Hi there @mrrodge ,

I’m Blastoise186, one of the forum volunteers here. :)

Bit of a tricky one this one… Who is your current supplier by the way?

Depending on how the smart functionality was disabled, it may be possible to restore it but I can’t say for sure. Could you show us some photos of the meters please and we’ll see if we can figure out your options.

Thanks!

Wow thanks for the quick reply!

Would be a dream come true if you could give me a few buttons to press.

Pics below.

Hmm… As I suspected…

It looks like the supplier might have decommissioned the Comms Hub (and possibly the entire Site) with SMETS Commands. Either that, or there’s a WAN failure which I find unlikely given you’re on the Arqiva WAN.

@Lukepeniket_OVO just curious, but is it possible for your sekrit engineer-only DCC app thingy to re-commission devices that have been decommissioned with the Decommission Device command? I’m not asking if you’re able to do it right now of course, just whether it can be done!

I’m now being told by my current supplier that meters in dumb mode cannot be switched back to smart mode and they need to be replaced.  The meters can’t be replaced as nobody can get hold of them apparently so they won’t come out.

Please don’t tell me your supplier is trying to DOWNGRADE you from SMETS2 to SMETS1 meters… I’ve seen this trick attempted before somewhere… Are you with E.On Next by any chance?

Thanks for the info, much appreciated. I've everything crossed at the minute…

Struggling to get my head around how it's possible to brick nearly new meters to the point they need replacing… it seems so wasteful. Time, money, fuel, materials etc.

Forgot to mention, we're with Octopus.

I fail to see how they’ve been bricked either, unless EDF did something stupid. This stuff shouldn’t interfere with Wi-Fi anyway and if it does, it’s more likely you’ve got a bad Wi-Fi router or it’s not set up properly.

Luke is an OVO/SSE Smart Energy Engineer who helps out on the forum. Unlike me, he is an OVO/SSE employee but he generally helps out here in a personal capacity. You could say Luke is our go-to for any smart meter stuff that stumps us. :)

Fingers crossed for Luke then, thanks.

Long story with the wi-fi. I actually run my own ZigBee network for iot so manually configure the channels on that and my wi-fi to keep them separate. As I understand it I think the ZigBee on the meter roams to maintain separation automatically (not standard ZigBee), so my theory is it tried to avoid the channel my ZigBee network is on and crashed into the wi-fi frequency.

My access point was on the wall directly behind the meter cupboard so I think that could have been the culprit as well.

Hindsight tells me I shouldn't have complained now as I reckon the engineer just came and 'dumbed' it as I wasn't that bothered about the smart features at the time and wanted to preserve my iot (it was my security system).

Now obviously we have the EV and a huge cost increase coming the smart meter takes priority. If the wi-fi goes again, I'll fix it some other way!

Hehehe, yeah I think your AP was probably too close. The Comms Hub does try to get out of the way of both ZigBee and Wi-Fi and has the same Channel Agility as other ZigBee stuff does, but maybe your environment is just really crowded?

I get the feeling you’re using something like Ubiquiti UniFi somehow (that’s what I use)...

Oh and I’m afraid Luke isn’t allowed to attempt to commission your site again, partially because you’re not with OVO and also because technically he’s not supposed to remote commission anything that’s not directly in front of him.

He can offer advice that might help though!

Understand that, had a feeling it was coming. Any advice greatly appreciated though!

Funnily enough I do have unifi now but at the time it was a BT hub 6.

Thinking about it I'm pretty sure that whatever the engineer did, he did it here, on the meter. I was stood with him with the IHD in my hand when it went off and he was pressing things in there but I can't remember exactly what he said. Surely if it was done remotely they wouldn't have gone to the expense of sending someone out, they'd have just done it?

Well, there’s your problem. BT hubs are terrible. I’m not even going to use the words I want to use because while I can bypass the automated filters, the human moderators would yell at me… :)

But at the same time… If I wasn’t allowed to bypass the AutoMod, then half my comments would end up being swallowed by the spam filter and I’d have to wait for a human moderator to release them. XD

Let me show you how I’ve got some of my UniFi config set up, as it might help you avoid problems again. This config worked great at a charity I used to be at, so if you replicate it I’m hoping it’ll work for you too. Feel free to set the 5GHz band to 160MHz if you want to though!

Something like this for all your Wi-Fi networks should make it ZigBee HAN friendly for the most part. All your ZigBee stuff should play nice with the ZigBee HAN as well, but please expect some temporary weirdness as it all settles down again.

As for whatever the engineer did? I suspect it could only be done locally for one reason or another. Even if the special engineer only DCC mobile app was used, they still need to know what devices are involved.

Certainly if re-commissioning is required, then that definitely will have to be done locally!

Thanks - much appreciated.

