Can I get my smart meter removed and replaced with a traditional meter?

Nope, Hildebrand are a completely separate company from all suppliers including OVO and British Gas. They only manufacture In-Home Displays and similar devices that let you monitor usage and do cool stuff with it. They’re not an energy supplier themselves and probably won’t be planning on ever being one.

Comes in handy for cases where an independent answer might work. They know of this forum and they actually help me out from time to time when I’m writing forum content. :)

Right, got a reply. Advised to install Bright app and veryfy my account which has been done. Entered my meter details and still it wont connect. Im now waiting for the next advice from Hildebrand. 

Nice. They’ll be able to see what’s happening from here.

I'm afraid you are being lied too here.  In fact you do have a legal right to get a smart meter removed you just have to pay for it.  Other energy suppliers are quoting £350 for the job.  It seems ovo like tellibg their customers lies as well as pressuring them into accepting smart meters.  I can give you all good reasons not to have them as well.  The meters are only as safe as the software engineers that develop the code for and around them.  I know people that worked on the project and correct their work every day and I also know how much ovo pay their software engineers and they are far from the best.  Take your chances if you want but I wouldnt allow one in any property I own.

If you’re going to make such wild claims like that, you’d better be ready to back them up.

OVO cannot install their own code onto the meters themselves - the meters will only run code signed by the manufacturer. Anything else gets rejected.

The metrology and bootloader firmware are also locked in, so it’s impossible to change those.

Ovo don't need to install their own software on the smart meter.  They need to be in control of their own systems that control the smart meters remotely which can do things such as remote shut you off  or put you onto prepay  No system has yet been written that is 100% secure and ovo programmers arent the best.  There you go my claims all backed up.

Incorrect. OVO’s billing platform is built by Kaluza, not OVO. And there’s another layer between OVO and DCC which OVO didn’t build - and it’s that layer which actually does the heavy lifting.

You clearly haven’t done the research. Try again and you’ll soon find out why.

It IS possible to downgrade however Ovo don’t want you to, I asked in November 2022 and was refused, after a deadlock letter I took Ovo to the energy ombudsman who after 4 weeks agreed that it should be my choice as to what equipment I have in MY home, Ovo could not cite any legal reasons for the smart meter which was causing interference with zigbee devices on our network, our house is automated with smart bulbs and other devices that use the same technology as the home area network the meters create. 
 

it’s taken almost 8 months for Ovo to finally send sms to return the meters to their previous state by installing traditional meters along the way they did try to wriggle out of the install by telling me they were putting the meters into dumb mode but that wasn’t the decision from the energy ombudsman, happy to say I now have my normal meters as of this last Thursday and I can put this whole charade behind me

ZigBee uses Channel Agility. Your ZigBee stuff should be capable of moving out of the way of the ZigBee HAN used by Smart Meters. It’s well known that the ZigBee HAN will move out of the way to avoid other stuff.

This feels more like one or more of your other ZigBee devices was misbehaving, or you’ve just got so much of the stuff that it can’t cope. You may find Matter or Z-Wave more reliable.

What you experienced may just be a symptom of a wider (and probably unresolved) issue with your ZigBee devices in your specific environment. I’d recommend reviewing it and seeing about making changes to reduce compatibility issues.

No need everything is working fine now the smart meter has been removed 

Out of curiosity 

Do you envisage a time when you might get a smart meter to save energy costs with some of the new tariff that are gradually being launched or cashback schemes for shifting energy? 

This is what puts me off even considering a smart meter. I keep being pushed to get one fitted and when I book, get a visit, I cannot have one.

They are riddled with faults and even British Gas and SSE engineers have told me not to touch them.

I wonder if you legally push for a change? Eg for suffering with a continual fault.

Mike 

Even if you could try the legal route, stocks of Traditional ones have basically run out so you’d make no progress anyway. What little remains of the stocks will either run out in terms of the remaining units, or they’ll all expire the certifications and become unusable. After that happens, that’s it. Game over for Traditional.

Ultimately, once Smart is in, it’s there to stay. There is almost never a downgrade path and many of those that used to exist have been sealed off.

Thank you for accepting me.

We have a smart meter that we do not want the provider assured me as the contract that it would be switched to dumb mode, where I the customer would send readings in for bills etc. How do I get them to honour the contract and switch this into dumb mode?

Hi @Collie Dog ,

"Dumb Mode" no longer exists and cannot be requested. Any such agreement to enable it is invalid and unenforceable.

It used to exist with SMETS1 but was removed with the DCC Migration. SMETS2 has never supported it - and never will. 

There is no downgrade path either. Once Smart, always Smart. You can't roll back once Smart Meters have been installed. 

Thank you for taking the trouble to answer, much appreciated,

I have been deceived!

You may be able to complain about it, but I’d say you’d be limited to purely the bad advice given. It may not be worth your time to do so, but that’s your decision to make. All I can say is that you should NOT have had that particular promise.

I hate to say caveat emptor in these cases, but ultimately the terms of supply have never said you can downgrade a Smart Meter back to Traditional Meter, nor that “Dumb Mode” is allowed anymore.

Many of us would be really interested to hear why you don’t want a smart meter. There has been so much misinformation disseminated about them over the years, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a convincing argument against them in these forums. You might be able to provide the first …

A smart meter is able to send readings automatically every day, and the readings will normally be available to see online the following day. There is nothing to stop you taking your own readings to compare with the ones transmitted online. There is one caveat in this respect: many meters these days only show whole numbers of kWh, disregarding any decimals. The automatic process on the other hand will usually send readings to the nearest .001 kWh. This means there could be a difference of up to 1kWh between what you see on the meter and what is displayed online. 

One great benefit of a smart meter is that it measures the amount of energy passing through it every half-hour and stores the results. With your permission, the supplier can retrieve these data and present them to you so you can see precisely how much energy you’re using every half hour of the day and night. It’s even possible to deduce what sort of device was using energy when, which could alert you to an expensively inefficient appliance - e.g. a freezer - that’s consuming too much.

There are many other benefits, too, but I’m sure you’ve heard all about them and rejected them for some reason. That’s what I’d like to hear about.

I can see our Community Members have given some really helpful advice here, just wanted to add that this forum topic may have some further information you might be interested in @Collie Dog 😊