Smart meter lost comms, effect on Charge Anytime credits

Hey ​@TomThumb ,

In theory this might still be possible. If it doesn’t come through, let the team know and they’ll take a look.

Since my smart meter has turned dumb, things haven’t improved & through no fault of my own, 

It seems like It’s going to cost me.

Having spoken to ovo, they have stipulated that my meter readings need to be out of communication for a minimum of 32 days before they can action a meter replacement request.

From some reports on the forum, there are some pretty long wait times for a meter exchange.

So the state of play according to ovo is.

I won’t receive anymore A little help with your heating credits, as I don’t have a working smart meter.

My Charge Anytime rate will default to full unit costs, once the CA system detects it’s not receiving data from the meter.

Tom…

Morning ​@TomThumb,

I’ve sent you a private message - get back to me when you can, cheers!

Thanks ​@Ben_OVO 

 I’ve given the team a call & they have raised a request for another engineer visit.

Just waiting on the engineering team to pick up the job & give me a call to get it booked in.

Thanks

Tom…

Great news ​@TomThumb,

Keep us updated as to how you get on.

I’m back with an update.

I have an engineer appointment in 2 days time for the elec & gas smart meters to be exchanged due to lost comms & being deemed U/S on a previous engineer visit.

However since last weekend, the units appear to be sending in data again, my account is showing 3 out of the last 4 days worth of readings, not seeing yesterday’s reading yet, but that could down to lost comms again or Ovo’s systems have not updated this morning yet.

I possibly would cancel the meter swap but for some strange info displayed on my ihd & yesterday’s missing data.

The time displayed on ihd since coming back online the weekend is all over the place & seemingly random every time I look at it, both the hrs & minutes are out & change a-lot throughout the day.

The only constant i see is all the times displayed have been from 13.00 onwards.

The cost displayed on the ihd seems more stable, tho potentially displaying incorrect costs, due to sometimes looking higher than i would have expected, but counting upwards throughout the day,

up until 9 / 10pm ish when the value seems to half itself.

Due to the meters location, I haven’t been able to double check its displayed data against my ihd.

So going to keep the engineer visit & get the meters checked out.

Tom…

Within 1hr of my post above, my ihd is again displaying waiting for data.

looks like all comms are down with my meters again.

Tom…

Morning ​@TomThumb, I hope you’re well.

I’d recommend leaving the appointment booked. If you were booked in for an exchange then whoever was looking at your account must have deemed it a large enough comms issue to replace the meters. It might be that the engineer can do something on-site without actually changing the meters as well.

Keep us updated as to how the appointment goes, we’d appreciate it. 

Cheers!

Just to update this thread.

I had the engineer out last Friday & again they deemed the comm’s unit as U/S requiring both meters to be replaced.

The electric meter swap went well, tho this had already been flagged with a potential issue due to reduced access after a kitchen remodel.

The gas meter with me believing it to be the easiest to replace could not be completed due to the existing supply pipe being lead.

As the current requirement is to remove & replace the lead pipe, this would have left only 5mm of the service pipe above the floor level to make a good joint onto.

With the risk of the supply pipe dropping down below floor level, the gas meter exchange is on hold for now.

Not sure what will happen the gas meter is deemed EOL & needs replacing, but that is for another time.

No meter readings showing since elec meter was swapped, but as my IHD is once again working for elec with what looks like the correct usage stat’s showing on my account, I’m sure the meter readings will show shortly.

So all being well & moving forward, I should have no issues with the charge anytime rate as i now have a working smart meter, with the compromise of having to submit my monthly gas readings.

Tom…

Hey ​@TomThumb 

Thanks for coming back with that update. A shame about the gas meter not being changed at the moment but at least they were able to swap the electric meter and you’ll be able to use Charge Anytime again, hopefully those smart readings start coming through to us soon, it can take a few weeks which is pretty normal.

Let us know if you do have any other problems.😊

Back with an update.

After my elec smart meter exchange, things were working well for the first week, with my electric meter sending in 5 readings out of the first 7 days, but nothing recorded for the last 10 days.