I just need to know it can be done - at the moment Octopus just want to replace the meters and won't come out because they say they don't have any meters to install. It's been like this for months now and we're getting desperate, so I'm trying to argue that they can send someone to press the buttons again because there's nothing actually wrong with the meters, so no need to wait for stock.

Their argument is that it's not possible to make them smart again when they've been made dumb, which I'm struggling to believe.

They did originally work and our neighbours all have them, so no WAN issue.

They don’t have any meters to install… Yet probably have warehouses full of the stuff for all I know. Oh well…

I’m extremely confident that it should be possible to recommission, because surely some engineers accidentally decommission from time to time? And in those cases, I’d argue it should be possible to set it all back up again on the spot. But Luke knows more about it than I do.

Hi @mrrodge 

I took this away to one of our smart meter subject matter experts. They’re educated guess on this was:

“There is essentially no such thing as making a SMETS2 meter 'dumb' really.. it was something that could be done with SMETS1 but the functionality was not enabled for SMETS2 solutions.. it's either Smart and fully communicating with the DCC, or they've done something to stop the meter’s comms hub communicating...

Now, from the pictures posted, the WAN status light is red.. but I don't know how they've done that.. The challenge in being able to provide some help to this poster on the forum is we don't have access to the information we need. We need to see how the devices (meters and CH) are held in the Smart Metering Inventory. That's within the DCC. Only the Supplier can do that really.. If we knew how the devices are held on the SMI, we'd be able to advise better on next steps..  I must say that it's highly unlikely anything can really be done remotely and would need a site visit..  I suspect Octopus's stance is that replacing it all is easier.”

Please take that all with a pinch of salt, as we’re only making educated guesses here. My advice, head back to Octopus for some answers… 

To charge an EV, a dumb meter works fine - I mean, dual rate tariffs work just fine with dumb meters. It's a recent trend that some energy providers insist on smart meters to allow an EV specific tariff, but when I had checked it last, the special EV charging tariff didn't work out cheaper than my at-the-time dual rate tariff.

Therefore, I have had my EV charging using a dumb meter since late 2021. I did get a smart meter installed recently in 2024, but I want to go the opposite way and turn in into a dumb meter. The reason is that the provider was charging me day rate tariff (inadvertent misconfiguration perhaps, though the "inadvertent" part is something I'm not sure about) and when detected, they updated the settings via remote config. If they can do that, they can also, should they want to fleece the customer, charge them day rate tariff for night rate electricity usage in the future again (basically, whenever they want, resetting it when they want as well, so there would be some movement on night rate tariff though most of night rate usage could still be billed at day rate - they control all this remotely). There is a trust issue I now have with the providers. 

They can't do this with dumb meters. So, I'm all for dumb meters because of this.

I suspect that this might constitute fraud and would at least be an infringement of Ofgem rules and the suppliers’ legally-binding standard licence conditions. You have a contract with your supplier to provide electricity at specific rates and (in your case) at specific times. They cannot legally vary these without giving reasonable notice, so you have time to find an alternative arrangement. 

One of the beauties of the smart meter network is the ability to apply changes remotely, e.g. tariff changes, software updates and configuration changes. These powers are strictly regulated, but of course mistakes are sometimes made. A visiting engineer can also get something wrong, but every supplier has a duty to ensure that everything is working properly.  

Your fears are groundless.

About whether these are groundless, I cited specific instance - fact. You however have provided an opinion, not a fact.

What you call a "beauty" of smart meters isn't a beauty to me at all, but a function that affects me rather directly but I have no control over other than monitoring my day rate readings daily at the start of night rate and at the end of it, not something that's viable. 

Why would you side with them and against me using rather harsh an opinion (calling my "fears" groundless) even when presented with something concrete that has happened? 

To each their own. I don't like to be at the receiving end of a fraud and it takes considerable effort and time to get such fraud redressed, so I would rather avoid it than face the possibility of it occurring after having suffered through this so-called smartness once, thank you very much. 

By the way, until I did the grunt work of monitoring the day rate and night rate readings at the start and end of the dual rate tariff times, their position was that the problem was not that I was being charged day rate for night rate usage, but that the day rate usage was okay and I should be charged even more because there's nothing happening during the night rate times.

The default position someone takes is a good indicator of bias.

Thanks for your opinion, it doesn't change mine though.

The fear I was referring to was “they can also, should they want to fleece the customer, charge them day rate tariff for night rate electricity usage in the future again (basically, whenever they want, resetting it when they want ...” This is what won’t ever happen, although, as I mentioned, mistakes can happen. 

I’m not taking anyone’s side. If there was a billing error on your account (“the provider was charging me day rate tariff …”, presumably for night-time usage), the supplier should have rectified it as soon as you drew attention to it and re-billed the account accordingly. Is this not what happened?

It’s also worth noting that once you’ve gone Smart, there is NO downgrade path.

