How far apart can my meters be to allow a smart meter upgrade?

Hi, I had an SMS engineer visit yesterday afternoon - as promised.

Despite me asking them to ensure the engineer could provide Alt-HAN to solve the lack of comms with my gas meter (as advised on here), the engineer told me “We don’t do Alt-HAN”.

However, he seemed confident that changing the meters would solve the problem. I think he also installed a new dual band hub, and he moved it from being on top of the meter to about 40cm below the meter. The job was completed in about 45 minutes, so that was good, and he told me everything is now working.

It took a further couple of hours, but I could then see both gas and electricity readings on the IHD.

No smart meter readings yet on my OVO account, but I’m told it can take up to 24 hours for everything to be updated - fingers crossed!

It does seem odd that OVO sent someone who wasn’t equipped to install Alt-HAN.

Alt-HAN is still suspended at the moment due to the Recall. It will return soon but I don’t have a date yet - but I do know that Landis+Gyr have been working like mad on an “Alt-HAN Bridge V2” that fixes the flaws with the original.

Admittedly, I did put OVO into Panic Response Mode with my original recall alert, but hey, it did the job at least and got their attention!

Once they’re ready, please be advised that existing installs will get first dibs on the new Bridges - OVO (and definitely L+G!) wants to get those ones out into the field before sending new install kits out.

I was told on here 2 months ago that -

“I checked this with our FieldForce team yesterday who confirmed they're taking bookings for this and the work can be completed.

We’d been waiting a while for them to become available so Blastoise186’s advice a few weeks ago was correct at the time, however the team have confirmed they can now do this.”

And my conversation with Ovo confirmed they would send someone suitably equipped.

Fair enough. I’ll check with my contacts and see what’s new - they must have just forgotten to tell me! XD

Hi, My IHD is seeing readings from both meters but, after 2 days my account is seeing no smart meter readings.

My account is showing a new gas meter serial number, but the serial number of the electricity meter has not changed.

How long should it take for my OVO account to see smart meter readings after the new meters were installed?

May take a few weeks - there’s a lot of background jobs that have to run

Hi ​@GrandpaG 

I’m glad to hear that an engineer was  finally able to fix all of this - from reading this discussion it sounds like you’ve had a really frustrating time of it.

If your IHD is showing usage for both then this would indicate that the meters are both in comms which is good. It sounds as if the electricity meter has not yet been updated on your account. To confirm, it can take up to six weeks for  new meters to be updated on an account following an installation, although it's normally a lot quicker than this. There’s a lot of background admin work that needs to be completed before meters go live on an account. Hopefully you should see both meters on there soon, and the readings start to come through.

If the issue persists our Support Team will be able to help you. Sometimes new smart meters are mistakenly installed with a monthly schedule, which doesn’t work too well with our Billing platform and online ‘Usage’ comparisons. If you do speak to Support I’d recommend making sure your reading schedule is set to half-hourly or daily. Half-hourly is best, as gives you the best ‘Usage’ data online and on the app, and means your account balance will update every day as per your usage. You can find out more about our live billing system here:

I hope this helps!

Thanks, sounds like I’ll have to be patient.

I can switch between total, electricity and gas on the IHD Home button, and the data looks sensible. One small point - is it correct that the Now button on the IHD only shows electricity use?

Yup! That’s correct - gas meters don’t send real-time updates so you can’t get them to show you how much gas is being used instantaneously. It can only do half-hourly snapshots

my gas meter  is outside, low down next to front door. Or rather next to the brick wall part of the porch. Elec meter is at the back of the attached garage other side of front door/porch, right at the back. So at about 6-7m apart and with at least 2 walls and a metal garage door in between.

Reading this forum and others seems to me there is no chance of smart meters working properly for me without huge luck, or more likely months of stress and malfunctions

Am I right?