Lost Connection - Smart Meters not sending meter readings and no data on In-Home Display (IHD) - Why?

Hi @Bassman Is your IHD still showing usage 'correctly'? In that it's giving you kWh used and a cost projection? If so, then you can probably trust those since I believe the communication between the IHD and the meters is separate to the one between the meters and OVO.

Does your online account definitely show no readings being sent by your meter, that's why you're doing it manually? If so, then it's possible there's a communication error somewhere.

If you only got the meters in April, then I think this might be the right link for you to check if your meters are doing what they should be.

Smart Meter Health Check Form

Or you can try this heath check yourself

SMETS2 Health Check

Hi @TheCustomer and thanks for sharing this negative experience. I’m sorry to hear of the issues you’ve had getting through to our Support team. 

We have web chat and WhatsApp channels which avoid any hanging around. Here’s a link to all our contact channel options. 

Are you not seeing any smart meter readings for the 9th-11th? You can confirm this here: https://account.ovoenergy.com/meter-readings/history/electricity

If we’re not getting your readings for 5 or more days, you’ll be able to submit them yourself here: https://account.ovoenergy.com/meter-readings - you can also check what the issue with the meter is here:

On that topic there’s a link to a form which will get straight to the right team at OVO!

Hi @Bondensbabe are you signed up to the Priority Services Register? That would be a good start to enable you to request a visit to read your meters

https://www.ovoenergy.com/register-for-priority-services

Depending on you display type, this might help to guide you to getting a meter reading from it (it does depend on a connection to the smart meter)

Or

How is it that on the 21st January 2023 I received an email from ovo saying that my meter is not sending readings to them, yet when I look up my bills online it tells me how much electricity I am using daily and how much my bill is. My small smart meter box has never worked properly in my home to show me how much I use daily and the cost but when I go online they can tell how much I am using daily. But my meter is not sending them readings still because they estimated my electricity usage again yesterday!!! 
so please can someone explain to me if my electricity meter is not working properly then how can they work out how much I have to pay for my bill??? My meter still reads the old standing charge of 24p a day.. when I am charged 37p a day on my bill.

Well as of the 25th October my IHD and OVO app have stopped updating with data from the meters.

The Electric stopped reporting at about 02:00 and the Gas stopped 08:30. The IHD has since dispelled lost connection and with error codes for the Comms as 26-0, and the Gas and Electric as codes 29-2 and 28-2. 

The IHD has been in the same location since provided 4 years ago and has worked flawlessly. So location is not an issue.

On the Electric meter both WAN & HAN lights flash on/off.

Me being pessimistic but this seems to have occurred right at the end of the transition of SSE to OVO as certain sites/services are being closed as noted here (https://sse.co.uk/smart-meters/smart-meter-problems-and-solutions).

Just seeing if anyone else is experiencing this issue.

Thank you, a request has now been submitted hopefully be resolved quicker than the 45 days they indicate 

Is there any law that says that the gas supplier should fix the problem (intermittent gas smart meter readings) resulting from the excessive distance of gas smart meter from the comms hub and electricity meter?

An engineer sent by the gas and electricity supplier to replace a non-functioning gas smart meter said that the old gas meter stopped working and displaying anything, because its battery was prematurely discharged, because when the distance is too large between the gas meter and the electric meter for effective communication between them, then the gas meter tries all the time to contact the electric meter (or the comms hub) and that discharges the battery very quickly (he said that normally the battery should last about 15 years). 

The engineer said that changing the gas meter alone cannot resolve the problem, because the gas meter is too far away from the comms hub and the electric meter, and because of that it cannot communicate with those devices correctly. To remedy this situation the engineer said that his next visit should be booked by the customer with the supplier (he explicitly said that he cannot book it, the customer has to do it), so that he could change the old electric meter and the old comms hub to Dual Band Comms Hub and Dual Band Electric Meter, because dual band comms hubs can work on two different frequencies and one of those frequencies is suitable to cover the longer distance between the gas meter and the electric meter, thus solving the problem of not effective communication between those devices due to too large distance between them.

He also said that his next visit has to be booked, because this is the only supplier that has the rules that do not allow him to do the exchange of the electric meter and the comms hub during his visit when he was exchanging the gas meter. He said that with any other supplier he would be able to do it in one day, in one visit.

The request to the supplier to book the engineer's next visit has been not replied for months despite the reminders sent. Eventually the supplier confirmed that they can see that there is a problem with the gas smart meter, as it is in and out of communication with them. According to them it does show as communicating with them but they do also receive estimates as well whereas they should just be getting smart meter reads.

Yet, because occasionally they do get the smart reads (no wonder, since the engineer installed a new gas meter with a new battery) they do not want to do anything with this.

So they ignored the engineers requirement to change the hub and electricity meter to dual band ones. The engineer did not propose this remedy as optional, he said this has to be done to complete the job. But the supplier decided to not complete the job. 

So they apparently expect a different outcome from the same circumstances that were before. But the outcome cannot be different, because circumstances are the same, the laws of physics are the same, the situation is the same, the battery in the gas meter will again be depleted prematurely, because it still works at the same frequency that was unsuitable for the large distance between the gas meter and the electric meter.

Is there any way to convince the supplier (preferably by quoting some rules or regulations) that they should listen to the engineer's advice and change the comms hub and electric meter to dual band ones to solve once and for all that long distance communication problem of the gas meter with the comms hub?

Also, they charged for months for gas only based on the estimates and not the actual readings. The readings were unavailable even manually, because the battery was so depleted that the gas meter display was blank.

Thus, it was not possible to get those readings in any way. But this is their fault that they did not fix this issue so long before (and are doing the same mistake again now). 

So shouldn't they in such circumstances cancel the estimated gas usage or at least offer a reduced price for that period, as they likely overcharged their customer (they estimated based on winter usage, while it was spring and summer, when the actual usage was much lower)?

OVO

Hi, our smart meter stopped sending meter readings back in Nov ‘23. This has happened before so I was not overly concerned and sent my meter readings manually. Conversations with OVO were carried out and a date was agreed to replace the E meter on 25 Jan ‘24. The engineer came ok, tried resetting the modem by removing the service fuse but to no avail so the meter required changing, problem was the meter is outside and it was raining so no meter change. This I understand as a retired Electrical Engineer. Now comes the weird part. Over all this time my OVO web site account shows daily usage of both E & G. And I have reived a text from the local Electricity supplier stating that the meter has told them that there may be a power outage at our property! Can anyone explain why all the info is being sent to OVO/Electricity supplier but not sending meter readings. In addition the IDU has not had any connection during all this episode.

Thanks.

I already know the reading detail, I just wondered how usage can be sent but not meter readings. Are they separate systems?

It is separate data.

The 30min consumption data that is transmitted to ovo on here isn't added up to make the data on any other page.

https://account.ovoenergy.com/usage?datePeriod=daily&unit=kwh

So these pages use different data from the meter

https://account.ovoenergy.com/usage?datePeriod=monthly&unit=kwh

https://account.ovoenergy.com/usage?datePeriod=yearly&unit=kwh

https://account.ovoenergy.com/meter-readings

You are only ever billed what you see on here and it will always be clear what is from the meter as it will say Smart.

https://account.ovoenergy.com/meter-readings

It is possible that customers can't see both 30min consumption data and the register data you see on the meter reading page for example if there is a problem.

If you can see 30 min data on the Day tab this will be from the meter, it is never estimated 

The  other usage tabs could contain real or estimated data.