I’ve recently received an email stating that my analogue Electricity Meter is out of its Certification Period and needs replacing. I suspect that replacing like for like will not be an option so I may have to have a Smart Meter.
I don’t (and won’t) use WiFi. I’m sometimes told mockingly that I am a member of the “Tin Hat Club” – well each to their own.
Instead I use AV2 MIMO Homeplugs (made by Solwise/AZTech) to route Ethernet traffic around my flat. Some people disparage this as “legacy” technology but my experience with it over many years has been excellent. It is extremely reliable and the actual achieved transfer rates are good – 350Mbits/second between two PCs some way apart in different rooms (measured using iperf3).
I’ve seen several reports that Smart Electricity Meters introduce noise onto the mains which can disrupt AV2 Homeplug working. There’s a post on this forum :-
in which the poster states that his powerline adapters became almost useless immediately following a Smart Meter installation. The replies seem to be assuming that the issue was solely down to a WiFi channel clash but I wonder if there may have been an underlying mains electrical issue behind it.
Question 1 :-
Are there steps which can be taken to minimise any interference to the AV2 Homeplug Network? For example could some sort of noise filter be introduced between the Smart Electricity Meter and the Consumer Unit?
The email I’ve received makes no mention of replacing the analogue Gas Meter. I’m told by neighbours who have had Smart Electricity Meters installed that the Gas Meters have had to be left alone because they are much too far away (and separated by brick walls and concrete floors) for the 2.4 GHz HAN signal to allow inter-meter communications.
Which then brings me on to the relatively new Alt-HAN technology. I don’t know if this would be a potential solution here but what concerns me particularly is that it relies on Powerline networking using the G.hn protocol. This can coexist (but not interoperate) with AV2 but at the electrical level they will fight one another and performance of both will likely be affected – perhaps seriously.
Question 2 :-
Have any studies been done to investigate the effect of Alt HAN G.hn networking on a customer’s existing AV2 Ethernet network? Does the Alt HAN equipment use the enhanced “G.hn Prime” chipsets which claim to work well alongside AV2?
Many thanks if any forum members can help with these two questions!
