How do I get an In-Home Display (IHD) for my Smart meter?

No worries,

It may be worth chatting with your landlord about it as well. That IHD will NOT work with any other smart meters beyond the ones it has been paired with, so taking it elsewhere is not helpful since it won’t work. Strictly speaking, it also remains property of the supplier as well and shouldn’t really leave the house. If you’re able to recover the existing one, I’m pretty sure OVO would appreciate it.

Oh, and it also cannot be counted on the Inventory of the Tenancy Agreement as being landlord property either for the same reason. As a Gifted Item? Maybe, but given that it remains the property of the supplier and is kinda “owned” by the property where the paired smart meters were installed, it should really be brought home if it can be located. 

Howdy @Haz !

Did you mean British Gas or Scottish Power by any chance? Those are the two suppliers that seem to most likely fit the name you mentioned.

As for getting a new IHD though, yep, that’s definitely possible. I guess the previous family may not have realised that the IHD was supposed to remain in the house, though I can understand why they might not have known that given the circumstances. Not to worry, there’s a solution to this problem. OVO’s Support Team can help out with these.

If you let the Support Team know that you need a new IHD because you don’t have one yet, OVO can arrange for a replacement to be sent out free of charge. You’ll need to get it paired up once it’s been delivered and the Support Team will be able to walk you through the process once you’re ready. There’ll also be instructions in the box that will help you out as well.

Depending on what meters you have, it may take a while for OVO to get a new IHD sent out to you, but the Support Team will be happy to try and get that taken care of.

Hopefully you’ll be able to find that energy guzzler as well!

If you need a hand with anything else, feel free to stop by anytime. :)

I had two smart meters (electricity and gas) installed by the Ovo engineer on Tuesday 2nd November 2021. The engineer told me that the I HD (In Home Display ) would be sent by post in a few days, but it is now 29th January 2022 and I have heard nothing.

I’ve been trying to get a IHD since moving to OVO many years ago, asking on a regular basis before finally giving top. with the current price hike, I’m even more concerned to hear OVO is out of stock and may never have any in future. What’s going on?

Hi

Thanks for the response. Photo attached if it helps?

Sadly GLOW has only the SMETS 2 in  stock, but thanks for a comprehensive response. if only OVO support were as helpful as you Blastoise186 

There used to be an app for that purpose, but it technically no longer exists per se because the method OVO tried to use never worked out. The OVO Energy apps for Android and iOS do show historical usage data, but nothing other than an IHD can show real-time usage. Even the few apps that can, still rely on an IHD to pull data from the meters.

No worries. I genuinely wish I had a better answer for you, but the reality is that S1 is just a headache these days when it comes to almost anything IHD related.

It’s possible that Hildebrand might eventually get more stocks in of the S1 Hildebrand Glow, but I honestly have no idea if/when that might happen. In theory, a Chameleon IHD6-CAD-PPMID-S1 should work, but only OVO can supply you with one and about 99.9% of OVO’s stocks of that model are dedicated to Boost Pay As You Go members who actively rely on an IHD in order to top-up and monitor their remaining meter credit. My understanding is that OVO kinda struggles to keep up with demand for them and there’s hardly any left for OVO members like yourself.

It’s also the only IHD6 variant that works with S1 meters, so it’s highly sought after by a bunch of suppliers as well.

However, I can ask @Tim_OVO for a status update if that helps? I can’t promise you’d be able to get a new IHD from OVO, but Tim might be able to check whether it’s possible.

I have Liberty 100 and Liberty EG4v 10 meters. Both dated 2016. They are both first generation meters. Apparently, they have both been enrolled and adopted.

There has never been an IHD at this address. The engineer had run out when the meters were installed, and it was never chased up with OVO.

I took over the account in January of this year, and have been asking OVO for an IHD since February. I keep being told there is a massive shortage.

Today, OVO Support spoke with their smart meter department, and told me that either an IHD6 or IHD7, would work with my meters.

I have spoken with the manufacturer, Chameleon.

If I understood correctly, they confirmed that, because both my meters have been enrolled and adopted, this means they will work with either their IHD6 or IHD7. Both of which they have in stock. As a last resort, if IHD6 or IHD7 don’t work, they can manufacture a special backwards compatible version, if OVO ask them to. They have done this before for OVO. They do not have a supply issue.

As an alternative, they said I could buy an ivie Bud IHD from their retail arm, which I think they said is based on IHD7. They said this would also work, and the compatibility tool, on their website, confirmed that it would work with my meters. It would cost £49.99 plus delivery. These are also in stock. I don’t want to pay for one. I’m just pointing out that stock is available.

