Hi @vegas22 and thanks for this detailed breakdown of events. It’s really helpful to understand where you’re at. 

Whilst you wait for the July meter exchange, let’s see if the forum can help you figure out the readings on the meter vs the online account. Of course these should be aligned.

I think you have a first generation ‘Secure Liberty’ smart meter. Can you confirm by looking at this guide:

From that guide you’ll also see how to read the meter. Pressing 9 gives you the rate 1 meter reading. If your smart meter is for any reason set up in economy 7 setting, your readings will be on two registers which you can find by pressing 6. 

Can you confirm your latest meter readings showing on the online account and on the meter please? 

Yes @vegas22 you need to make sure that you don’t confuse the various registers on your smartmeter. Tim has given you access to the guide and the main keys to use. 
This might also help as a quick guide depending on your exact meter type

Hi, thanks for your help.

It's a liberty 100.

If I press 9 I get

IMP KWH = 32916.1

If I press 6 I get:

TARRIF

ACT RATE

IMP R01

STCGH/DAY

050-300P

+IMP R01+

30165.8

032-390P

IMP RO2 (no + but I think I've seen it have a + at each end before)

2750.4

000-00P

IMP R03

000000

000-000P

after that it's all 0’s as it loops through R03-R15.

CREDIT

Using now

205.8

Cost now

76.72

Below is screenshot from my OVO account with today's 20th smart reading:

Thanks in advance for your help.

@Tim_OVO@BPLightlog , It looks like my 9 reading (32916.1) is the same as RO1+RO2 (30165.8+2750.4). It also looks like my smart reading matches the R01.

9 brings up the ‘total’ register for the meter rather than the active one 

Thank you for you help. So what does that mean? Sorry for all the questions.

As in the list I posted earlier, that gives the total reading since the meter was active (either imported or exported). 
The active register is normally seen as ACT 01 or ACT 02 depending on if you have a dual rate supply (peak and off peak). 
In everyday use, it’s ACT 01 reached via button 6 which gives the reading you need so in your review, it would be 30165 which you would log. As you had calculated, button 9 gives you both registers added together

@BPLightlog  Thank you for your help with this. So basically OVO telling me to use button 9 is what is causing the confusion.

I'm not on an economy 7 or any feed in TARRIF etc which makes the imp R02 confusing. Any idea why I even have numbers under that one?

Those figures are a lifetime register @vegas22 so it will have been recording in that mode at some point since it was fitted

I discovered exactly the same thing. My smart meter was installed by OVO when the property was on a night/day tariff. Once it was up and running I asked to be switched to a single rate tariff, hence that second register had been used a bit. Now it’s only the first register that records anything.

>I have a Liberty 110]

At some stage, some consumption (2750.4 kWh) was recorded on Register 02. You’d have to go back through all the available meter readings (400 days worth) to see whether you can spot when that stopped happening. The other figures you see are

So, this meter appears to have been set up for E7 but later reconfigured for single rate by simply diverting all usage to the one register. R01 is usually ‘Peak’ rate, but not necessarily. Incidentally, your rates are identical to mine.

The R02 register is showing an historical figure dating back to when the meter was configured for E7, and current usage is only recorded on R01. It’s odd, but that’s why the readings you see online are different from your Button 9 reading, which includes the obsolete figure from R02. Your current billing will be accurate. 

You will most probably have been charged for the 2750.4kWh a long time ago, so you’d have to check your old bills to see that. If you can’t see any appropriate charge, that usage is most likely to have taken place more than a year ago, in which case its cost will be written off. So I think you’re safe from any unexpected bill regardless of what happens when the meter is exchanged.

In my amateur opinion, the meter is working as expected and recording consumption as it’s been configured to. The problem seems only to be the intermittent transmission of data to OVO. Has the meter been enrolled and adopted (‘E&A’) on to the DCC system?  To check, enter its MPAN into this tool: smartmetercheck.citizensadvice.org.uk Because meters on DCC use a different way of communicating with the outside world, it could well be that the problem would change at E&A, with no way of knowing whether it would get better or worse.

If you can access your account on a computer, I’d be happy to help you do a little forensic analysis to try and find out where the R02 reading came from.

Great detective work everyone! 

I must say I didn’t know rate 1’s can be used in this way for former 2-rate set ups. Tis good to know!

So whenever your meter is out of communication and you want to submit an actual meter reading, @vegas22, press number 6 on that keypad! 

Hello @Firedog @Tim_OVO @BPLightlog , thank you all for your help. Much more support on here than the ovo phones etc.

@Firedog I have access to my account but not sure what I would need to look out for regarding past bills. @Tim_OVO is there any way to pull bills from further back in my account e.g. several years?

 This is the screenshot of my meter readings back to 3 May 2022. I can’t really see any large jumps in readings so I suspect the 2750.4 kWh was before this time frame

** for some reason the forum wont let me upload the web capture**

looks like the screenshot is too large dimension wise.

https://ourmessagebox.com/ovoenergy.jpg <--uploaded it here

ok, so I thought I’d worked out looking at my ovo > usage when i switched to a smart meter (march 2018) since the graph goes from showing the same value each day to fluctuating. 

