I did not and that (though happy it’s ‘fixed’) worries me. 

The only SR’s that have gone to your meter over the past few days are you’re read requests. 

I was just getting information together to unpair and repair @jewelie ‘s device but now I’m not sure that’s the solution. Is your IHD still showing the incorrect time Jewelie? 

Yes, it’s still wrong, by the same 2hrs 45mins exactly.

I’ll continue to be at home and free to take the calls on either of the numbers I gave you too, when it’s convenient for you.

Julie

x

Sorry to hear your smart meter In-Home Display (IHD) isn’t showing you the correct time, that is a confusing one and does indicate a bit more of a deeper issue, which is why it can’t be resolved by resetting the device.

As the time is automatically updated on the device through it’s connection to your meter, an incorrect time issue suggest the device isn’t fully linked up to your meters. In order to get this sorted it’s worth contacting our Support Team, who should be able to send out a message from the meter to the device to get them re-paired. 

There’s more info in getting the best out of your IHD on our device guides below - 

SMETS1 Pipit In Home Display (IHD) guide

SMETS1 Chameleon In Home Display (IHD) guide

SMETS2 In Home Display (IHD) guide

Don’t forget you can also check out your smart meter usage data on your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS).

Thank you!

:)

Thanks @BenS_OVO 

Well yes, I do now have some gas readings displayed on my Usage pages. But I’m not at all confident in the data that’s being presented.

I have assumed that the Comms Hub retains the 30-minute gas readings until OVO is once again able to retrieve them. So, Ben, when you prodded my Comms Hub yesterday (26th) you therefore retrieved four days of readings.

I find it very hard to believe that all of those days just happened to have precisely the same gas usage to two decimal points!

So let’s inspect those graphs (except Weds 25th which isn’t available to me)

      Please forgive the crude scaling to align the vertical kWh readings.

Now, I simply don’t believe these usage graphs to be true.

Firstly, there seems to be a considerable variation in the pattern. We wouldn’t expect this. All of these days had bright sunshine so my solar hot-water panels would be supplying almost all required heating from 10:00 to 16:00 ish.

Secondly, there are numerous readings which are completely absent. The 22nd has nothing after 16:30, the 23rd finishes at 19:30, and the 24th is blank from 2pm onwards.

Then there’s an amazing slide downwards from 3am to 1pm on 26th where the software has no data to go on!

So there’s something seriously amiss.

Either the Usage software is averaging the uncollected data across 5 days, resulting in the 59.26kWh each which I’m being billed for …

… or else it has real half-hour data which it can use to construct graphs for at least four of these days.

But both scenarios cannot simultaneously be valid!

@BenS_OVO- please feel free to change the software in my Comms Hub and meters while we try to find out what happening.

@jewelieand @Jon Langford do you have the same version of the Usage graphs as I’m seeing online? Or are you both on the earlier software?

@BenS_OVO I have some fairly unbelievable readings too. My usage remains constant but on two days I seem to have used twice a much electricity as normal.

Thanks @Jon Langford 

And do your Usage graphs and data format look to be a similar  to mine?

Or are you on the earlier User Interface?

I’ve replied, with screenshots of graphs, but it’s awaiting moderation for some reason (too many pictures?)  Julie x

Thanks @jewelie - so let’s tag @Tim_OVO in the hope that he can retrieve your message from the anti-Spam bin asap.

I know the bug you’re referring to in the Forum software (Insided). I used to get messages rejected almost daily. Darran and I spent months trying to isolate what was the likely cause, but failed to do so.

I don’t think it’s related to the number or size of screenshots, but in the process of investigation I decided that I would try to make my graphics as friendly as possible to the software. Thus I edit them in advance to be no more than 800pixels wide, and preferably below 630 (which is currently the default for graphics display).

As I use so many advanced features in my Forum responses (colors, graphics, internal links and external URLs) I’m currently using a different permissions to others. But that’s not a long-term solution. The bug needs to be isolated and fixed by Insided’s staff.

Try editing your graphics as I’ve suggested and then re-post. If you succeed, then send a PM to Tim asking him to delete the earlier copy in the Spam-bin.

@Tim_OVO @BenS_OVO @jewelie @Transparent 

When I add my daily electricity readings up manually for March 20th  I get a different total??? 

Also having trouble believing this dip at 12:00 midday

Hi @Jon Langford - That, to me, looks like a different/earlier User Interface to what I have.

You’re also showing electricity readings on that graph, aren’t you?

