There’s an industry wide change coming to meter reading consent, and we want to share the details with you

Hello @Abby_OVO,

Potential for confusion.

Are you about to update app and site? At the moment when I log into Ovo web site the procedure is 

1 ClickMenu

2 Click Profile

3 Set how often meter readings send -

click view settings

and on the app(Beyond)

1 Click Personal settings(top right screen)

2 Under Settings heading click “How often meter reads send”

Anyway I’ve updated my settings. Thank you for the “heads up”.

I can confirm what Taj says above.

Currently the setting is not under ‘Energy Insights’ as stated above, instead it is in your profile:
 

It would also be an improvement if there was  a note to say that your choices are saved automatically as you select them.
At the moment that is not made clear, so people may be looking for a Submit/Save button.

@Taj @Nukecad Thanks for flagging that!

Hopefully you’ll now see I’ve updated this now to avoid any possible confusion👍

Hope you have a lovely weekend 😎

Hi @Bradley_OVO , @Abby_OVO 

I only use the Web, for me the setting is not in Profile (Name, Account Details, address and marketing)  and Energy Insights shows the following

If I enter https://account.ovoenergy.com/profile/meter-reading-frequency, I get Page Not Found

Am I missing something🤔

I suspect it’s still rolling out at the moment.

Alternatively, you can ask the Support Team to make changes for you.

Yes, if I enter it as an address like that the I also get a Page not Found error.

However log into your account and click on ‘Profile’ and you will (should) be taken to your profile page

Scroll down your profile page and “Set how often meter readings send” should be there near the bottom, like in the first screenshot in my post above.

Hi @grumpy235,

Are you still experiencing this issue?

Hi @Shads_OVO 

Just tried again and  profile just shows blocks for Account Details and Address with bottom of page as

There has been no change for me.

Looking deeper the issue appears to be my browser (Firefox) as when I sign on using Edge and go to Profile I get a couple of extras after the above, namely “Set how often meter readings send” and “Our Partners”. I’ll play with my Firefox settings, addons, cache etc. to try and get it to work.

I have a bypass though which is to use Edge

@Shads_OVO 

Just closed all my Firefox Addons, cleared the cache completely, rebooted and still no joy on profile page, leaning towards the page using a feature that is supported by Edge but not Firefox or a Firefox bug. Unfortunately not got the skills to work out what might be going on via the Firefox debug logs

@Nukecad - are you using Firefox to access your Profile ?

Yes I’m using Firefox, but I know from previously that any browsers own security setting can block things on the OVO account pages.
(The Power Move section is one of them and was how I figured it out).

This applies to all browsers:

Do allow the OVO account page in any Adblockers that you have installed, don’t forget the “Ads/Trackers” switch in Malwarebytes Browser Guard if you have that.

More importantly - You need to go into your browsers settings and check your security setting.
If it’s set to ‘Enhanced’ or ‘Strict’ (or similar) then set it back to ‘Standard’ or ‘Balanced’ etc.

Once you have done that then the OVO account pages, and parts of other webpages. will display as intended again. (You may need to close and reopen the browser for the change to take effect, you may not).

The settings themselves warn you that the strict setting can break webpages and content.

*Tech alert - It happens because of the way certain content on a webpage is coded, the browser ‘strict’ security can’t tell the difference between that particular coding and the coding used in some adverts so just blocks the lot regardless.

Here’s screenshots from Firefox and Edge, sorry I don’t have Chrome on this laptop but it’s similar
 

Thanks @Nukecad for the heads-up as I always run with Browser Privacy set to Strict

Engaged brain and went to this site https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-protection-firefox-desktop?as=u&utm_source=inproduct#w_what-to-do-if-a-site-seems-broken

Followed the instructions under the heading “What to do if a siite seems broken” and all is now well.

Been using Firefox for 10+ years and this is the first time needed to do this

Amazing to hear that this has been sorted with the help of @Nukecad! 

Hi,

I wish to have the option of opting out of the half hourly meter reading frequency. I was given a link via your automated email system in order to do so, however the link does not work ?

https://account.ovoenergy.com/profile/meter-read-frequency

The page is not found ?

Is there a way to opt out of this other than the non existent web link ? Why even give an opt out if the web page does not exist in order to do so 🤔  strange.

Thanks in advance 👍🏿

Hi @wetandwindy ,

You can also do it via Live Chat at https://ovoenergy.com/help or in the app.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Perhaps then it would be good to amend the outdated or incorrect automated email which points to a non existent link so others like me don’t hit the same issue.

Thanks again

That link works fine for me. It may be that your browser’s privacy or security settings are getting in the way. 

If you have the OVO Energy app on your smart phone, the same options are available there.

I’m really curious to know why you’d want to opt out of half-hourly readings - your meter will still record them and save them for a year. Which option will you go for, and - if you’re willing to say so - why?

Works for me as well.

I worry if you opt out of half hourly readings it simply makes all ovo customer bills a bit more expensive as it limits OVOs ability to buy the right amount of electricity every half an hour.

Longer term it also makes it more difficult to balance the electricity grid which isn't great for anyone if we end up burning more fossil fuels or importing more electricity.

Also it won't be long before all the good value tariff are "time of use" and will need half hourly readings.

Of courses it is up to you if you don't mind about these sort of things.

Should it be normalized that an “Individuals” home’s usage is recorded for every half an hour ?  I think by now the electricity companies with decades of  data sets / trends and understanding network grid load ,  leveraged against millions of customers can work out when people put the kettle on.

Jeffus wrote:

 

Works for me as well.

I worry if you opt out of half hourly readings it simply makes all ovo customer bills a bit more expensive as it limits OVOs ability to buy the right amount of electricity every half an hour.

