. They should settle down eventually. A major change like installing a new type of meter on a completely different contract involves a great deal of deskwork, some of it manual. Different bits of the system have to be updated, ranging from the people responsible for preparing bills to the devs responsible for the website, the data service provider who pushes information about your setup around the industry, and the National Database itself which tries to keep track of every electricity meter in the country with details of where it is, who owns it and how it’s configured. All of those updates happen independently and at different speeds; to me it’s amazing that in most cases, the process is completed in six weeks. 

My dad's bill for last month only went to the manual readings I entered on meter change date, nothing for the following week. I contacted OVO via chat to ensure smart meter readings being received. I was told they can see the 30 minute readings and all working fine, but will take up to 6 weeks to get everything configured and updated. Also cannot see usage on online account yet but IHD seems fine.

Just downloaded my first bill since changeover from THTC to Econ10.  The bill purports to be for the usual full month (it has 31 days of Standing Charge) but only details the two old meters - there’s absolutely no mention of the week and a half’s worth of Econ 10.  Daresay it’ll be sorted in later bill(s).