S2 smart meters in the Northern Territory using the Arqiva network - why isn't the meter able to connect to the WAN?
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.
