Aclara SMETS2 smart meter communication hub lights - What do the flashing sequences indicate?

Here in the Westcountry, local Councils are recruiting members of XR (Extinction Rebellion). It sounds like United Welsh should be thinking similarly.

If they could employ a heating engineer with XR Membership, this debacle of heat-pumps with non-operational controls would get resolved. It’s not just a matter of having the technical knowledge, but also have the sincere ethical position to make sure that the technology works!

@Transparent Until Lisa had moved into her flat, I had never heard of a heat pump !

I am more than happy with my Vaillant combi boiler !

Just catching up on this thread, and very sorry to see it develop into the outcome that is has @MikeE 

We haven’t reached a technical outcome (that’s still in a queue with our S2 team, it seems they have more then one of these incidents to look into, but a time frame missed is a failure nonetheless) but we’ve reached a customer outcome: you’ve had enough. 

I can’t be that surprised. You've endured WAN and HAN issues and done everything in your power to diagnose and keep us informed of what we need to do. It would appear as if we (our customer service team) haven't been able to do enough, quickly enough, to keep you with us on the road to a fix. I’m sorry that’s the case. 

As always keep us updated with the correspondence from our S2 team (they will email you directly) - so we have it on record for those that view this with the same issue. 

As @Transparent (who has provided outstanding technical support and assistance, as usual) mentioned, you don’t need to be an OVO customer to be part of this community. Our movement to zero carbon is bigger then our customer base. Although I’d always prefer if the discussion between us took place on the same side of the fence, often chats between neighbours in separate gardens is just as good! Garden analogy over, S2 issues not quite over...

@Tim_OVO It's more of an experiment than anything else as I had smart meter problems with Scottish Power, they couldn't fix the issue and only seemed willing to to do something when I told them I was leaving them and unfortunately it's the same with  OVO. 

I heard from the smart meter health check team yesterday saying they will reply within 48 hours, I said don't worry about it.

Perhaps Eon will have more success !

I understand that there is probably a backlog of investigations, OVO are moving customers on to a new billing system and we are in a global pandemic but a reply would have made all the difference. 

To not hear anything tells me all I need to know about customer service !

However I appreciate you replying on the forum. 

Mike :)

Update:

I don't know what's going on as the WAN light is still flashing in 'error' mode and my HAN connection has now stopped communicating with my IHD (which used to show energy usage) and has gone back to 'waiting for current data' along with:

'waiting for meter readings'
'waiting for MPAN'
'waiting for tariffs'
'waiting for daily standing charge'
'waiting for supplier details'
'waiting for CIN'

These 6 entries I have NEVER seen before while I was with OVO so I can only think that E.ON are trying to communicate with my smart meters?

Still nothing so I have decided to turn my IHD off. 

My HAN was working for at least 2 months without missing a beat !

Just thinking about it I am not sure if the smart meter is under control of E.ON yet as I have not had my final bill off OVO. I do realise it can take up to 6 weeks from the switchover date (1st October)

Thanks @MikeE 

As the Wide Area Network indicator is still showing the error flash-rate, I think we can discount any theory that these messages on your IHD have been invoked by an Energy Supplier sending a SMETS Command.

I suspect that an operational IHD has an internal timer which causes it to refresh the base-data once every 24-hours.

It’s this base-data which gets combined with the usage to tell you the costs throughout the day.

All you’re seeing is the IHD trying to obtain the base data from the Comms Hub.

I believe CIN is the Customer Identification Number which is assigned by the Data Communications Company (DCC).

I don’t know if CIN is a feature which gets used for anything by the customer. In theory it could allow  you to map a smart Tumble Drier to your Smart Meters, for example, so that you could use the manufacturer’s App to program when it should be turned on.

However there are other methods to achieve the same result, so CIN might be superfluous.

The lockdown must be having a serious effect in your South Wales community if you’re now awake in the small hours of the night watching your IHD trying to communicate. I can recommend alternative pursuits that might be more rewarding.

Last night I was on my patio enjoying watching these teenagers fatten themselves up for winter:

@Transparent I was going to go to bed an hour earlier but I saw that my IHD went off so wanted to wait until midnight to see if anything happened. It didn't.

Nothing to do with lockdown lol

Regarding controlling of smart tumble dryers, I thought this was a feature of 5G (when it becomes widely available) not using smart meter technology  

We don’t need the super-fast bandwidth of 5G to tell a tumble drier to turn on, @MikeE 

I’m referring to Auxilliary Load Control Switches, which is a facility built into all UK Smart Meters.

I first introduced ALCS a year ago over here, but there’s more recent discussion and an upgraded diagram on this Topic about the Kaluza Flex platform.

Hi community, 

quick question regarding a smart meter boiler. 

The boiler is a Aclara SGM1412-B  

everything is fine, but there is the Active/Reactive energy metering constants led flashing red. 

could it be due to any issue with the electricity in the house or appliance ?

Is it something I should be worried about?

Hi ​@L.L. ,

That usually means something in the house is guzzling a fair amount of juice, but it could also be a combination of several things combined that use a lot of juice together. Do you have any ideas of anything you’ve got that might be high draw by any chance?

Don’t worry if you can’t - we’ve got options for this!

The red flashing light is the meter’s impulse indicator. It flashes once for every Wh recorded, so the flashing rate is higher whenever there’s a bigger current passing through the meter, This is what you’d expect to see when you boil the kettle or make toast, with the IHD showing a red light, too. At other times when not much is happening, the IHD will show a much smaller power draw (in Watts if it’s less than 1000, otherwise in kW), and you’d get bored waiting for the red light to flash on the meter.

If you really want details, try the following, depending on how easy it is to count the flashes:

• Count the number N of flashes in a minute. N x 60 gives the average power in watts being used during that minute.
• Time the interval s in seconds between flashes.  3600 ÷ s tells you the average power in watts being used during those s seconds.
• Divide the result you get by 1000 to see how much energy in kWh you would use if the lamp kept flashing at the same rate for an hour - e.g. if you had an electric fire running in the house.
• Multiply the kWh figure by the current unit rate to see what that amount of energy would cost.

These are the figures the IHD is supposed to work out for you to save you doing the sums. The results are often displayed on the IHD as Now using, in W or kW depending on how big the number is and in £ as the current cost per hour.