I have read in other posts, on the forum, that IHD6 and IHD7 won’t work with my meters. So, I am really confused. I feel like I am going round in circles a bit. I have read different things about which model I need, and have been told different things about whether they are in stock and available. So, any help, to clear all this up, would be very kindly appreciated. Thanks.

https://ivie.co.uk/product/ivie-bud/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkI-Vvau8-AIVw5rVCh3aegDTEAAYASAAEgK67fD_BwE

Ok! I’m back.

Howdy @dman ! Sorry for the wait, this took a while to research and I had to check in with Chameleon again (they know me too well at this point!).

I can confirm that the regular variants of the IHD6 and IHD7, such as the Chameleon IHD6-CAD-PPMID and Chameleon IHD7-CAD-PPMID that OVO has been known to give out are only compatible with SMETS2 meters - and will not work with SMETS1 (trust me, I made that mistake once!).

However, the Chameleon IHD6-CAD-PPMID-S1 and Chameleon IHD7-CAD-PPMID-S1 are special variants that are dual-compatible with both S1 and S2 meters. This is the special variant that Chameleon told you about and they confirmed that to me yesterday afternoon (obviously without revealing anything about you of course).

The ivie Bud is indeed based on the IHD7 and it’s technically an IHD7-CAD-S1 because it has that same capability of working with both S1+ (what I like to call S1 meters that are now adopted to DCC) and S2 meters equally. If you need a new IHD and fancy a Chameleon one, this would be your best option.

Alternatively, Hildebrand has also confirmed that your meters are fully compatible with the Hildebrand Glow IHD. Their S1 stock is almost ready to go again, but they're just waiting for some last minute tasks to be completed before they can ship any through the door. If you’d like to join the waiting list to get notified, Hildebrand have given me this link to share with you - simply select the SMETS1 Display waiting list as the contact reason.

OVO might be able to send you an IHD6-CAD-PPMID-S1 or IHD7-CAD-PPMID-S1 but my understanding is that most of the OVO stock has been dedicated towards Boost PAYG customers because there’s absolutely tons of them who desperately need the special variants. That’s not to say you can never get one for yourself of course. Just that it might be a while.

I hope this helps. Thanks for being patient!

No worries.

Yup, I checked everything that Chameleon was able to tell me. Certainly, when I first heard about the IHD6-CAD-PPMID-S1 it was a special variant and the ZigBee Alliance confirms here that such a variant does exist.

It was actually @Tim_OVO who first told me about the IHD6-CAD-PPMID-S1 a couple of years back if memory serves. He tried to get one for me back then but a certain OVO developer had swiped OVO’s entire inventory for testing and hadn’t returned them yet (at the time) because he still needed to work on them. By the time OVO had them ready, I was already on S2.

I know from experience that the regular IHD6 won’t work with S1+ because I tried to set mine up with Pikachu (my S1 Aclara meter at the time). Since upgrading to Raichu (my S2 Aclara meter), I’ve been able to pair up two IHD6 that I call the Kecleon Brothers without issue.

For the IHD7, it’s a little more complicated, someone mentioned there was an S1 variant, but it seems that might have been confusion as I’ve now got new info that confirms the regular one works. See here. It would seem that Chameleon really did start putting both certificates into the IHD7, which would make sense since the ivie Bud is based on the IHD7 and has that dual compatibility.

You are entitled to a free IHD if it’s the first one you’ve had - and this includes cases where the previous customer moved out and ran off with the one that was originally provided to them. OVO’s policy is to always replace them for free in such cases but it is a one-time deal (it’d get sent out to you in the post). Once you’ve had your free one, you can’t get another again at the same address unless that one develops a fault. The support team can arrange this on request.

That’s right. One of the biggest reasons is that retail IHDs like the ivie Bud and the retail variant of the Hildebrand Glow IHD need to be paired by the manufacturer rather than your supplier. Because they have to do it via the DCC Other User role, they need to have some way of contacting the IHD in order to configure it and get it up and running. Wi-Fi is basically the only way they can do this. It’s also because they need a way to make setup as self-service as possible too!

Energy suppliers have the Supplier role and can send the required SMETS Commands and 99% of the time, the IHD is paired up by the installing engineer before the device is handed to you. Engineers have a special smartphone app for this purpose that's not otherwise available to anyone else.

Ultimately, they all connect via the same ZigBee HAN (Home Area Network). It’s just a case of how they get there!

Wonder if anyone can help.   My SSE in-home display has decided to stop working and is no longer recognising/connecting to my smart meter.

I have B. Gas one as well which is working fine, the meter is still being read daily by OVO and have ruled out wifi issues being the case.

Looking at the OVO site it appears to be possible to get a free replacement but once again trying to get hold of Cust Service either on chat or on the phone is like pulling teeth.

Is there any easier way to speak to someone, or get hold of a replacement IHD at all?

Thanks.