Hi,
I have a smart meter why do I get estimated readings on my Bill? I thought a smart meter would know my correct readings.
Jonboy.
Solved
Why do I get estimated readings in my bill when I have a smart meter?
Best answer by Darran_OVO
Updated on 14/08/25 by Abby_OVO
Got a smart meter installed but noticed we’ve estimated your usage on your latest monthly summary? There’s a few reasons we could be using estimated readings when it comes to your bill, even if you have a smart meter.
It could be something as simple as not having the smart meter set up to send half hourly or daily readings. It’s worth checking your meter reading schedule with the Support Team, and get it updated if it’s set to a monthly reading. This will help prevent estimated bills as well as giving you a better view of your usage too. For more on this check out our handy topic below all about meter reading schedules:
If you know you have these set up and it’s not the issue, there’s a chance we could be experiencing communication issues with your meters.
The first place to check what’s going on with those smart meters is your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS). You’ll know something’s up if you see this message on the Homepage:
This message will appear if we haven’t received a reading from your meter as expected for at least 5 days. Hopefully this is just an intermittent issue and the meters will get back in touch with us soon. In the meantime it’s worth submitting a meter reading a few days before your next monthly summary is due.
To take a reading you’ll need to go to the meters themselves (this won’t be viewable on the In Home Display unfortunately).
For SMETS1 ‘Secure’ smart meters:
There’s a slight difference between the the S1 meters we installed. To take a dual (day/night) reading for Secure Liberty 110 S1 smart meters (which are designed to work best with storage heaters), press 9 on the meter’s keypad. If you’ve got a Secure Liberty 100 S1 smart meter, press 6 to confirm the Day and Night meter readings (pressing 9 will show the reading if you’re a single rate member with this meter).
For SMETS2 Aclara, Flonidan, Honeywell or Elster smart meters:
| Aclara (Elec) / Flonidan (Gas) | Elster (Elec) / Honeywell (Gas) | |
| Reading the meter |
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|
You can then enter this reading by clicking ‘Send reading’ on the Homepage message or by clicking on the ‘Meter Readings’ menu option:
Here you’ll be able to see the last reading we received and the date this was sent to us. Unless you’ve sent a manually reading already, this will be a good indication of when your smart meter lost communication with us. Click ‘Send electricity reading’ and you’ll be taken here:
It’s worth checking the reading you’ve taken against the last reading (it shouldn’t be a lower number - unless your meter’s faulty!) You can then type today’s reading into the box or boxes (for an Economy 7 meter) provided:
Click ‘Next, send a gas reading’ to send the reading from your other meter (if this applies to you!). If you refresh your Homepage you’ll notice your balance will update to include the up-to-date usage costs.
Hopefully this will be a temporary communication blip and we’ll be able to recover the communication without any further action. If it’s been a few weeks and you’re still noticing the smart meter message on your Homepage it’s worth carrying out a smart meter health check for your meter type below and forwarding the results on to our Support Team for further investigation:
SMETS1 Secure Smart Meter Health Check
SMETS2 Smart Meter Health Check
Fingers crossed those smart meters will be back in touch soon and you can continue enjoying all the great benefits of going smart! 
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My ovo energy meter is wrongly calculating my daily usage. What should I do ?
We were not at home,still it shows the usage on daily basis and even no heating is on, no electric fridge or anything on, still everyday ,it is same. I think there is some problem with our meter.
Please help how to solve it
As your use of elctricity is showing the same each day this suggests that something is remaining on. To double check this try switching off individual curcuits on the fuse board and see if the energy drops to zero on your display. This should identify the curcuit where the electricity is being used.
If this does not highlight the issue with everything switched off take it up with customer services who may be able offer some insight into this.
Also check any outbuildings like garages and sheds. If they have a power supply something may have been overlooked.
I wonder if by 'meter' you are referring to the IHD display which will be showing the same daily standing charge each day even if there is no electricity being used.
The In House Display is plugged into a socket in your house and can be moved around to any other socket. The meter is fixed to the incoming mains cable, commonly in an external cabinet.
My apologies if it's not that simple!
+4Afternoon
I can see you’ve had some really helpful responses here - we look forward to you coming back with some further information.
If you could let us know whether you’re referring to the ‘Usage’ pages of your app / online account, or your smart In Home Display screen that’d be really helpful.
hello!
I an a single inhabitant living in a small apartment with only one ecoso electric heater which i only turn on during the night. Other than that, I dont have anything else that notably consumes energy yet somehow I am being charged 260£-300£ per month for a 30sqm apartment with one inhabitant.
Im using the simpler energy plan and have a smart metre. The recorded monthly units are all at 1000kWh which (combined with the bill) i believe is impossibly high. I’ve had someone check my metre and they found no problem since the metre sends reading automatically but the person agreed that this consumption cant be the case.
Please help me find a solution or suggest what may be going wrong.
+4- Super User
What rating is the heater? How many hours do you have it on for?
If it is the only heater that you have then let’s say that its a 2kW Esoso ceramic heater.
To use 1000 kWh per month on it’s own you would need to be running it on full power for 16 hours a day. (2 x 16 x 30 = 960).
The thing that stands out is that you say:
I dont have anything else that notably consumes energy
However you may be surprised just what things consume, so just what else are you using?
Presumably you have an electric shower? Electric showers use a lot of power.
Maybe a heated towel rail in the bathroom?
How are you heating your hot water?
How are you washing your clothes, bedding, etc?
How are you drying them? Tunble dryers use a lot of power.
What are you cooking on/with, electric hob/oveh, microwave, Air fryer, something else?
Do you have a dishwasher?
+4Hey
Sorry to hear about this, though I’m glad to see one of our community members has already stopped by with some really helpful questions.
It would be really good to know some more information so we can all advise as best as possible.
I also wondered about the bills themselves, are these based on the smart meter readings? Or are they based on estimates? I know you mentioned the smart meter is sending readings, do you know how often these are being sent? Monthly readings can lead to estimated bills, if we’re unable to use more accurate half-hourly data.
If you’d be able to give us some more information based on the above questions from myself and Nukecad, we’ll also hopefully have a better understanding of what’s going on.
The following topics may also be helpful here in the meantime:
+5Hi
Could you post some screenshots of what you see on this page on a typical day
https://account.ovoenergy.com/usage?datePeriod=daily&unit=kwh
Then we can see how much electricity you are using every 30 minutes on a typical day
It will give us some idea of when the usage occurs and hence what is happening
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