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How can I get tech support for an In-home display (IHD) problem?

  • 14 September 2021
  • 7 replies
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H
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Less than a month after installation our home display has ceased to communicate with the electricity meter. After 3 calls adding up to 3hours and 10 min over the last 3 months (which are awakward as i work for a living and apparently need to be next to the display when i call open hours do not suit working people) They have yet to get through to the tech team.... I would not reccomend Ovo and will be starting a complaint with offgen. OVO get your act together people be warned. 

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Best answer by Jess_OVO 15 September 2021, 12:08

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Blastoise186
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Hi there @Hoops .

My name’s Blastoise186 and I’m one of the forum volunteers around here. We can try to help you out with this, but we’d need a few more details - mainly photos of your meters and IHD so that we can see what you’ve got. If you could also fill out your profile for us, that would be great.

OVO’s phone lines are only open on weekdays, but the Live Chat is also open on Saturday mornings as well, which might be easier for you. You can get to it from right here and there’ll be a pink button you can click on when the Live Chat is available - it replaces the email us option during opening hours so it’s hard to miss.

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Transparent
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Hi @Hoops - sorry to hear this news.

Firstly us customers can’t take matters to Ofgem. They are the regulators for the UK energy industry.

You can take a complaint to the Office of the Energy Ombudsman, who are very helpful and effective. However you must first have demonstrated that you’ve used the Complaints Procedure of the Energy Supplier and that they have failed to resolve the matter.

We can provide guidance on how to handle this. Your first step must be to write an email to OVO stating that they have failed to resolve a matter which you first raised with them on {date}.

Technically an email isn’t necessary… but it obviously contains a date/time stamp. That might be useful if you do eventually end up with the Ombudsman.

 

That gets the ball rolling with the proper procedures.

However, we may also be able to provide some further assistance here on the Forum. So please follow up the suggestions from @Blastoise186 and give us some time-line and details of what went wrong when.

You don’t need to use the correct technical terms. Just describe the symptoms in plain English and leave us to identify the relevant names for parts and processes.

We look forward to hearing from you.

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Jess_OVO
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I’d echo the sentiments of our community volunteers, @Blastoise186 and @Transparent - I’m really sorry to hear of the issues you’ve been having with your In-Home Display and the difficulty you’ve had in contacting the team to get this fixed.

 

As we do need you to carry out some actions on the device when trouble-shooting and attempting to re-pair, I appreciate this does present a problem if you’re not able to give us a call during usual business hours. I’ve checked with the webchat team who have confirmed that we are able to talk you through this process via our Live chat which is open 8am - 6pm on weekdays and 9am - 1pm on Saturdays - find a link to this here. In the meantime it’s worth mentioning that your smart meter data can also be viewed via the ‘usage’ pages of your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS).

 

I appreciate the frustration in the time you’ve spent trying to get this sorted - as Transparent highlights it’s best to raise this as a formal complaint. We have a dedicated complaints team who are adept at investigating any short-falls in service you may have encountered and will work hard to find a resolution to these - if we’re unable to offer a solution you’re happy with, we’ll issue a ‘letter of deadlock’ after 8 weeks which would then allow you to refer the issues to the energy ombudsman for independent review - see our full complaints procedure here.

 

I’m hoping this information is helpful and the IHD issues are resolved ASAP.

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H
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Hello all

Thanks for your help. 

The problem is basically as described in my initial post. Less than a month after installation the home display ceased to show the electricity display, gas display is fine.

I realise that i can view usage in the app however the whole point was to persuade the other members of the household to pay attention to their consumption.

Its strange that i need to go to a forum of "volunteers" to get this sorted. 

I should get a call back today so fingers crossed

 

 

Transparent
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Thanks @Hoops 

The problem may not be within the In Home Device (IHD), but instead the Communications Hub which sends data to it.

There are different types of  Comms Hub depending on where you are in the country. As you haven’t yet filled out your Forum Profile page, I can’t know this.

So please tell us a bit more background information and we’ll start working out what’s gone wrong.

Can you either tell us the make and model number of the SMETS2 electricity meter and the Comms Hub bolted above it, or else take a photo and upload it here.

You’ve already helped by telling us that you can see the electricity readings in the OVO App. That’s good to know and has eliminated a number of possible faults.

We’ve had a similar problem to yours raised before on the Forum. Have a look at this topic in which a customer describes how he reset the IHD.

Don’t be concerned that we’re volunteers. We’ve gained a lot of experience by listening to customers such as yourself and we’re able to give support and advice from a customer perspective which might help to self-diagnose the issue before you call on the Support Team.

You may also provide Customer Services with the link URL to this topic of course. They can therefore see what we’ve checked.

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H
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Hello all

Update on the home display as follows. 

I was told a new home display was being sent to me about a month ago it never showed up so another call and one appeared yesterday. 

I called OVO and they set up the new display and all was well gas and electricity showed. 

I got up this morning and i now dont have a gas display just electricity. 

Grrrrrr

Thanks

Neil

 

 

 

 

 

Blastoise186
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Hmm… That’s strange. It can sometimes happen if the gas meter temporarily lost connection or didn’t communicate properly recently. I’d suggest keeping an eye on things for a few days to see if it comes back. It’s worth noting that you’ll never get truly real-time gas usage data anyway because gas meters will only wake up and perform a heartbeat roughly every 30 minutes - so you’ll only get snapshots of the last 30 minutes of gas usage.

Keep an eye on MyOVO as well, to see if gas readings and usage data are flowing in properly.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!

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