Newly installed smart meter - How long until I see smart meter readings on my online account?

I have the Smart Meters instaled from 10.03.2020 and I would like to know if I still have to send the read meters.

Hello @Gheorghe Maruntelu 

Nope. You shouldn't need to do anything anymore. OVO should now be able to retrieve your readings. 

You should be able to check your usage via https://my.ovoenergy.com/login

Hi @Gheorghe Maruntelu - it can take up to 5 weeks before your new Smart Meters are fully commissioned and your correct Tariff is sent to them.

Therefore it is quite likely that you will still receive one Bill which contains estimated readings. You don’t need to take any action on this. Just allow your Direct Debits to continue as normal. Because Billing is based on cumulative readings, any errors will get automatically corrected on the following month’s Bill.

Have a look at the Topic about Smart Meter Installation, where you will lots of other useful information and contributions from Forum members.

I finally have a working IHD after a follow up visit, but there is no proper usage figures showing on the app and when I look at meter readings it tells me I have to submit them manually. The meters were installed at the end of March.  Any ideas why it is I get these details on my app page?  Are they still not working correctly?  I have to say this smart meter installation has been a nightmare from the start. 

Phil

Hey there @Dellara !

I’m Blastoise186, one of the forum volunteers who helps out here.

Welcome to the forum. Sorry for any trouble with getting your smart meters and IHD working, but it does take six to eight weeks for the activation process to go through. What kind of problems were you having, if you don’t mind sharing? I’m just curious more than anything else and it helps me to learn more of the issues members come across.

If you’ve only recently had the meters installed at the end of March, they’ll not be fully activated yet as there’s a commissioning process that has to take place first. Only once that's done will you start to see everything fire up. You should see everything start working as expected by mid-May at the latest and smart readings will then start flowing in after that. Your IHD might also be a bit wonky until then, but it will settle down as the activation process makes progress.

Hang in there for now though! You should see results soon. But please carry on submitting manual readings for now. I promise you won’t need to do them yourself for much longer!

I think I know what’s going on here, and this is actually a pretty easy fix. If you still don’t see Daily usage after mid-May, it might be because your meters are currently set to Daily mode rather than Half-Hourly. Daily is the default unless you specify otherwise and the options are Half-Hourly, Daily and Monthly. Half-Hourly would still only submit daily, but would show usage data under the Daily tab.

If you’d like to have this turned on, feel free to let the Support Team know and they’ll be able to make the arrangements. It does take a few days for any changes to go through, but once that’s done you’ll start to see the usage data feed in as per your preferred level.

Blastoise, thanks so much for your reply. I did read up on smart meters, but it's just a minefield of information. I was looking at one info point which did it should just work after installation. Obviously I need to wait which is what I'll do. 

The whole process has been a trial from the start, to be honest. Initially I was told that I'd be put on the smart meter list. This was probably shortly after I changed to OVO last March. I heard nothing so rang again in the Autumn to be told that it was being worked on and I'd be contacted by that person I spoke to. I heard nothing so chased it to be told because of covid there would be a delay. I waited and nothing so in early 2021 I went on the website and was able to book an appointment online and little wait. They came and did it, but the ihd never worked so I was put on a follow up visit. I heard nothing for two months and so chased it with success. The guy who came got the ihd working (he had to completely change the meters as the gas wasn't reporting) and do here we are now. Working ihd, but the app is next to useless because it's all wrong and tells me I need to submit a reading manually. I will however do as you say and wait. 

As an aside, the engineer detected a gas pressure drop which was just within the limit so it didn't me to be capped off. Thank goodness. That would have sent me over the edge!

Phew. What a lot of trouble!

I do appreciate your reply to me though. Fingers crossed. 

Phil 

Ouch, that’s not as smooth as it could have been. Thanks for sharing @Dellara ! And I’m sorry for the trouble!

I’m only a forum volunteer myself rather than a paid OVO employee, however I hear you there. Do you have any links to where there was anything that said it’ll all just work straight away? If you do, sharing those would be especially handy.

We’re always happy to offer free advice about pretty much anything. So if you’re ever baffled by the minefield, you’re welcome to stop by and we’ll cut through the noise.

I keep in touch with @Tim_OVO and @Jess_OVO (and the other moderators) on a regular basis and they are OVO employees. So I’d definitely be happy to ask for this to be fed back to the teams. And if you know where you saw the claims about it working straight away, I can recommend for that to be fixed as well, provided it’s somewhere on an OVO website.

The app should stop asking you to put meter readings in once your smart meters wake up and are properly activated. It’s actually more useful than you might think, so I would encourage you to hang in there with it. Sometimes the IHD actually manages to wake up earlier in the commissioning process than everything else - but in most cases the IHD is still only showing demo data at this point. Once it’s all fully active, everything will sync up properly. :)

I’m pretty confident the app will start working properly within a few weeks or so. But if it doesn’t, please do stop by the forums again. We love puzzle solving here and if there’s any bugs that need to be checked out, this is the perfect place to raise them. Any bug report that’s raised on the forums can be escalated directly to the Tech Teams, which can speed up the task of getting it fixed.

If you don’t get any results by the end of May though, definitely stop by here again. We’ll help you out with this as much as you need.

