Does OVO still offer a smart relay to extend smart meter range?

Welcome back! :)

I just need to quickly address other readers, hang in there a second as this needs to be higher up! If you’re reading this thread thinking that these Smart Relay devices will solve your problems, I’m sorry to say that they probably won’t help you anymore. The short version is that these devices no longer exist for the most part and you cannot use them with SMETS2 anyway. They were only ever intended for SMETS1 and OVO hasn’t really given any out for a while, from what I understand.

And now for the long answer.

It was a genuine thing that OVO used to do back in the SMETS1 days, but no longer does them for various reasons. It’s impossible to offer them for SMETS2 because the NCSC has basically banned such devices from S2 sites due to otherwise unfixable security vulnerabilities. It’s an older article that could do with an update to clarify that you cannot get one if you have S2. I’ll ask @Tim_OVO to get that fixed up along with this other version of it.

And besides that, with the future Dual-Band Comms Hubs slowly becoming a thing, the Smart Relay would become redundant anyway, since a DBCH should resolve signal issues in around 99% of cases.

As for S1? Erm… Stocks of those devices have basically completely dried up at this point and I don’t think OVO even has any of them left in the warehouse anymore outside of maybe a few engineering samples which can’t be given out anyway. And it seems that hardly any other supplier even references them anymore so my guess is that the ban on giving them out for S2 sites may have resulted in suppliers deprecating support for them across S1 as well.

They were a pretty interesting idea, but I’ve never found much info on them, not least because I was never able to get hold of one myself. While I can try to offer help with using one if you happen to have any, I’m very much limited to what little scraps I can find online.

Yes, I can access my energy usage on my EDF online account. It is my long term mission to sort my IHD issues… I’ve had 5 and 5 sessions of bull**** from them, with OFGEM saying EDF don’t have to do anything else to provide a working IHD…. So I’m in the market for changing as I don’t think EDF will be up for giving me a dual band HUB and IHD.The issue with IHDs is complex…. no-one has the tools to investigate the RF environment in an installation. Is it interference from wi-fi? Supposed not to be… Is it interference from other Bluetooth devices next to my IHD? ( wireless HIDs, Alexa) Supposed not to be… Is it my router? Supposed not to be… Currently my 2 IHDs are located in the garage ( pointless) and are working 100% for the last few weeks. They are located within 3M of the HUB. So, there is nothing RF wise that is preventing them from working and they are clearly not subject to interference of any sort. I did switch my router to channel 1 but I can’t draw anyconclusions from that yet…. until I relocate the IHDs back into my lounge..( 8-10 M from the HUB) . It’s clear to me that once an IHD fails to connect ( due to poor RSSI) it will never be able to connect unless relocated into the garage and even then, it can take literally days to lock in again. Maybe it missed a link key change, who knows???? Zigbee software is so complex, I don’t know how anyone managed to code up Smart Meter devices so that they are ‘bomb proof’. The spec for Zigbee is >600 pages of ‘waffle’… Some I understand, mostly I don’t... anyway most is irrelvant- PAYG etc.
Anyway, on with my mission. I have a ‘spare’ Chameleon 3 coming today that I’m going to ‘play’ with. EDF might connectit, they’re looking into it. LOL No reason why the can’t… I already had another IHD connected by a third party. Don’t ask.

@Blastoise186  I’ve not seen any updates on the rollout of DBCH units from ovo, 

come to think of it, I’ve not seen any energy supplier offer these units for an clean installation or upgrade purposes.

Dose this suggest that ovo are to make these units available to consumers anytime soon?

With my 3 meter installation 1 smart electric / 1 smart gas / 1 traditional gas meter @ approx 50m, the smart meter upgrade to my extra gas meter would indeed be a reality,

Alas with my current smets2 installation, the opinion of it being able to accept 2 gas smart meters was either a reality / a possibility / or not a chance, depending on who you were speaking to.

That was with a known technology that had been installed & had been in use for several years.

So I am still doubtful if a DBCH unit with an as yet unknown spec, would be of any benefit to me,

There is also the unknown ability of the data collection process & the known problems of account management & billing to consider.

On that front @Tim_OVO  or @Jess_OVO is ovo now in a better position to streamline my accounts & combine them again?

