Does anyone know why my Aclara SMETS2 will stop working properly on 1st June 2026 and needs replacing? It’s new and was only installed in April 2025.
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Email saying Aclara SMETS2 will stop working properly on 1st June 2026 and needs replacing?
+2Best answer by Firedog
Does anyone know why my Aclara SMETS2 will stop working properly on 1st June 2026 and needs replacing? It’s new and was only installed in April 2025.
Referring to your earlier thread about your new meter, I see that it was fitted with an SKU1 cellular communications hub (CH) instead of the more normal long-range radio hub. The smart network owner (DCC) have decreed that all of these stop-gap SKU1 CHs shall be exchanged for 4G hubs. The deadline was 31 December 2025, but that seems to have slipped a bit. So it’s probably just the CH that has to be exchanged. It’s a quick and easy procedure (known as TCSO), which doesn’t even need the power to be cut off.
+5- Super User
Right now, I’m looking out my window at the local EE transmitter, which is about 500 meters from me up a hill with a clear line-of-sight.
My mobile phone is currently using 5g and I’m getting speeds of 189 Mbps.
Unfortunately EE do not have the contract for 4G smart metering, it works on the Vodafone network.
What is the Vodafone 4G signal like at your property?
It seems to be patchy in that area from their coverage map, which may be why you chose EE for your phone?
+7- Super User
I think that the 4G contract is solely with Vodafone, so unless there’s a Vodafone antenna also on that EE mast, it’s may not be much use to you. The 3G SIMs used in SMETS1 meters in the Central and Southern CSP region used to be (I understand) provider-agnostic, making connection with the strongest signal, but the contract was made exclusively with VM/O2 for SMETS2. It’s sad that DCC have cancelled their contracts to provide 3G coverage anywhere north of Manchester.
Perhaps this Vodafone coverage map includes your location:
If you’re in the green or white areas, you’re probably not going to see a good (or any!) Vodafone 4G signal. This will have been taken into account when deciding what sort of hub to equip you with.
You could wait for the VWAN solution to be rolled out more widely, but that might be a long wait. Your best (and in the long run cheapest) bet might be to take matters into your own hands and steps to improve the LRR signal at your meter. £50, a bit of manual dexterity and a lot of patience (or help from a friendly neighbour or son-in-law) could increase the signal strength at your meter to a good enough level for comms to work - others have managed. See for example posts from GT1 in this long-standing thread:
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[Please take all that I have written with a large portion of sodium chloride.]
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