There’s also no way to make a SMETS2 Meter “go dumb” so to speak. That functionality was possible in SMETS1 for a while, but completely eliminated in SMETS2 due to the problems it caused.

Additionally, Traditional Meters are no longer manufactured - this applies to both Credit and Prepayment. VERY limited stocks of them might remain in inventory with a few suppliers, but 99.99999999% of that inventory is either broken, testing-only (which are banned from the field), emergency spares or intended exclusively for exotic setups - you can’t just request any of those.

OVO for example, keeps a handful of Traditional Meters and supporting devices kicking about one of its offices, but these are exclusively for testing and training purposes and cannot be used in the field under any circumstances. The only reason they keep those ones at all is purely so that OVO can train engineers and other staff on how to work with them and test internal systems to make sure they work as intended (and admittedly, as a museum of old stuff, so to speak). I would imagine however, that they’ll be disposed off eventually at some point after the Smart Meter rollout hits 100% of the UK.

Once the stocks a certain supplier has reaches zero, that’s it - game over. They won’t be getting any more of them so ultimately Smart Meters are the only option going forward.

the supplier should have rectified it as soon as you drew attention to it and re-billed the account accordingly. Is this not what happened?

Not yet.  I guess it eventually will happen.  But how they would apportion the day time reads versus night time reads is also quite subjective.  I thought they’d use the long usage history of my dual rate tariff whilst the meter used to work properly with my previous provider - using my closing meter reads with the previous provider (since the error crept in ever since I switched to the new provider), but they want to record the usage for just a week after their engineer has visited the property and checked the meter.  I do not know why they are waiting for the engineer’s visit anyway since they now pretty much know very well it was misconfiguration at their end and which they have corrected by sending an update remotely to the smart meter.  So, no, not rectified as soon as it was brought to their attention and unclear whether I’m going to get a fair refund anyway.  No apologies, no owing up to their mistake, nothing.  Great reluctance to even acknowledge they updated the configuration remotely to fix this.  Initially, reluctant to even acknowledge that the mistake was at their end and presumption that I should be charged even more for night reads not advancing.

 there is NO downgrade path.

Oh welll, shoving something down customers’ throats without the customer having any semblance of control over it. Every update sent to the smart meter must clearly say what it’s changing, what the old and new values are in the update in case any configuration values are changing and how the update affects the function of the meter; I would personally say it should require customer approval as well.  It hasn’t been thought through to safeguard customer interests - the recourse at law is a big roadblock for the customers because a legal redressal is never easy to obtain - too much time and effort needed (and still no guarantee/assurance that it would succeed anyway).

It is what it is.  Resigned to this fate.  I fail to see how the smart meters add value (for the humble customer) so far, other than helping the provider with a very detailed view of how electricity is used in various customer’s premises hour-by-hour (actually, half-hourly updates - a requirement of the new tariff), which, in propaganda, is supposed to help the providers greatly optimise the infrastructure at their end in the future but actually would invariably be used to arrive at novel tariffs which would be more beneficial to the provider than the customer (once they ascertain what the ‘indispensable’ usage times are, they’d start charging more for those periods - this is how free-market economy works so it’s bound to happen sooner or later).  It is already known what the times for peak demands in usage are at a grid/macro level, general usage patterns are known very well at the macro level.

But it feels like I have effectively managed to hijack the thread’s original intent, so I’ll not post about it anymore.  The intent behind my original post was to merely point out there can be downsides of the so-called ‘smart’ meter, it’s not all hunky-dory and therefore maybe the OP should re-consider enabling the ‘smarts’ in their smart meter. 

OK. It sounds as if this wasn’t a billing problem at all, but a problem with the meter wrongly recording peak and offpeak usage. Sorry for misunderstanding, but we have seen cases where the supplier has transferred offpeak readings to the bill and charged the usage at peak rates and vice versa. Since this is a new supply (only a couple of months old), the damage isn’t overwhelming.

The meter is configured in accordance with settings agreed with the DNO - they’re the ones who decide when to offer cheaper energy to suppliers. These takes the form of a set of timings, one for each meter register (peak and offpeak). It’s quite possible for these to be applied to the meter the wrong way round, but it’s equally possible to correct by remote commands. It sounds like this is what has happened in your case. The engineer visit is probably unnecessary; the tests to be done can easily be done by you the customer.

Once it’s confirmed that the registers are now recording at the right times, it will be a simple matter for the supplier’s billing people to calculate your peak/offpeak usage again from day 1 to the day the configuration was changed and re-bill you accordingly.

Again, another helpful feature of smart meters is that they remember what they’ve recorded, some of the data for 13 months. This is available to both customers and suppliers if necessary. You’ll find a wealth of detailed information about smart meters, what they can and can’t do and their advantages and disadvantages at this site: Explaining Smart Meters clearly and without bias: The full story