Hi @vrmike . Welcome to the Forum. Great question to start with.

When you book a Smart Meter installation with OVO and they discover that there is insufficient signal to the gas meter, then you will indeed end up with only the electricity meter. That’s the default position… and one that gets raised regularly: see here.

You’ve obviously done a bit of research because you’re aware of the development of a pseudo-ZigBee running at 868MHz. There are other solutions being worked on by the Alt HAN Company.

A ZigBee repeater is a possibility, but is not currently “approved” for use on a SMETS2 site because it introduces a security loophole.

The Mesh network you mention would achieve nothing to resolve your situation anyway. It’s a strategy used for linking homes to the Wide Area Network, whereas your inferred deficiency is on the Home Area Network.

So I’d recommend that you apply for the Better Smart tariff, book for the Smart Meter installation, and then post back here to let us know how it goes.

Hi @Transparent, I joined OVO on the basis of their commitment to renewable energy, but in the end decided not to go with a tariff requiring a smart meter. I don't see any point in getting a smart meter for electricity only, as it currently provides no advantage - no EV or other devices that could benefit from dynamic tariffs. The main benefit for me right now is if I could have smart meters for both gas and electricity to avoid manual meter readings, but due to the distance and walls between them, it is certain that a smart gas meter is not viable due to lack of connectivity to the electricity meter acting as base station. At the point where I have to remember to read one meter, it is just as easy to read both.

Hopefully in a year's time when I renew tariffs, OVO will be able to provide a repeater/booster to allow this connectivity between SMETS2 meters, in the same way as it used to for SMETS1 ones. It is disappointing that the industry as a whole is pushing smart meters so heavily, but is not willing to provide a complete solution for a sizeable minority of households where the distance between the gas and electricity meters is too great for smart meters.

Thanks, Mike

Thanks @vrmike - those observations are not only valid, but also useful feedback to OVO.

Presently there are a number of problems emerging with the widespread installation of SMETS2 Smart Meters, which were not detected in the Trial Sites. This is to be expected. Even a 0.1% failure rate within the communication links to gas meters is still a massive 21,000 customers!

It seems perfectly understandable that you should hold off pending the results of the Trials from the technological solutions being developed by the Alt HAN Company.

Excellent info. I believe that the number of Zigbee failures will grow as the current vogue in new buildings is to place the gas meter on the front of the house and the electricity at maximal distance down the side of the house. The lower frequency provides some hope, if and when available,  for better penetration. I never understood why the 2.4GHz band was chosen as there is limited information to communicate.

I am currently an EDF customer and their knowledge on this issue has been poor. I have a Landis and Gyr SMETS2 gas meter which was installed and I was told it would take up to 30 days to come on stream - however neither I nor EDF have seen any output. 

They did mention boosting the power (whether this is the switch to the lower frequency I don't know). Is this something that can be done remotely understanding that this will clearly have a negative impact on the battery life.

Hi @Plug and welcome to the Forum.

I’m not aware of any SMETS2  Gas Meters or Communications Hubs with 868MHz capability which have yet been granted approval for installation in UK. If you tell us the model number of your L&G gas meter we should be able to confirm what frequencies it offers.

If your meter installation was recent, then the engineer would not have left site without receiving confirmation that there was effective communication to/fro your gas meter. Without that, the off-site commissioning couldn’t be completed and EDF would be unable to claim the grant payment.

Are you not seeing gas data of any kind displayed on your In Home Device? Showing you this and demonstrating how it works forms part of the installation procedure. The gas meter costings wouldn’t be correct because your tariff would not yet have been downloaded, but you should have seen some usage data in order for the engineer to “tick that box”.

I can’t see how the use of a different frequency in future would adversely affect battery life. But if you have a better understanding of the underlying physics, then please share it here!

My relatively new Smets2 meters work well sending in the daily readings for a while then stop sending the readings.   This means a lengthy wait for an engineer to come to put things right.  I suspect the problem is weak signal strength in my home.  

Is it possible to install a booster or aerial of some sort to cure this problem?  

Hey @Ken King ,

Yup, that might be possible. OVO would need to send an engineer out but this is definitely possible.

Many thanks.  Will ask the engineer when they come.

Hi,  the reply to my original post 2 years ago indicated that OVO does NOT provide a booster so that a SMETS2 gas meter can communicate with the HAN base on the SMETS2 electricity meter that is too far away (more than 18m, but less if several walls are in the way). 

Can you please confirm that there is now such a booster for SMETS2? That would make it worth signing up for smart meters, as so far the solution is inadequate for us due to the distance between meters. OVO did provide relays for SMETS1, but these do not work for SMETS2.

If there is still no such booster, can anyone from OVO confirm in writing that if one signs up for smart meters:

1. A SMETS2 gas meter is only installed if the engineer can verify that the signal from the HAN base station on the SMETS2 electricity meter is strong enough
2. If no SMETS2 gas meter can be installed, OVO billing is flexible enough to allow automatic readings for electricity, but manual readings for gas

Thanks

Mike

There are now solutions for SMETS2. Two of the main examples being Dual-Band Comms Hubs and the AltHAN Solution. Both of them are ideal for unlocking many tricky installs.

You’ll get one of the two solutions automatically during the engineer visit if needed - you don’t need to explicitly request them. :)

Let me know if you'd like more information about either of these. 

OVO no longer provides Smart Relays AT ALL due to a nasty unfixable security bug in them, even for SMETS1. They were never offered for SMETS2 because there was no secure way to do so.

Thanks for your prompt reply, so I should indicate when booking smart meter installation that my meters are about 17m apart with 5 walls in between - and the engineer will then automatically bring a DBCH and/or AltHAN solution with them? That would be impressive!

Yup. A certain Smart Meter Engineer who sometimes stops by this forum has told us he’s managed to get 50m+ out of Dual-Band installs no problem. They have an impressive range.

You can definitely mention the distance and walls in the notes, as it helps with planning things out. Whichever solution works would be the one you’d get.

I’ve seen this kit in person myself - as well as the test kit that identifies what to use - and it’s impressive stuff.