Geo In Home Display (IHD) lost connection to my L&G smart meter - are they too far apart?

I have a issue with my smart meter IHD not displaying data. This started about 3 days ago. The position of the IHD  in the house of the IHD has not changed in years, and in any case is only ~3metres from the electricity meter.

Symptoms:

IHD says: ‘Waiting for Data’ in the ‘Energy Now’ tab.

In ‘Energy Today’ tab, it shows £0.60 which i assume is the standing charge applied at midnight. The £ value does not increase during the day since this issue started.

In Status menu on IHD:

• Under Electricity: ‘Electricity Meter not connected. Status 28-1 Connected to the meter network, but not receiving all electricity meter data. Please wait for service to be restored’
• Under Meter Network : ‘Connected to Meter’
• Under Wifi : ‘Connected to Wifi’
• Under Cloud : ‘Problem with Cloud. Status: 41 Waiting for Cloud service connection, please wait’

Other observations:

On the the meter itself, all looks OK. On the Communications Hub, the SW, WAN and HAN lights flash in sync every 5 seconds. ‘MESH’ and ‘GAS’ do not illuminate (I don’t have Gas).

Data is still being sent to OVO as it updates daily on the app/website in the usual 30 minute interval readings.

Meter was installed by British Gas in 2022 and switched to OVO in April 2023 and everything, including the switch,  has always worked absolutely fine until a few days ago.

Any advice please?

Hi @nmt79 , the feed to your supplier doesn’t require the IHD so you indeed may still get readings in your account but do check as sometimes without data, these are estimated. 
What is the type of IHD?

There are several guides available 

There’s also a post here where someone’s also asking about the 28-1 code

Hi @BPLightlog thanks for the reply. It's a British Gas IHD , not sure of model, but have attached a photo. Has always worked fine up until a few days ago 

Readings are going to OVO fine and accurately (OVO account says last received today, and usage displayed online is in line with my expected usage, eg higher when cooking or charging the EV), so it's not estimated readings. 

Thanks for the heads-up on the other 28-1 code post. I see they needed it re-paired or a new one. 

Think I'll have to give OVO a call in the week to see if they can see or do anything from their end 

Customer support will be a good place to start. I did find a user guide for that unit online. It does appear to be a trio device so similar to the one which was being asked about earlier

That’s a rebadged SMETS1 Geo Trio from the old days of when Geo used to do whitelabel versions of their stuff. Other than the branding, it’s considered a Geo device - Geo has since stopped doing totally whitelabel editions. The most you’d get now is a far more subtle take like what SSE had.

I just wanted to update this here (it looks like my comments has been merged with an older similar thread above) with how my issue was resolved. After contacting OVO via online chat message and explained the problem, the agent said she’d send me an email requesting further information to send to the support team. For reference, the questions asked were…

Sorry to hear your In Home Display (IHD) has stopped working. Please can you complete a few quick tests for us to determine if it is the IHD or the charger that is no longer working correctly.

1) Is the device showing the time and date?

2) Is the time and date shown correct?

3) Is the WiFi symbol solid/flashing/not there?

4) Could you confirm the GUID? (Long ID number on the bottom of device)

5) How far away from your electricity meter do you store your IHD? Are there any walls in between that could be blocking the signal?

6) On your electricity meter, what is the light labelled HAN doing? How regularly is it flashing? Every 5 seconds? 3 seconds? Or 1 second?

7) In your own words, please describe the issue.

Once you have answered these questions we can send that information over to our Smart team to diagnose the issue. In the meantime please use your My OVO usage graph and statements to monitor your usage.

I responded to this and the next day support tried to ring me, but unfortunately i was on another call for work, but he immediately emailed me to say that he had logged on remotely and belives he solved the issue by re-syncing.

Unfortunately the IHD was in exactly the same state (It still had Status 28-1 in Electricity , and Status 41 in Cloud, in the status menu.) I also tried rebooting etc , to no avail. I repsonded by email to let them know this.

The next day another support agent rang and said that they would send an new IHD which would already be paired to my meter and it should arrive in a few working days.