I'm not sure where I saw reference to the smart meter would just start working. There are a number of reference pages on the website and app. There seem to be a lot of confusion. For instance I have just read that daily usage when it's up and running is not available in £ on the app. Only the website. So if I want to view this I have to go to the website. Is that right?  Seems crazy to have to do that. 

One other issue I've had. When I have gone to submit readings on the app it won't take my gas reading because the reading was zeroes when I had it fitted the first time and says “lower than previous”. So I have to take a photo of the meter and send it by email!  I do not intend to take any meter readings as it tells me and will wait for the meters to start reporting as they should. I know I'm paying more than enough (quite a bit more I think) to cover the cost. 

Let's hope this can sort itself soon and I get reliable info to help me budget. 

Thanks again for your time. My fingers are crossed!

Phil 

Gotcha, thanks @Dellara ! I’ll take a look around and see if I can find them. If any do need to be changed, I’ll flag them up. If you do happen to find them again, feel free to let us know.

I think the usage cost not showing up under Daily in the app might be a known issue that’s currently being investigated and should be restored in the near future. I’ve come across that one as well, so I’ll see if there’s any progress updates there.

If your estimated meter readings have been overestimated (and overcharged as a result) for any reason, this will be corrected automatically once an actual reading is submitted via any method and validated successfully. Any excess usage will be knocked off your account at that point and the account balance will be rehydrated to restore the balance to what it should be. You won’t have to pay for anything you didn’t use.

If your account went into debit in the meantime, this process might also swing the account back into credit and make it eligible for earning interest. It is important to submit at least one reading just before each billing cycle resets though, to help make sure your bills are accurate in the meantime. They’ll be corrected anyway, but it’s worth playing it safe.

As for the reading bug, that’s a good catch actually. It might depend on whether the old meter was still attached to your account at the time (which would mean the system was expecting readings from the old meter rather than the new one), but that will be fixed automatically once the new Meter Serial Numbers are linked to the account (which should be done by now).

Based on this however, let me see if @Tim_OVO can double check a few things here, just to make sure everything really is starting to sync up properly.

Thanks for hanging in there.

I'm currently showing £382 in credit so have leeway if all the readings are askew. I last submitted a photo of my meter reading for the gas on the 18th March. Up to then my electricity was reporting. Now of course it tells me neither is. 

I'll hang in there!

Phil 

Sounds like it’s been a pretty frustrating journey in getting functioning Smart Meters there, @Dellara, it’s certainly not the smooth process we aim to provide members when they upgrade to Smart Meter so this was disappointing to read.

If there was any misleading information you have found surrounding time frame for your online account to update, as @Blastoise186  has advised, we can certainly look to get this updated. We should explain it can take up to 6 weeks until the meter details are updated there. I’ve actually moved you question to a similar topic so please check the ‘Best Answer’ above for further advice.

Once the meter details and usage data has updated, this should give you some really helpful budgeting information which I hope is worth the wait. 

Jess, these are screen grabs from the installation guide for smart meters which is where I saw the “work straight away” reference. Although it mentions 6-8 weeks, it doesn't explain that, like I'm experiencing, no useful data will be available (see my previous screen grabs) or that my meters aren't reporting to you. If it's true that I won't see this then I think a better explanation needs to be given on the website to highlight this. 

Phil 

Thanks @Dellara ! This helps us a lot.

Yup, I can verify this one too. Nice catch! I’ll get this into the submission queue tonight. If you spot more, feel free to let us know.

While I’m at it, I’ll probably also spend some time tonight going through a bunch of other guides on OVO’s main websites. If I spot anything myself, I’ll ask Tim and Jess to bulk-submit them all in one go on my behalf.

Jess, these are screen grabs from the installation guide for smart meters which is where I saw the “work straight away” reference. 

 

 

Thanks for raising this one, @Dellara. Whilst it’s worth knowing that the meter will start clocking your usage straight away, I agree that the wording on the 4th bullet point there is a little misleading in suggesting that your online account would also show this usage immediately. We’ve already flagged this to the relevant team to ensure we get that clarified. 

As your meters were installed at the end of March the online account should be fully up-to-date by mid-May, if not it might be worth contacting the Support Team to double-check the meters are communicating as they should be.

Recently had both gas/electric smart meters installed.

What is the point of them if they aren’t reliably sending readings and I’m asked to send a manual reading on the first billing after them being installed?????

Frustated !!!!

How long has it been since the meters were installed @Amerififer ? It usually takes up to six weeks for them to fully connect. Only then does smart functionality fully activate.

Hiya,

Thanks for the quick response.. It might be that then.. Only put in on the 15th June.. Will give it the six weeks.. 

No worries. If you show me photos of the meters, I can help you to check that they’re working too.

Ahh ok. A SMETS2 Landis+Gyr E470 and a SMETS2 Flonidan UniFlo huh? That’s a rather… Unusual combination. I’d normally expect to see an Aclara SGM1400 Series paired with a Flonidan UniFlo, or an L+G E470 paired with an L+G G370/G470. Not mix n match! Especially since Aclara is Flonidan’s business partner in the UK.

Everything looks good mind you, but your gas meter has a message waiting for you. Head into the menu with button C and see what it says. :)

I'm with you. My smart meter is still coming up with “couldn't get a reading. Mind sending us one?” and it's been months. It's never gong to be right now. Doesn't fill me with much confidence to be honest.  Smart and user friendly it's not