Skip to main content

Has anyone else with an Ivie Bud IHD had problems recently? At exactly 1am BST (midnight UTC) from Sunday 11th → Monday 12th mine stopped working. It just has a message scrolling across the bottom of the screen stating that the “Electricity Supply phas been] Disconnected” (Which it hasn’t). 
 

Chameleon have said that it’s because there’s no tariff information on my actual smart meter and, last week, Ovo were kind enough to reset the connection a couple of times and I made them aware of the comments from Chameleon about the information. Unfortunately, even after a couple of restarts, the message remains and there is no information being retrieved from the smart meter (no readings, nothing). 
 

The Bud had been working fine for months before this and I’d normally suspect a technical failure, but the timing is just too perfect and it feels like it’s a scheduled action of some sort that’s caused the issues (firmware update, potentially). Unfortunately there aren’t any diagnostic logs that are accessible.


The Bud is showing that it’s connected to both the meter and to the WiFi (not that the WiFi is relevant, but it at least shows that its radios are working). The only thing which may be of relevance, but it could also be coincidental: we did have a very, very brief power outage at 14:51 on Saturday 10th and I had initially suspected this to have caused the problem, but Ovo have confirmed that they are getting readings from the meter, so the meter is functional; it’s just the part that sends the data to the IHD that doesn’t seem to be working.

 

 Anyone else in the same boat, or have any advice, please?

Hey @chriswsmith ,

Hate to say this, but I feel that Chameleon need to fix this, or at least provide you more information. Anything that they’re OK with being posted to this forum will help me figure out your options.

Please post photos of your meter(s) and the ivie Bud. I’ll see what I can figure out in the meantime.


Thanks @Blastoise186 - I’ll get a shot of the meter in a bit. Any specific screens you’d like a shot of from the Bud?


Just helps with context mainly. :)

There’s a few clues I can sometimes pick up this way


Hi @chriswsmith , I have heard of some meter resets occurring during a power on/off cycle. The IHD only updates every few mins or so and might therefore not have seen the power outage. 
I did previously have an ivie bud but had to send it back as it couldn’t track my usage properly with my solar feed. There were occasions when I needed to reset the bud to regain data feeds but you need to make sure you don’t do a full reset otherwise you could lose the IHD - smartmeter pairing link altogether. I now use the Hildebrand IHD linked to the Bright energy app which has been really useful. 


I moved it to get a better pic - the connection to the meter is usually stronger than that - 2 or 3.


Except that the signal seems to be dead completely… Hmm...


Hi @chriswsmith , I have heard of some meter resets occurring during a power on/off cycle. The IHD only updates every few mins or so and might therefore not have seen the power outage. 
I did previously have an ivie bud but had to send it back as it couldn’t track my usage properly with my solar feed. I now use the Hildebrand IHD linked to the Bright energy app which has been really useful. 
 

I was thinking more along the lines of a surge to the meter when the power came back, rather than it causing just a missing reading or two. :)

It’s shown 0 on the IHD, but Ovo are getting true readings.


I think the equivalent Status Code on a Geo would be 28-2. So perhaps try rebooting the ivie Bud and see if that helps. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Otherwise, something else may need a reboot.


Except that the signal seems to be dead completely… Hmm...

Like I say: it’s fine now I’ve moved it back. The connection itself doesn’t seem to be the issue; it looks like a lack of data coming from the meter over that connection.


Back to 2.


Thanks! As things stand… My next suggestion would be to have the Comms Hub and Electric Meter rebooted remotely. This can be done without an engineer visit. If that doesn’t work, an engineer would have to do it locally.


The connection has been “reset” during a call with Ovo. I would suggest that would potentially be the comms hub. This was last week and unfortunately didn’t help.

 

I DID arrange for an installation of a gas smart meter in July, so I’ll probably have to await the engineer visit for that. The power needs to go down anyway during this visit, so it may fix it.


Reply