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

Hiya!

Nope! That should be fine, especially with the new Dual-Band Comms Hubs and other magic tricks. :)

I have Dual Fuel and wanted a smart meter for unfortunately I could only have the electric meter due to the gas meter being too far away?

The distance isnt that far and roughly 10m but it is outside, one floor down through two solid non cavity walls!

I hear, since the Gas smart meter is reliant on a 10yr battery (no local supply) it uses some small low frequency radio transmitter to the electric meter?

Has this improved?

There are some tests that are being carried out now using something called AltHAN to extend the range

https://althanco.com

OVO are involved in the testing but I think the system hasn’t been released quite yet

There’s also the Dual-Band Comms Hubs which are already fully available. You might be able to get your Comms Hub swapped out for one of those as part of the gas upgrade so it’s worth talking to Support about it. Those puppies have some serious range too! :)

AltHAN isn’t quite ready yet.

cheers! I will look into that one :)

ah! fantastic! I will get onto support about this! :)

Installation was in Edinburgh on 1 August 2023. The installer could not get the hub (EDMI Standard 420 DB) to communicate with the gas meter (Flonidan Uniflo G4SDZV-2). He tried rebooting the hub and it still failed to connect.

The IHD3 seems to be working, and displays data from the electricity meter.

There seemed to be no automatic follow up process, but the installer offered to fill in a form if I wanted him to report the issue - I said yes, of course, and have heard nothing back.

The meters are only about 5m apart, but the installer suggested the stone wall might be the issue, and said I’d need to book a new visit to get the problem investigated.

Yesterday I filled in the standard OVO form(not much of a form!) that just asks for your account and meter numbers, and says they’ll get back to me - no acknowledgement yet. The form was showing the old meter numbers, so I fed in the new numbers.

When I log in to my OVO account, the old meter numbers are still showing but the electricity and gas usage implies that OVO are receiving data from the new meters.

When do you think I’m likely to hear back from OVO?

If the problem is the stone wall of the house, are there any solutions available?

Howdy! Forum volunteer here.

I definitely think that the stone wall is probably the issue. OVO will be in touch once they’ve reviewed the engineer report and gotten through any backlogs, so within the next few weeks at most.

Thanks, I’ve heard others say that a survey was done before installation, but that wasn’t offered.

I’m sure they’re busy, but I’d expect an acknowledgment that my problem has been logged.

I’m hoping OVO will (soon?) offer a visit to check out the signal strength.

There are a lot of stone-walled houses, especially in this area, so I still wonder if there are possible solutions to my problem.

From what I’ve read, the hub can’t be fitted with an aerial, which could direct the signal appropriately. Why not use the house wiring to get the signal closer to the gas meter? My understanding is that they had such a system, called the smart relay, which was discontinued because it had a security bug. If so, why not fix the bug.

Our gas meter was originally inside the house, where there would only be a brick internal wall between it and the hub. If no other solution is offered, I might have to ask them to move it back to where it was - cost £145 I gather. Clearly I’d want them to do a survey to check feasibility, perhaps at additional cost?