Taking a manual meter reading from a Landis+Gyr E470 smart meter

Well, strangely enough… I think I might have the answer - or at least some clues!

YouTube turned out to be a treasure trove for me before and it came up with more gold this time. I’ve had to be careful because loads of the videos I came across are full of complaints and other stuff which wouldn’t work for this. But I eventually managed to find two that seem to be helpful in at least some way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yvTznqGLXY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT0f5bagSco

It seems that the answer is to basically mash the A button a million times to get the R01 reading and probably do the same button mashing finger yoga as the S2 version to switch to the R02 reading.

From what I know about Aclara meters, both the S1 Aclara SGM1300 Series and S2 Aclara SGM1400 Series have very similar menu, navigation and UI/UX setups for the most part - with the biggest differences only really being the few things that are exclusively found on only one gen (like how only the S2 Aclara supports Privacy PIN capability).

Be careful though - apparently S1 L+G E470 meters are prone to crashing/freezing and rebooting unexpectedly when you attempt these processes. It shouldn’t interrupt your supply or cause metrology issues that impact the billing, but it’s worth noting either way. The most common symptom seems to be the display lighting up basically everything and being completely unresponsive to pressing any buttons. If this happens, you’ll need to leave the meter alone for a while (10 minutes should be enough) and try again after that. Pressing a button after this point should get you back on the road.

I’d probably blame it on terrible and unreliable firmware!

With that said though, it would be great if someone could test this out and confirm whether this works or not. Raichu is an S2 Aclara, so it’s impossible for me to get access to an S1 L+G.

Thanks for the research, @Blastoise186 - not sure we’ve fully got to the bottom of the mystery though.

Let’s see if we can get confirmation from someone with access to one of these meters before we hand out the brownie points (extra brownie points if you can post a video demo!) 

Thank you for explaining how to read the Type 5394 meter.

Currently with Eon [after Igloo went under] who insist I have a night and day meter but were unable to advise me how to read the damn thing! Subsequently, I’ve had no electricity bills since December [because the Smart meter cannot communicate with Eon ???] and was getting rather frustrated by their lame correspondence.

Three customer services representatives have asked me to provide photo’s of the meter and each has failed spectacularly in providing any instruction on using it manually. In my home it’s the dumbest Smart meter we’ve ever had!

Anyway. Thank you again for your help,

Hey, thanks for the compliment @elton , we’re glad the guide helped you out.

While you’re here, there’s another service we can offer if you’d like us to. It’s completely free of course. Several forum volunteers including myself are able to help diagnose meter issues and faults, even if you’re not with OVO. It’s not possible for us to do a full suite of diagnostics in the same way a support team can, but we can often identify the most likely issues for you and recommend options.

If you’d like us to do that, please let us know either in this thread, or by creating a new thread.

Thanks @Blastoise186 … the issue appears to be that the SIM card doesn’t work. Yet the Gas meter, all of 9” away, is okay!  

The fitting engineer tried quite a few SIM’s and meters when he was here … he got one to work and thought that was great … it was short lived.

I don’t mind providing the readings monthly. But thank you for your offer of assistence anyway,

No worries. The offer will remain open anytime in case you ever want to stop by again.

If you get stuck with anything else, feel free to stop by.

hello, this is helpful as you’ve helped me identify my type 5394 meter but i cant seem to work out how to get the export reading as we’ve recently had solar panels fitted but i am struggling to get the reading to share and setup the SEG. Any guidance would be most appreciated

Hi @cs3dswb ,

Sure thing. We’re still trying to figure that out ourselves! We’ll let you know if we do manage it.

Yep @jaybell is trying to work this out for their Landid & Gyr E470 type 5533 meter over here. If anyone finds out this answer, please come back and share it here to help out other solar exporters please!

Hello again guys.

Grateful for your assistance but I’ve just been outy to the meter and cannot read the display for the day reading. If I press any button the ‘new’ display is backlit and easy to read … but the display normally is not backlit and I cannot read it.

Getting the Night reading is good but how the heck do I return to the day reading and have it backlit, or is there a way of switching the backlight on without losing the initial reading?

What a horrid meter.

Yup, you can see why I’m not a fan of Landis+Gyr myself. I’m lucky in that I don’t have one myself, but that’s not much use for anyone else who does. And don’t get me started on the buttons… :(

I think you can repeat the process described in the OP but I’m clearly going to have to go away and dig even deeper. I’ll let you know what I find.

