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

AltHan is a powerline extender, which would presumably be plugged in to a socket near the gas meter.

I already use powerline extenders for Ethernet - do you know if AltHan would interfere with that, or viced versa?

Probably not. Having two different powerline networking solutions running on the same circuit is asking for trouble. The HomePlug Standards your existing setup relies on died several years ago and are officially abandoned, so there’ll never be a fix on that side - and it’d take a fix on both sides to fully resolve such issues.

It’s complicated network stuff that requires deep knowledge of networking to understand, so I won’t give you the full details, but the long story short version is that it’d be like having two cars driving into the same side of the same tunnel from opposite sides and driving on the same lane at the same time - they are basically guaranteed to crash into each other.

Your best bet is to rip out those existing HomePlugs and switch to a Mesh Wi-Fi setup like that offered by Ubiquiti AmpliFi or Ubiquiti UniFi, or some other Mesh Wi-Fi solution - do NOT use the one offered by BT or any ISP as they are all terrible.

Sad, as the powerline distribution of my Ethernet is flawless - never had so much as a glitch.

Thanks for the advice.

Hi Tim_OVO,

I had on online chat with OVO on 5 Sept. Initially they were going to email me the smart meter checklist, and I agreed. But he then had a look at notes on my account, where the original installation engineer had logged the issue, and said they would send an engineer on 11 Sept.

The engineer duly arrived today - he was from MDS and had been given NO information about the problem. He asked me what the problem was, then had a look at the meters and left, saying he would add some notes on my account. He said I would need an engineer from OVO.

Not very helpful. Whoever was chatting with me knew what the problem is, so why didn’t they send an OVO engineer.

I’ve now filled in the online version of the checklist​​​. Sounds like I may have to wait 45 days.

I’ve posted previously about this problem. My Smart Meter installation was on 1 Aug 2023.

The HAN failed to communicate with the new smart gas meter, and the engineer couldn’t fix it.

Everything else works and OVO have been receiving readings from the electricity meter.

I had on online chat with OVO on 5 Sept. Initially they were going to email me the smart meter checklist, and I agreed. But he then had a look at notes on my account, where I assume the original installation engineer had logged the problem, and said they would send an engineer on 11 Sept.

The engineer duly arrived today - he was from MDS and had been given NO information about the problem. He asked me what the problem was, then had a look at the meters and left, saying he would add some notes on my account. He said I would need an engineer from OVO.

Not very helpful.

Whoever was on the online chat knew what the problem is, so why didn’t they send an OVO engineer?

Hey @GrandpaG,

Really sorry to hear this,

I wonder if the MDS person who came to your property was meant to fill in a smart meter health check on your behalf? In which case you’d have to wait 45 days regardless. 

But this does seem odd, unless there’s a vulnerability in the property, typically we’d ask a customer to do it themselves as you’ve now done. 

Hi,

As I said, the MDS person had to ask me what the problem was as he’d been given no information by OVO.

There is no vulnerability in the property, as I told the person on the online chat with OVO when the appointment was arranged.

Hey @GrandpaG,

How frustrating for you, did you delay filling in a smart meter health check under the premise that MDS were going to resolve your issue?

If you contact the Support Team there will be a record of the agent who took your call, notes about the booking and they can get to the bottom of why MDS came in the first place. 

If it was booked incorrectly, this can be fed back internally to the agent. 

Thanks Emmanuelle_OVO,

I had tried the health check before my new meter numbers were recognised and I didn’t seem to get anywhere, so I then decided to try the online chat.

I have a copy of the chat, and after looking at “previous notes” your agent seemed to decide that I didn’t need to complete a health check and started the process of booking an appointment. I therefore assumed that the “previous notes” had all the information you needed. Maybe that’s not correct.

I didn’t know that an MDS engineer would be sent until I got the email confirming the appointment.

I submitted the health check after the MDS visit.

Now the health check has been completed, this will have gone straight to the smart support team. They’ll look into this issue for you @GrandpaG.

I hope it get’s resolved as quickly as possible.