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

So, as I mentioned, I had an appointment booked for MDS to come on 5 November - but nobody came! I had no notification, so I phoned OVO today.

The OVO system knows nobody came, but has no information on why that happened. I was told I’d receive the £30 penalty for them not turning up.

The main issue is comms between the gas meter and the dual-band hub, but the hub is no longer sending electricity data to OVO because that was turned off remotely on a previous visit. The engineer didn’t understand why that was done. I’ve since had an email exchange with OVO where they said the comms would be switched back on, but nothing has changed.
OVO know all this, so you'd have thought arranging a replacement appointment would be simple - not so!

A new appointment was arranged for the 26 November, and then cancelled because the OVO system said I had to have 2 appointments - one per meter.
This happened about halfway through the call.
I was then given 2 appointments on 27 November (same engineer, same time), because they couldn't offer them at the same time on the 26th! In other words, they couldn’t modify an appointment on the 26th to cover both meters.

Since the comms to OVO could be switched back on remotely, I don’t need an ‘electric meter appointment’ but that didn’t seem to wash.

As you might expect, I queried why all this was necessary, and was told there's a new appointment system - if that's the case, it's a weird system

In the course of arranging the "gas appointment", I was asked whether it was a low, medium or high pressure meter, and instructed to look for a sticker and report back what colour it is.
The meter is outside my house, so I'm glad it's not raining today. I've never been asked that before. Perhaps this new appointment system has forgotten what meters were installed.

The call lasted 70 minutes, not including the time for it to be answered (which was quick).

Are you aware that the appointment system has been updated with the effects I’ve described?

Hey @GrandpaG 

Sorry to hear about this, I’ve asked one of our teams about this. 

Let us know how you’re getting on.

I wonder if @Lukepeniket_OVO would be able to shed any light here?

Sorry for all of the trouble you’ve had with this, I know it’s been a long journey.

We had one of our specialists look into this for us and they’ve confirmed the next best step would be to have a full replacement of both meters and including an Alt-HAN bridge. This should allow both meters to communicate as the should.

As we can't book the appointment here for you if you call our Support Team and let them know you've spoken with a specialist on the Forum. They've asked you to call and say that you need both meters replaced and Alt-HAN is required. The advisor will need to ensure this is on the job report before the engineers attend the appointment as they'll need to bring the necessary equipment with them.

Please keep us updated once you've spoken with them and we'll keep an eye on this with you.

Hi,

Thanks for looking into this. However, I was advised 3 weeks ago by Blastoise186 on this forum that “AltHAN is currently suspended while a critical fix is being developed”.

Are you saying that this has been fixed and AltHAN bridges are now available?

Hey @GrandpaG 

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.

Thanks very much Abby. 👍

I called OVO support on the 13th, and passed on your advice from the specialist. I was told this would be referred up to higher authority and they’d get back to me by today.

I’ve just had the call back and have a new appointment on 21 January. Apparently that was the earliest they could offer with the necessary kit/engineers - not sure which, but they’re now sending SMSL rather than MDS who would have been coming on 27 November.

Seems a VERY long time to wait!!

It is worth noting that Just About Every Smart Meter Engineer In The UK is working flat out right now on getting RTS → Smart Migrations done - other than Emergency jobs, it’s literally their highest priority. I already know that Luke’s having a whale of a time with himself and his team zooming all over the place fitting meters.

Things should calm down again once those upgrades are done.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter who you ask - demand is insanely high right now and almost every Non-RTS related job is being pushed down the queue as a result.

Seems I’ve suffered from two issues beyond my and your control.

First: It has been clear for over a year that I need Alt-HAN to (hopefully) resolve my gas meter issue. Then came the problem with the old bridges that you reported.

Second: When new bridges appeared, most of the engineers are now focussed on solving the RTS problem.

I wonder what the engineers would have done if they had turned up on 5th November.

I’m sorry to hear it’s been such a long & frustrating process ​@GrandpaG. I’m relieved to hear the appointment has been re-arranged & I hope the engineer manages to resolve your issue. 

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?

That is in range, you should be fine.

afraid “should be” isn’t what I need. I need OVO to tell me that it will work, on one visit, no hassle, no sorry don’t have the right gear, sorry it will cost extra.

problems still occur with situations like mine, we all know they do. And no proper solution

The hassle simply not something I need or can cope with

If that’s what you’re after (as in a 100% solid guarantee it’ll work)… The only way to do that definitively is via an engineer visit as every environment is different.

I’ve managed to get IHD signal through far more than that in the building I live in - and I’ve also been allowed to play with the kit engineers use to test range once or twice. It’s powerful stuff, but the test kit cannot be used remotely - it has to be placed where the meters will go in order to take a reading.

There are also ways to boost the signal - Dual-Band Comms Hubs for example have insanely powerful range on them and Alt-HAN can get past almost anything.

I’m highly confident.

see, you are talking technical stuff that is way beyond this pensioner’s understanding. I want OVO or whoever to  guarantee a first time fix. I don’t want to have to arrange engineer visits to assess (no doubt at a cost), nor do I want confidence from a well intentioned amateur, sorry

Afraid in the real world there are hosts of people like me. Keen on the theory but very very very wary of the practicalities. Suppliers (nor government) will not get full roll out of smart meters or anywhere close until the can convince us that the will work, no hassle no revisits and no extra charges

and it is noticeable that no official OO response has been forthcoming. Wonder why?

You can’t make demands of OVO here. The OVO Forum is primarily powered by volunteers such as myself - official OVO responses are never guaranteed.

The closest I can do is ask ​@Lukepeniket_OVO to swing by, but he’s probably just going to echo something similar to what I’ve already explained - the only way to know is to try it at your house.

You will NOT be charged extra for a failed install though. You only pay a Missed Appointment Fee if you’re not present and don’t cancel more than 24 hours ahead.