I’m looking at gas because I was noticing electricity readings being picked up by OVO overnight, whilst the gas wasn’t. That would indicate a break in data transfer between the actual gas meter and the “gas proxy”, which is within the Comms Hub. But such a ZigBee communication failure wasn’t indicated in the places I would expect to find it.

There’s no such issue with a SMETS2 electricity meter because it directly transfers data to/fro the Comms Hub via the Intimate Connector.

I think we’d need to know a great deal more about your electricity usage before we could draw any conclusions about the graph you’ve posted above. I can think of a number of reasons why a sudden drop at Noon would be valid.

Could you start by:

a: completing your Forum Profile so that us fellow customers can at least see the basic information about you and your usage

b: giving us an idea of what technical background/interest you have?

As you will have noticed, @BenS_OVO isn’t afraid of throwing technical terms in our direction; and last week @jewelie posted here:

  Monkeying about with tech is my idea of relaxation and fun, so absolutely yes!  :)

  (tbh It’s the main reason we got a smart meter…  gadget-lust!)

So our “techie” background enables us to quickly evaluate whether the data we’re seeing is derived from a “fair test” or not!

Moreover, we aren’t going to be too worried if Ben throws new software into our Comms Hubs which totally messes things up, because we’d still be able to work out if our Billing was correct or not. (And yes, Ben has crashed my Comms Hub before!). Being a test-site comes with attached risks.

Yes Electricity readings. KWh

Later interface, graph I posted is from the excel sheet I used to check the total KWh for the day.

There was no reason for the graph to dip at 12:00, no solar panels or heating turning off, nothing different from previous days.

I am still concerned about the mismatch between the manually summed daily total and the total reported the smart meter.

Have completed profile data, I am a retired medical research scientist.

Thanks @Jon Langford - and you live in a beautiful area of the country!

And with your professional background you will have the level of technical knowledge to keep up with @BenS_OVO ‘s techie-shorthand. And, unlike the majority of the UK population, you will at least know the difference between a kW and a kWh.

So as it was from Excel, I’m unsurprised I didn’t recognise the style of graph.

Can you grab a screenshot of the Usage Graph from your MyOVO page from a day either side of the above? That will enable us to compare against another typical day under similar weather conditions.

How long have you had SMETS2 meters?

When you look at the gas usage, are you seeing any half-hour (HH) data missing from the table?

What about consecutive HH slots with identical readings, such as I’m seeing?

No worries, I’ll do it again now I’ve got some time on my hands!

Note these are graphs from the gas, as that’s the only one with any clear, timed usage patterns (gas hot water cylinder heating.)  But it still looks there’s odd things happening on the gas readings.

Here’s a fairly typical normal gas usage graph; note the 6am-8am and 8:30pm-10:30pm peaks for heating the hot water cylinder (which also gets enough use during the night, because Crohns disease, that there should always be more work heating the water again in the mornings.)  Any other usage, from heating and cooking, are much less consistent or helpful.  

Now we have some odd looking examples.  Note the odd “delayed” morning peaks, and in some cases completely missing peaks.  I have on occasionally wondered why my IHD wasn’t reflecting that there had been gas usage some mornings even when I knew that some had been used but had put this down to IHD oddities. 

Then we have some fairly broken examples.  Delayed or missing peaks and periods of entirely missing readings.  (Nobody else nearby with smart meters, gas meter within about 6m of the electric meter, gas meter still registering huge battery life.)  Electricity readings recorded on the usage graphs on these days continued in full like other days.

And finally, the entertainingly crackers ones.

I’m pretty sure that if I had a device that ran at >=377MW I would know about it, as would probably the UN and many foreign intelligence agencies.  These two examples are suggestive of bugs 

Now, the total usage pattern of the gas and electricity over the year is, if I recall correctly, adding up to be about typical for us compared to before we moved to smart meters, so I strongly suspect at least some of the issues I’m seeing are just to do with the how these hourly usage patterns are being recorded and/or displayed. 

I’m not sure this helps, and might not be the same as what others are seeing, but it’s more information suggestive of more issues.  Certainly doesn’t instill much confidence in the graphs at first glance though.

Julie
x

Are you still reading this Topic @BenS_OVO ?

I’m eager to get these readings sorted because it’s impossible for OVO to make progress towards any Time Of Use tariff unless you can rely on the half-hourly usage being reported correctly.

Lots of info provided here, thanks @jewelie 

It’s a known issue this - I have raised it a few months back, when another forum user flagged it. I have just asked for an update on a fix, or workaround. 

When I hear, I’ll get back to you here :)

Thanks @Tim_OVO 

I think there are several “issues” here. Not just one.