  The wan light is flashing green every 1 second this time round, so the comms unit still might reconnect to the network. Otherwise it’s the 32 days without comms until Ovo will look at the issue.

 Meanwhile my Charge Anytime credits are again at risk & so is the A Little Help With Your Heating promo.

Tom…

Hi ​@TomThumb, I hope you’ve had a good festive break.

Sorry to hear that the smart meter doesn’t seem to be communicating. If you haven’t checked already, it’d be worth checking if your smart meter reading schedule is definitely set to half-hourly. If you check online and it says the reading schedule is set to half-hourly, change it to daily, and then back to half-hourly. There’s a chance this may kick it back into life.

You can find out how to do this using this guide:

Cheers for that ​@Ben_OVO never seen that tip listed before.

it was set to ½hr readings, so set to daily then back to 1/2hr with the notification that it could take upto 24hrs for the changes to show.

So will see how it goes.

Tom…

Morning ​@TomThumb,

It’s a trick that can be tried that occasionally works. It works if the meter is in communication but the read schedule isn’t set up properly. Let us know today whether the reads have started coming through or not.

Cheers!

Hello.

Just to let you know ​@Ben_OVO 

My account is once again showing it’s set to 1/2hr readings after the flip then back from daily yesterday.

 
But nothing has changed re meter reads, still no meter readings or usage stats shown on my account since 19th December.

Wan flashing green every 1sec & ihd working working albeit on elec only.

Tom…

Update

Since mid November, my smart meters have been in & out of comms with Ovo.

With a new meter installed in December, that has also been running dumb more often than not.

 Previous to November, no real communication issues.

Now I have somewhat stumbled upon the suspected cause & I clearly have a link between lost comms & maintenance works by Vodafone, who from the info gained are the smart network provider in the southern half of the country.

Although my Vodafone mobile has never lost service, I do get network updates via text messages from Vodafone stating they are experiencing network issues in the local area & are sorry for any disruption.

These network reports coincide exactly with lost comms from my smart meter, but in reverse.

Vodafone report network issues within my postcode area:  my smart meter is sending data.

Vodafone report the network issues in the area have been fixed: my smart meter turns dumb again.

I suspect that the Three - Vodafone merger has played a large part in this,

so much for there 2 networks are better than 1 add campaign.

According to the web, mine is not an isolated case.

The question is:
Is the smart metering network signal likely to improve?

(As far as I’m aware, wan light fast flashing in any state of communication)

How likely are ovo to install a smart meter aerial?

Tom…

I’m a bit confused (that’s nothing unusual). You wrote that a visiting engineer deemed the comms unit on your electricity meter to be U/S, ‘requiring both meters to be replaced.’ That latter bit suggests that the engineer decided that your gas meter was more likely to be able to communicate if it had a dual-band communications hub (DBCH), allowing for transmissions over both the 2.4GHz band and the 850MHz band. This would require a different communications hub (CH) on the electricity meter. It wouldn’t necessarily involve exchanging the electricity meter, but that’s by the way.

Unless the new CH is of the very latest type, which I don’t think is due for mass deployment for a year or two, I’d guess that you will have the DBCH cellular variety, which in your part of the world uses the Telefónica (VirginMedia/02) network. The latest one, made by Toshiba, is clearly labelled 4G DBCH. If you are lucky enough to have got one of those, then yes, the comms provider is Vodafone and your experiences will be of interest to those monitoring the performance of the new devices. It would be really good to see a photo of your new meter if you can be bothered.

​@Firedog  I will drop a pic up when able, but my comms hub is marked as WNC SKU1 cellular.

Apologies if my assumptions of Vodafone being the network carrier for the smart meters network are incorrect, I blame google for that, my understanding was that Vodafone had taken over that role from Telefónica (VirginMedia/02) network in 2024.

                                                                    ***** 

You are correct in thinking my comms unit was previously classed as U/S, so both elec & gas / comms unit were due to be replaced.

The engineer on site deemed my gas meter was not safe to swap out, (limited access to the exposed lead to copper pipe work) so only my electric & comms unit were changed.

The engineer cited that out of the box, the gas meter would only offer a onetime pairing, so it would never run smart from then on,

but the newly fitted electric meter / comms unit were commissioned successfully.

