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It’s been a long story… Some while ago we were offered a SMETS1 smart meter, but we delayed until a SMETS2 was available. Then an engineer came to install a SMETS2 meter, and left saying something about no signal, leave it a while. The meter is in a lower ground floor area, with a mobile signal.

Finally, July 2020, new SMETS2 meter installed - not talking to the network, but wait a bit and it’ll ‘probably’ be OK. No IHD left. I thought that even if the thing couldn’t talk to Ovo at least an IHD would allow me to read the meter easily, so I requested one, which eventually arrived. Silly me, I didn’t realise that the meter - supposedly installed for MY benefit - wouldn’t talk to my home network if it couldn’t talk to OVO first.

After a while we got back to Ovo who said there was nothing they could do and we would have to move our meter, at our expense (approx £250) and hope the new position had a better signal. No guarantee of that. Then I asked for a smart gas meter, reasoning that the gas meter - in a higher location - may have a better signal. I didn’t know then that the gas meter unit will only talk to the electricity  meter unit.

A really nice and helpful chap came round to fit the gas meter, but actually spent all his visit trying to get the electricity meter unit working. After every possible effort he was forced to admit defeat and we are back to zero. But he did give us lots of interesting information.

Apparently the SMETS1 communication unit didn’t HAVE to be fitted right onto the meter and had a little aerial to help communication, seemed a good idea, why did that not make it to SMETS2?. Also the country is split in 2, the southern half has meters that talk to the mobile network - but up here in Morecambe the meters talk to a network run by Arqiva, who don’t talk to Ovo’s customers. Apparently signal problems are reported by the engineer to Arqiva, who should solve them - so why did Ovo ask US to move our meter?. 

But why can’t the stupid thing pass the data to Ovo via our home network?. Our home is full of things that talk to the world and don’t need Arqiva to do so. At the least it should send it’s reading to the IHD, I’m totally capable of taking all the data I need about saving energy from a meter reading thanks. 

So finally I’m going to fit a camera up to send me the meter readings, and when Ovo decide they would like the smart meter working then they can come and install a unit designed a little bit more intelligently and with a bit of flexibility. It might be more expensive , but would save them money in repeated engineer visits, and certainly cheaper than moving the electricity meter.

Our meter, or the comms unit, is an EDMI standard 420.

I hope this helps someone.

 

 

Just a word of caution. Attempting the above may trigger tamper alarms to your supplier. ALWAYS get permission first.

I wasn’t suggesting the homeowner tries it themselves. If it wasn’t clear: all of this was done with an official installer present.

 

Thank you for confirming ​@806cat & thank you for the below advice:

 

I have the same problem connecting to the Arqiva network. With the Comms Hub placed in the usual place (on top of the electricity meter), I could not get a WAN signal.

One thing you could try is to use a Kaifa FL100 adapter (the suppliers’ installers have access to these) to separate the Comms Hub from the electricity meter. This has a 75 cm cable that can put some distance between them. This is occasionally used because an electricity meters could produce enough interference to cause problems for a Comms Hub in close proximity, especially in a marginal reception area. I tried this, but it didn’t help my situation.

The next thing to try would be to extend the cable on the FL100 to allow you to move the CH even further away from the electricity meter. This could then allow you to position it where you do get a reception. I tried this as well but it still didn’t work.

I eventually solved it solved it by having the Comms Hub separate from the electricity meter, moving it high up at the back of the house and powering it from a separate 12V supply coming from the loft. Yes, I know I’m paying to power the CH but it’s 12V @ 100mA so I don’t think it’s going to significantly affect my bill. Note the Comms Hub communicates to the electricity meter through Zigbee, not the cable; the cable only supplies power from the electricity meter to the Comms Hub.

This worked, much to the installer’s surprise, who was convinced it wouldn’t as he thought the communications between Comms Hub and electricity meter was through the connector.


Does this help ​@bingbongovo2021?

Does it help?. It could if an official installer came along and did it, Or, if the aerial idea is so simple and effective, why don’t official installers try it?. I can imagine the derision if an official installer came along and saw my lash up - “oh you’re another amateur who has tried that one, sighs”.

Meanwhile momentum gathers on this. Panorama did a decent report (without mentioning the actual devious route via DCC that your data gets from customer to supplier). They did mention the dreaded word CAPITA as a company involved. A person involved with the initial design pointed out that there were huge defects in the it, as we see. And we also found out that suppliers CAN install mobile network comms hubs in LRR areas. So why make people use DIY solutions?. The 99.3% coverage becomes more and more meaningless when this (mobile) solution was installed in the middle of Glasgow. Martin Lewis has written a scathing letter to Ed Milliband. We await further developments.

If we get any updates internally we’ll update all relevant topics

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