My smart meter display is blank - Is the meter broken?

• date when Smart Meter first installed
• last date when your Meters gave actual readings to OVO
• type of Smart meter (SMETS1 with electric meter made by Secure?)

I have a smart metre and my gas metre doe snot have a reading - just a digital blank. How do I give my first reading?

Hi @ewanstirling - and welcome to the Forum.

I might need a bit more information than that! I don’t even know what type of gas Smart Meter you have.

However, as these meters have internal batteries, they would normally blank the display to save power. Simply press any of the buttons on the front and it will wake up for you.

Let me know here if you want further clarification.

Hi @ewanstirling and welcome! I’ve moved your question here as I think it’ll help determine if the meter has a fault or just in battery saving mode as @Transparent mentioned. 

Let us know how you get on with this! 

Cheers,

Alice

I joined OVO with a tariff that required installation of a smart meter. An Aclara SMETS2 meter was duly fitted in March 2021. The meter stopped sending data for electricity after two months, and my In-Home display also did not show electricity data. I am interested if other customers have had the same experience since. Ovo informed me of the failure and asked if I could do some tests and to send a manual reading, which was unsuccessful. Then they said that the meter needed to be replaced and arranged a date in June 2021. The meter engineer did not arrive on this date. After another phone call, a date was arranged for November 2021 (they are very busy people) and I was credited with £30 for non attendance. No-one arrived on this date either and I received another £30. Another date was confirmed for May  and again the engineer did not arrive. In each case the date and time had been confirmed in an email from Ovo. After the second non-attendance I was given the name of the installation company called SMS which has a website with a phone number for Ovo customer queries. I called them before the third visit date and they said they will call back to confirm. I received no call.

In the meantime, for ten months, Ovo has been been estimating my usage, based on some formula. I am not inclined to restrict my usage while this continues, but it is hardly the right attitude for a green energy company. It also shows poor communication between Ovo and SMS.

Sorry to hear that you have troubles with your meter. I don’t think there is any excuse for not showing up, but that would be on the contractor SMS, it seems. 

As to the delays, there seems to be a shortage of smart meters at the moment, and this may affect the ability to install replacements. See Issue 97 - Elexon BSC for one of the first mentions of this. The shortage is ongoing and may last for another year. 

So you are not alone in facing delays with smart meter issues. 

As for the estimation, OVO should be transparent in how they do that. Estimates from past measurements can be quite accurate as long as your usage patterns have not changed. 

I’m really sorry to hear about the issues you’ve been having with your smart meter, @MarcusEP.

As mentioned above a smart meter which can’t be read manually and has lost communication should be replaced. So it’s really disappointing to hear of your several missed appointments to get this sorted. 

In the meantime your usage will be estimated based on previous usage, which, as MrPuds mentions, should be fairly accurate if there’s been no major changes to your usage patterns/appliances. That said we should be aiming to get that meter replaced as a priority. I’ve arranged for us to confirm your account details via a Private Message here so we can look into this further for you. Access and respond to this message by heading to the menu in the top right-hand corner of any forum page.

I hope this helps.

My Smart Meter shows either a blank White or a blank Black screen and doesn’t respond when pressing it. Trying to ‘Wake’ it up does not work.

I’ve had this situation for weeks and only occasionally does it show readings spasmodically.

The last few days I’ve linked the Smart Meter to the “Loop” App and Loop gives accurate readings of usage and costs of both Electricity and Gas in my home at the same time that the Smart Meter screen remains blank.

Is my Smart Meter faulty?

Can you post photos of the meter please?

Hey @jgittings,

Sorry for the issues you’re having.

It’s unusual the screen is sometimes blank but sometimes allows you to ‘wake it up’ and take a read. Can you see reads on your Online Account? 

For this one, I'd advise contacting Support. In theory, if it’s still sending readings remotely it doesn’t matter and won’t affect your billing. But I appreciate you might want to take a manual reading as well!

We have a great guide about this topic you might find helpful:

• Faulty smart or traditional meters: Blank display, inaccurate, broken, noisy meters - DIY tutorial series Tutorial

Keep us posted with how you get on. 

Dear Emmanuelle,

I tried phoning and using the online Bott without any sucess, so I emailed the CEO yesterday, and received a reply that OVO will investigate.

Low and behold, today, no notification, but the Smart Meter is back up and working as it should.

I have smart electricity meter than has a blank LCD screen since June 22. I have contacted OVO on four occasions wasting hours in phone queues. OVO are unable to resolve this and continue to charge me a flat rate which is clearly incorrect. 
1. can the actual screen value be retrieved from the “dead” meter, and if not how can get a true reading. Changing the meter clearly will not help!

2. should I stop paying my electricity DD to force OVO to resolve this?

Please post photos of the issue. We can try to help with diagnostics here.

Per the terms of your contact however, nothing gives you the right to withhold or refuse payment under any circumstances. OVO will notice if you try, but you’ll instead trigger an automated debt collection and debt management process which could damage your credit record. Don’t risk it. The vast majority of that process is automated anyway.

Are you an OVO employee? Why won’t OVO contact me? Why do I have to sit on a phone for hours? Why did OVO cancel a technician visit on 29th September? 
I have sent photos to OVO, I have followed the rebooting procedure for the meter. Not sure what a few photos to you will do. What knowledge di you have other than read the website and follow the suggestions there? 

Thanks for the photo. It does look like the equipment is dead. But sometimes it might just be in sleep mode. Does it respond to any button presses? If it really is dead, the readings cannot be easily recovered.

I don’t work for OVO and can’t access your account. So I can’t answer most of those questions.

Give me 24 hours to sleep on this one. I’ll be back when I can.

Sadly it gets as far as the WAN light then flashing HAN then dead  it’s electricity only   Gas is analogue thank goodness  

I see. Regardless of any faults, your supplies will remain on if you’re a Pay Monthly customer and this applies to both electric and gas. It’s a safety mechanism that’s deeply buried in all smart meters.

It would appear that meter is stuck in a boot loop. Your best bet is to have it replaced with an S2 via an Emergency Meter Exchange. S2 is way more reliable anyway.

Sure but what is the true reading?  Why should I pay for an estimate? 

Hey @charlie lee,

Sorry for the issues you’re having. 

If your meter screen is dead, you can contact Support to book in a faulty meter exchange.

• Faulty smart or traditional meters: Blank display, inaccurate, broken, noisy meters - DIY tutorial series Tutorial

I’m sorry the previous appointment was cancelled, there’s many reasons appointments may be cancelled. Support should be able to tell you more. If the engineer cancelled within 24 hours you may be entitled to £30 compensation. See the advice on this similar thread:

If the engineer is able to take a reading from the meter they’re removing they will do so. If not, it’ll have to be estimated based on your historic and future usage figures. 

Hope this helps. 

I haven’t heard from OVO and I’m not sitting on a phone for another hour. 
As an expert, how do they recover the true reading from a dead meter?  
I find it really patronising that you offer £30 for a cancelled visit when I have heard zip from your employer since September.  Looks like a real sense of urgency here.