• one meter (of 2) no longer sending readings back to OVO
• one meter no longer sending updates to the IHD, although readings are available online
• periods with meters reporting zero usage
• consecutive periods with identical usage being reported
• massively large readings within a period where there are no other readings

We really need to separate these out so that we are better able to report faults. That’s why we need @BenS_OVO to say which ones you’re already onto… and which ones still lack sufficient feedback for you to identify.

An update on the usage issue:

‘We need to further understand the patterns of behaviour. For instance does it always do it at the same hour or on the same day. Does it recover the next day etc. The advice has therefore been that they want us to take this into the lab and test. However given the current environment, we don’t have access to labs. We will therefore have this in our back log until we can regain access.”

For communication issues, I would make sure this isn’t something we know a fix for / can fix remotely send us a message on webchat via the Help Centre.

I don’t fully understand this.

And I also think there’s quite a bit of “information gathering” which can be done before anyone gets back in the Lab to start tinkering.

Three of us here (@Jon Langford , @jewelie and myself) and three more over here (@Wigwam66 , @pauleywauley and @Tiamun) are reporting similar combinations of faults with SMETS2 meters, all of which are communications failures.

Over the past 8 months, @BenS_OVO has picked up such faults, done some lab analysis, and then sent a SMETS command or a code update to an individual site which has resulted in a “fix”. So his tactics have been met with some reasonable level of success.

However, the combinations of these faults aren’t diminishing.

Whilst we have the time, and no one is in the SMETS Lab2, can we not use this Forum space to check through the symptoms we’re seeing in an attempt to define which might be inter-related?

We’d need someone like Ben to ask us for clarifications so that there’s a check-list prepared in advance of lab-time.

If OVO needs to know something like “does it always do it at the same hour or on the same day?” then we can answer that now.

I have a sneaky suspicion that some of the faults we’ve been reporting have got fixed “by accident” as Ben (or another Team Member) has manually sent a SMETS command. See here earlier in this Topic where Ben is “surprised” he fixed something!

Well I for one, and probably @jewelie too, would be quite happy for a command to be sent now. We can then report which faults if any have been changed/fixed.

We don’t need lab-time to do this.

I don’t favour each of us trying to report faults separately via the standard CS email address. That looses the advantage of us pooling our feedback together.

The Forum is a great platform for us to make progress on this.

What do you think @Tim_OVO ?

I’ll pass on the link of this topic onto the engineers, @Transparent - you make a good point. But alas my technically knowledge is limited. 

I don’t know if someone at OVO has been experimenting with sending SMETS Commands yesterday evening (16apr20), but there have been significant failures of my HAN and Mesh networks starting sometime after 8pm.

My IHD has been resetting itself, displaying the “three lights on”, followed by the network ID and “Welcome” messages.

It then mainly sulks with the display showing “Waiting for current data”, occasionally alternating with “Connection lost”.

Every so often the cycle repeats, starting again with “3 lights on”.

Since there’s no clock and the Zigbee signal strength is at minimum, I had a look at the indicators on the Comms Hub.

To my surprise, the HAN indicator was still showing the usual slow-flash pattern.

However, the MESH indicator is on the Medium flash. (I have an SKU2)

So with changes to two networks, I suspect this is due to a code update or SMETS Command, rather than a Comms Hub failure.

What do you think @BenS_OVO ?

Have you or your colleagues been tinkering?

Can you detect at your end the symptoms which I’m seeing here?

Hey guys,

I don’t think Ben would have done anything in this instance as he likely doesn’t have access to your account. Unless you’ve called up the Customer Services team, it sounds like the issue has resolved itself 

Cheers!

Well yes @Nancy_OVO - as it happens, my IHD was again yielding the correct data and my Mesh Network was once more on slow-flash yesterday (Sunday) morning.

But how did you know the issue had resolved itself?

I’m pretty sure Ben does know how to get at my meters because he ran through a number of code upgrades last year whilst we were trying to debug something else.

But, like him (see above), I’m wary of things just sorting themselves out. The frequency of these communication problems is increasing - 3 active threads on the Forum at the moment. And I believe this is the first occasion that a Mesh Network has claimed to have failed.

Us customers would like to provide better accuracy in our reporting. But we have absolutely no idea what OVO can detect of these issues. We need a feedback mechanism to help nail this down.

Hey @Nancy_OVO - I’m still hoping you can tell me:

But how did you know the issue had resolved itself?

If there’s some sort of command that allows you to see my meter status, then that could be the key to resolving this whole problem. 

Hi @Transparent - I’m sure Ben does know how to access your account but members of staff wouldn’t be randomly doing this without the explicit permission of the account holder. I’m sure he was granted this when he called you last year.