 Currently my ovo account is only showing elec meter readings going back to when my elec meter had been replaced (13th December)
So aside from from the network being Telefónica (VirginMedia/02) or Vodafone,

since the 13th Dec 4 times in all, (aligning to the day)

when Vodafone report network issues affecting my post code, Ovo received my elec smart meter reading.

when Vodafone then report the network issues affecting my area have been fixed, no smart elec meter readings received by Ovo.

My smart meter comms issues are seemingly related to the Vodafone network in this area.

Thats where my understanding of the smart meter closed network ends.

Your recollection of my gas meter needing a (DBCH) is also beyond my understanding lol 🤭

Given the circumstances, what are the chances of my smart meters regaining full comms, with or without intervention from Ovo?

Tom…

​@TomThumb good morning, I hope you’re well.

Firstly - my apologies for the fact you were left without a reply to your post on the 30th of December. This one must have slipped the net over the festive break.

I’m going to reach out to you by Private Message - it’d be great to look at this properly to ascertain what the issue might be.

Hi again ​@TomThumb,

I’ve heard back from our Smart team, who’ve confirmed:

It looks like the issue here is signal issues. If we went down the route of another appointment we would just face these issues again. It may go in and out of comms but there’s not much we can do here. Once 4G comms hubs are fully rolled out that might be an option in the future. This seems to be one of these in-between sites where we can't consider it no WAN, as we have managed to get a meter commissioned there, but at the same time it just drops out of comms.

Not good news really I’m afraid - it seems like this might be to do with the area you’re living in having poor signal.

Cheers for the update ​@Ben_OVO 

Prior to November 2025, for many years I had no real issues with my smart meters communicating over the network.

So the 3G switch off / network tweaks from the Three - Vodafone merger are possible causes of lost comms, especially if my connection was borderline to begin with.

Either way, it sounds it’s out of Ovo’s hands for now.

Now back to my original post at the start of this thread:
If under the current conditions my smart meters don’t regain a stable / any connection back to the smart network,

What are the implications of not having a working smart meter against the use of Charge Anytime / ovo beyond  etc.

Tom…

​@TomThumb Sorry I can’t help with regard to your smart-meter-dependent schemes.
  

DB = Dual Band, i.e. a choice of high-frequency and not-so-high-frequency. You know that the lower the frequency, the longer the wavelength and the longer the wavelength, the further the penetration. That’s how people around the world could follow Test Match Special via the BBC’s 1500m 500kW long-wave transmissions from Droitwich (RIP). So while the ordinary single-band comms link is fine for most dual-fuel customers, the 2.4GHz band it uses doesn’t have the reach for those whose meters are further apart or have obstacles in between. 850MHz signals have much greater penetrating power. 

Hi ​@TomThumb,

Please could you confirm whether you use Charge Anytime through a compatible car or charger, and also which Beyond initiatives you’re signed up to? Once we know this, we’ll be able to get some accurate info about the effects of the smart meter not communicating.

 Hi ​@Ben_OVO Highlighting an example 

Taken from Charge Anytime t&c’s

5.1 To be eligible for Charge Anytime, you’ll need to meet (and continue to meet) the following criteria (Eligibility Criteria):

5.1.4 You have a smart meter that communicates half-hourly data to OVO – currently the main types of smart meters that work with Charge Anytime are SMETS2 meters by any manufacturer, and SMETS1 meters manufactured by Secure;

If you also take in to account that A Little Help With Your Heating (although now ended) / Power Move, any new incentive to save energy, all rely on a working smart meter.

At present none of my 3 meters are running smart.

My extra meter, a traditional gas meter, will never have a working smart meter, due to the limitations & inherent design flaws in the smart metering network (but that’s a different story)

To date, I haven’t missed out on any Charge Anytime (CA) credits & I have been rewarded for the A Little Help With Your Heating event, but no such reward for power move, as Ovo has not received enough data.

As my Hyundai Kona is on the beta list for CA, my now relegated Ohme charger runs in dumb mode,

so all smart charging is via vehicle integration. 

But it is unclear if I will continue to benefit from the current CA price point.

Tom…