TIA 

Tom…

I would have thought two Smart gas meters would be ok… they will have different GUIDs . Maybe the billing front end can’t handle two LOL

I need permission from Tim to reveal more info than this, but I’m highly confident that OVO definitely will at very least draw up plans to make Dual-Band Comms Hubs available as a trial sooner or later if they haven’t already.

I also know that S2 Comms Hubs can handle up to four IHDs at once - the Kecleon Brothers have already proven that as I’ve got two IHDs running perfectly happily together at the exact same time. OVO doesn’t technically support you doing this, but unofficially it is possible to do.

As for two S2 Gas Meters however… Erm, that’s a different story. It’s worth mentioning that Tom has a very, very rare edge case in that he’s got two completely different gas meters on the same supply but in different parts of it. From what he’s told us before, each one is officially independent of the other, with separate MPRNs though they are both registered as being at the same address. That causes a lot of suppliers to choke and it took OVO quite a long time to find a way to make things work at all - the hack has been to give Tom two different accounts. One of his accounts has both his smart electric and smart gas meter, while the other houses the second, traditional gas meter alone. OVO doesn’t usually offer gas-only accounts, but exceptions can be granted in unique edge cases like this one.

From a billing platform/billing system perspective this should in theory keep working fine as-is basically forever. But for smart meter purposes, it’s unknown whether a Comms Hub of any kind can handle two gas meters. In fact, I’m willing to bet that hardly anyone would think of making such functionality available because it’s so rare.

I have two IHDs running right now and have requested EDF connect up a third. I’m waiting for their reply….

Cheers @Blastoise186 for the glimmer of hope 👍

just to add (Blastoise forgot to mention🤭) my traditional gas meter isn’t used in a traditional way (it has zero usage over winter with a high draw over summer)

So the first obstacle is having 2 mprn’s at a single property, then the billing & admin systems that can’t handle 3 meters on a single account, 

I’ve always had fun😀

Then just when they think they have my account & supply in hand, 

my actual zero usage Vs the predicted higher usage & the associated cost increase over the colder winter months never fails to put them to the test again.

Tom…

Happy to confirm that dual band comms hubs are already being installed by OVO, @Blastoise186 . These will be offered to homes where the distance between meters has caused an issue with the gas meter communication which a dual band comms hub might be able to fix -  so the meters would need to be between 10 and 16 metres apart for this option to be considered.

That said the dual band comms hub wouldn’t allow for an additional gas meter to be linked up to your electricity meter, @TomThumb - I’ve checked in with the Smart Team on your specific issue and they’ve advised:

We can't pair more than one gas meter to each hub. If a member with multiple gas meters wants to upgrade the other meter they would need a separate hub fitted with a hotshoe (a bracket that allows a hub to be fitted below the elec meter instead of attached to the elec meter), and that would create a separate site for it on our smart meter systems. They will also need a separate IHD as any existing IHD won't show the second gas meter.

So sounds like that second gas smart meter upgrade is technically possible now. If you’re keen to go for this upgrade, we’d recommend getting in touch with the Support Team (it might be worth linking them to this comment for the full technical explanation too!)

Many Thanks @Jess_OVO for taking the time to do some digging & for getting back to me,

The feedback dose seem to suggest I’m not going to benefit from the implementation of a dbch in it’s current form,

A: so the meters would need to be between 10 and 16 metres apart for this option to be considered.

that 16m threshold dose seem to be lower than the working limits of a standard smets2 install,

Not forgetting I would need triple that distance.

B: We can't pair more than one gas meter to each hub. If a member with multiple gas meters wants to upgrade the other meter they would need a separate hub fitted with a hotshoe (a bracket that allows a hub to be fitted below the elec meter instead of attached to the elec meter), and that would create a separate site for it on our smart meter systems.

I initially had a failed installation years ago due to the limited space available to receive a smets1 electric meter,  I had to wait until the smaller footprint of a smets2 meter became available,

In an ideal world, I would have pushed for a single larger gas meter installation, but unfortunately I inherited this energy configuration & setup when I purchased this property,

looks like there is no easy fix coming soon. 
 

Tom…