Sure enough it arrived quickly, i plugged the new IHD in, and worked within about 30 minutes of powering up ! The model of the new IHD is a Geo Trio Touchbutton, and is better as it displays usage now and usage today next to each other on one screen, whereas my old British Gas badged Geo Trio II i had to flick between two screens to see current usage and today’s usage, and it also displayed Gas which i dont have in my property.  

Thanks OVO!

Hi @nmt79,

Thank you for coming back with an update on this. I’m glad to hear that this has been resolved for you.

Hello,

I got a new error yesterday saying there are issues connecting to the electric meter, but it connects to the gas one just fine. 

We moved in May 2024 and never had this issue before until yesterday. There is 2 bars at the side so it should be connecting just fine. What should I do?

Kind Regards,

Jonatan and Johanna 

Here is another photo showing more info on the issue:

There’s details about a similar issue here 

You may need to check the status of the smart meter itself

There's also a guide here 

Hi @Jonatan, 

Our forum volunteer has already given some advice here. Hope it was helpful.

Please let us know if you’ve managed to get this sorted.

This little utility might help: with your permission, it will access your meter and give a brief technical report about it, its comms hub and the IHD. You’ll need your MPAN  - the 13-digit number you’ll find on a recent bill. Tick the tiny box confirming that it’s your supply, then click on Check meter: homebrew.n3rgy.com.

It’s common to see warnings about expired security certification - you can safely ignore these. Any other warnings or errors will probably indicate what’s wrong.

28-2 is an easy one - you probably just need to get the IHD authorized into the Electric Meter again. OVO Support can process that if you let them know.

My IHD Geo trio 2 was working fine. Few weeks ago it suddenly stopped working. It's now connecting to meter forever. It is in same position as before which is within 2 meters of my meter. I've reset it. Shutdown for couple of days, change the position. Nothing seems working. Don't know what to do now.

Howdy ​@VOU30 ,

26-1 indicates a potentially serious fault, but I’ve got a couple of fixes for you. Please try them in this order:

1. Reboot the IHD whilst close to the Electricity Meter/Comms Hub and leave it there for 10 minutes
2. If that doesn’t work, contact OVO Support as the fault may be with the Comms Hub itself, https://smart-meter-help.ovoenergy.com might help so try that before reaching out

Hope this helps

​@VOU30 if ​@Blastoise186’s advice doesn’t work, give our Support Team a nudge - they’ll try and fix the IHD remotely and, if this isn’t possible, they’ll send you out a new one free of charge.

Guidance on Geo error codes can be found in the user guide: https://assets.geotogether.com/sites/4/20190725104306/T2NT-A-USG-001_3-2.pdf

Hopefully our Support Team can get it sorted quickly for you!

Let us know how you get on!

All I ever see on my GEO display is a red triangle with a red exclamation mark inside it.

Top left of the display next to what looks like a mobile network signal bars with a red X

Cant get any help from ovo at all.Also a message which says. Meter Network Problem, Not connected to meter network.If the problem persists contact your supplier.

Im payg top up through app.

pleasse help

Hi ​@mjtemple ,

Could you grab the Status Codes from the System Status menu please? All these codes will allow me to give you the right advice.

Thanks

Yes of course, the only thing I can see is 26-1 if that helps

Thankyou x

Gotcha, thanks.

This is probably not an IHD issue - the Comms Hub above your electric meter may have crashed.

Please ask Support to investigate the Comms Hub rather than the IHD, it may require an engineer visit to fix.

Hey ​@mjtemple,

Sorry to hear of the issues you’re having, 

Blastoise has provided some helpful advice here:
 

A smart meter comms hub issue typically means your meter can't send data to your supplier, often due to poor signal from the hub to your electricity meter. Our support team can let you know if we need to intervene, as they can perform remote fixes or arrange for an engineer to investigate further.
 

These similar topics might have some helpful advice:

​​​​​

Keep us posted with how you get on.

Thank you to everyone I’m SO grateful x

Let us know how you get on ​@mjtemple. We’re happy to help 😊

Hi I have had a geo touch button approximately 5 years been ok till 2 days ago it's lost all of its connections display just reading list network have done various things hard reset moved closer to meters still no joy my energy supplier are if no help at the moment