Thanks. I’ve tried repeating what the OP video says … pressing B to get the illuminated Reading 1 … but it didn’t work. Tried this morning and it did!!!

I suspect there was operator error last night.

Thanks anyway.

Trying to find more YT videos for this is kinda tricky because so many users don’t realise that there’s more than one model of smart meter, so tons of videos are just generic “how to do X thing with smart meter” titles. Quite annoying for me when I’m trying to find something for one specific model.

I’ve even seen a few videos that claim an L+G E470 is a “smart meter model number S M E T S 2” which really doesn’t help me out. This might take me a while, so I think I’ll introduce you to a friend of mine. Hiya @Lukepeniket_OVO ! :)

I actually now have direct access to one of these meters, literally as I type this out. A charity I’m part of had one installed recently. Boy is it a horrible thing!

The buttons on it are so stiff, it really is like a 1970s TV remote control! XD

My Landis + Gyr E470 SMETS 1, seems to be giving 2 different readings.  The reading that is show on the front screen is different to the other reading that you use button A to scroll to.  How can this be?  Surely both figures should be the same! Does this mean the meter is faulty? Thanks for any help. 

Hiya @Bobn !

Sorry for the wait. We can definitely try to figure this one out if you’d like us to. :)

I’m Blastoise186 by the way, one of the forum volunteers here. Good to meet you. Could you show us some photos of what you’re seeing, including a few that clearly show the display and we’ll see what we can figure out from there.

Thanks!

Hi Blastoise186,

                           Thank you for your assistance.  I have since found out that it’s the Rate 01 reading that I should use.  It’s because I’m on a single use rate.  The total accual import reading is for  a dual rate.  At least I know now which reading to submit.  I must have been paying too much for years.   Anyway thank you once again. I hope this is of use to other users.

Regards

Bob

No worries.

In that case, if the system rejects your attempt to submit the correct reading, have a chat with the Support Team as they should be able to fix things up for you. If the correction results in the usage being less than previously calculated, a refund will be applied to your next bill automatically for all overpayments.

If you’re on a fixed rate deal, feel free to either keep such credit in your OVO account, or withdraw it back to the bank, whichever works best for you. :)

If you’re on variable rate, a large refund will likely swing your account into a credit. If that happens, you’ll be getting multiple bills that say something like “you’ve already paid this bill off, so you don’t owe us anything this time”. :D

In this situation, you can of course, still recall the spare credit and get a refund if you’d like one. But given that leaving the credit there could result in at least one bill being automatically instantly paid off, you might want to consider keeping it safe with OVO unless it’s over £1,000. You’re welcome to choose whichever option suits you, or even just take a partial refund and leave the rest with OVO.

Thank you guys for this page, helped me read my meter since Ovo tell me it’s stopped sending readings.

Scrolling through the pages though, the meter says my tariff is 19.76p a unit but I’m on a fixed rate (lucky me) of 18.82p which correctly shows on my billing. Presumably Ovo only use the meter readings from the meter (when it worked) and not the tariff?

Morning @spherehopper !

Yup, that’s right. OVO uses the meter reading only - the tariff rate configured on the meter serves only to show you data on your IHD if you’re in Credit Mode. If you were in Prepayment Mode, it’d have more of a purpose though.

Glad you like the guides here! We’re always working on some new ideas, but if you’ve got anything you’d like us to create, feel free to let us know, or if you’re feeling brave, you’re also welcome to create one too. :)

Now, would you like a bonus from us? We’re pretty good at diagnosing stuff, so if you’re OK to post photos of your meter, we’ll try to see if we can figure out what’s happening.

My Landis +Gyr smart meter hasn’t been working for over a year and having no luck getting a replacement. The problem is my electric meter reading have stayed the same since May ‘22!!! Can’t seem to get anywhere with getting it fixed or replaced - any tips? Does this mean I’m getting my electricity for free??!!

Hey there @tropical bee !

Could you show us photos of your meter please? We’ll see if we can help diagnose the fault. :)

unable to upload the image on here?

Oh? Make sure each image is smaller than 5mb and it should work. If you have any trouble, feel free to email them over to forum@ovoenergy.com and a moderator can post them for you.