Longer term it also makes it more difficult to balance the electricity grid which isn't great for anyone if we end up burning more fossil fuels or importing more electricity.

Also it won't be long before all the good value tariff are "time of use" and will need half hourly readings.

Of courses it is up to you if you don't mind about these sort of things.

Yes i have tried again on a different setup and it does work 👍🏿 i had to disable all of the ad tracker blocking software and run the browser with everything switched off.

You can read the other point above Jeffus. But to answer your ‘good value tariff’ does that mean “how long you use it for” or “when you used it” or both ? How can one, choose a good tariff ? Every person has a different requirement. And could we see people being penalized for using ‘too much’ at the wrong time ? The carbon footprint idea is not as simple as how much electricity you can use. How would a single person ever be able to match that of a large family. They could literally buy a V8 sports car and do donuts in it all day and not match that in an entire lifetime 😄 .. but i get the concept, it’s a worthy goal i guess 🤷🏿

Which comes to the final point. Is there such a thing as a carbon footprint for the actual network Grid ? As someone who has worked in telecomms sector i can assure you there is more electricity being used if you are ‘polling’ millions of devices every half an hour vs 1 day. The raw data the servers are processing, the network relays, the antenna stations etc..

And so my question is why not poll every 5 seconds ? besides the potential health ramifications as that would be like having a mobile phone constantly broadcasting continuously in close proximity for hours on end everyday. Considering people get bad headaches on mobiles after just short usage. Presumably the 30minuets is deemed a low enough amount for the correct usage metrics.

But it’s great you still have the option.

Thanks for your time.

The meter transmits a heartbeat every 10 seconds anyway regardless of those settings, so you’re not actually reducing the radio emissions by doing that - it makes no difference to electricity consumption either. While the readings are taken every 30 minutes, they are only sent back to the Supplier once a day.

The market trades on a half-hourly basis, so it makes sense the data matches this too.

As for health effects? They have never been proven. Every study has basically come back negative despite throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it.

In fact, I sleep less than 1m from a Ubiquiti UniFi nanoHD every night and have done so for about two years now - I’ve not suffered at all. Even with ALL of this kit running 24/7/365 in my flat!

And all of my Access Points are running at almost the maximum Transmission Power legally permitted in the UK by Ofcom - 30dBm - and is double the power of basically any ISP router ever dished out. Yet I’m still totally fine despite all the Wi-Fi being blasted at me from close proximity as I’m never more than 5m from an AP. If my Ubiquiti UniFi kit can’t kill me, then neither can Smart Meters nor mobile phones.

Good to hear.

If you read the FAQ that page refers to, you’ll see that knowing how much electricity customers consume each half-hour will help suppliers work out how much to buy in advance, ultimately saving everyone cash. As regards an individual’s usage, read how his privacy is protected on this page: Protecting data on Britain's smart meter network.

I wondered if this might not figure in your reasoning. Suppliers don’t poll meters every half-hour (Hh). It’s usually twice a day, in the early morning. One request is for the midnight meter register reading(s), which you would be able to see on your readings page. The other is for the previous day’s 48 packets of Hh usage data. It’s a tiny amount of data, compressed and encrypted and sent in a single burst. It would amount to a few MB of data for all  32 million smart meters, if they were all set to send Hh data. 

You can see all sorts of statistics about the smart meter network on the DCC’s site. 

Blastoise186 wrote:

The meter transmits a heartbeat every 10 seconds anyway regardless of those settings, so you’re not actually reducing the radio emissions by doing that - it makes no difference to electricity consumption either. While the readings are taken every 30 minutes, they are only sent back to the Supplier once a day.

The market trades on a half-hourly basis, so it makes sense the data matches this too.

As for health effects? They have never been proven. Every study has basically come back negative despite throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it.

In fact, I sleep less than 1m from a Ubiquiti UniFi nanoHD every night and have done so for about two years now - I’ve not suffered at all. Even with ALL of this kit running 24/7/365 in my flat!

 

And all of my Access Points are running at almost the maximum Transmission Power legally permitted in the UK by Ofcom - 30dBm - and is double the power of basically any ISP router ever dished out. Yet I’m still totally fine despite all the Wi-Fi being blasted at me from close proximity as I’m never more than 5m from an AP. If my Ubiquiti UniFi kit can’t kill me, then neither can Smart Meters nor mobile phones.

Well, there is a different between being killed and being slowly cooked over a number of decades, you might look like a lobster in 20 years 😄. However, That was not my main concern. Many people do however report headaches from using mobile phones, but as Jeffers has said in the reply, the amount of data the smart meter transmits is positively tiny in comparison 👍🏿 Still it is interesting to know how often it polls as a matter of interest, so thanks for explaining that and the other ways in which this works.

I think its important to know more about the technology and your comment is very helpful in this regard.

Excellent, thanks for the information. Yes i had assumed there was more traffic flow with these devices and that they would poll very often. The more you learn 😀

Thanks Guys

*edit i forgot to add. When you take into consideration the things you both mention. the option might actually cause more confusion than it helps.

You will have realized that this set of options conflates two distinct processes. Sadly, they’ve been cobbled together in many places and lumped under a generic term ‘readings’. 

There are three choices for a ‘reading’ schedule: half-hourly, daily or monthly. This is what I think they involve:
 

The first is the most useful for everyone concerned. The second makes live billing really helpful, with a new accurate balance each day so there’s no doubt how the account is doing. You only have to subtract yesterday’s reading from today’s to get the daily usage, which will be very close to the sum of the 48 Hh figures*. The third is the minimum required for a monthly billing schedule, which is the only one available to OVO customers.

Ofgem have laid down the law about this, so that Hh data is the default for new customers/meters. 

*   My own records have never seen a difference of more than ±0.001kWh for any single day or over a longer recent period (recent because I only looked back a couple of months).