However, when I look at my bills from Dec 2018 to march 2018, they all show the same Meter Serial Number (MSN) for electric.

I have to go all the way back to 25 Nov – 22 Dec 2016’s bill to find a different electric MSN

It also means that I’ve been contacting Ovo for 7 years to try and get to the bottom of this if that’s correct! (how time fly's when your having fun!)

Just thought I’d explain why your image couldn’t upload. For technical reasons, massive images like that one have to be rejected by the forum software because they break stuff. Nothing against you though.

Hey @vegas22,

Welcome to the OVO Online Community,

This is an interesting one! Sounds like your old usage graphs may no longer be accurate. What do your historic bills show? Do the ones prior to the smart meter exchange show the old meter serial number? If so, you’ve been billed correctly and you don’t need to worry. 

There should be a yellow sticker on the meter which confirms the date of the meter exchange, @vegas22…

The usage section bars always showing the same usage does indeed indicate a non-smart meter, or a smart meter that isn’t sending its readings remotely. 

Either way just make sure you submit the correct reading via keypad number 6 and you won’t be incorrectly charged. Likewise if that meter ever gets replaced, you will be correctly billed throughout. 

This is the sort of stuff that gets my adrenaline flowing! I just had a look at the elephantine screenshot you uploaded here: ovoenergy.jpg (1685×19083) (ourmessagebox.com). With @Jeffus’ acute observation that the DCC doesn’t usually produce daily readings on the first day of each quarter, I looked through your readings - and they’re all there. This suggests that the meter wasn’t on the DCC at the time, so it’s quite possible that it’s currently going through the throes of E&A. We may be able to spot this with a little bit of magic …

@vegas22 Let’s have a look at your readings database, the one that lies behind that long screenshot. Step by step:

1. Sign in to account.ovoenergy.com. 
    
2. In a new tab in the same browser session, open this page:
   smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/orex/api/meter-readings/{Account}
   where {Account} is your 7-digit OVO account no.
   Depending on which browser you’re using, this should reveal either a nicely readable JSON tree or an impenetrable block of data. 
    
3. If it’s legible, go to step 5ff.
    
4. If it’s not legible, copy the whole page (Ctrl-A-C) and paste it into the box on this page: https://jsonformatter.org/json-pretty-print, then click the Make Pretty button. You can copy the results in the lower pane ready to paste into Notepad or your favourite text editor.
    
5. Scroll down to the data for 2023-05-29, then scroll gently up looking at the readingType. There will probably be some gaps corresponding to the dates omitted in your screenshot, but you should be able to see the anomalous one at 31 May.  Do you see any other odd ones then or later (higher up)?
   
   This page should show the meter readings for the past 400 days. Do you see more than one tier, or any mention of the 2750.4 figure seen on the meter? Is the registerTier numbering the same all the way to now? 

There may be other interesting things on that page.

@Firedogthank you for this, I didn't know you could pull that data (time to code a php script to log all this!)

I'm not at my computer at the moment but I'll do that and update you accordingly.

Regarding the meter itself, had a helpful chap come out and replace the meter. Explained the situation to him and he took the final reading using the number 6 on they keypad (which should stop ovo from incorrectly sending any strange bills).

However, whilst he did fit a larger t2 aerial, it didn't get any signal and as such he could not commission the unit. I've since unscrewed the aerial from the board and moved it to the window for now (looks horrible but the WAN light is now flashing so seems to be a temp fix).

I did ask if the T2 was waterproof but he said it wasn't and didn't know of a waterproof version. Does anyone know if there is one that ovo supply? If so, I could drill through my wall and mount one on the outside which would seem to fix this issue once and for all.

Also side note, my little colour smart meter display doesn't seem to be syncing with the meter (shows what looks like dummy data shipped with the device for demo purposes).

Any ideas how to get this working.

Hey @vegas22,

You’ve advised the WAN light is now flashing, but if the meter wasn’t commissioned properly there may still be communication issues. Are you able to see any readings on the Online Account?  

I am unable to find out if a T2 aerial is waterproof, or if one can be provided, @Lukepeniket_OVO are you able to offer any advice here? 

To get the In Home Display working I'd advise contacting our Support Team. 

Hello @Emmanuelle_OVO , with the aerial hung across my room towards the window the WAN light flashes at the same time as the mesh and the other light to the left.

There are no readings on my account after July 14th (when it was removed) and the meter serial number on the account is the same as the old meter.

Regarding the in home display, is there anything specific I need to ask the support team to get it working?

Howdy! I’m afraid I’m not Luke but I think I know this one.

Juuuuuuuuuuuuust in case though, I have to do this disclaimer thing. To keep OVO’s lawyers happy because that’s a thing now, I disclose that I am only a forum volunteer and I’m not employed by OVO. I’m afraid my answer can’t be taken as official word from OVO itself, but it’s usually pretty close.

Also… To keep DCC happy I have been digging through their publicly available documents like this one to help build this answer. Credit is due to SmartMe as well for helping me to dig into this one. And yeah… Credit to good old Luke as well for teaching me a thing or two! :)

I do recall seeing forum threads in the past where a T1 or T2 Aerial appeared to be outside and seemed to handle it just fine. However, the official stance I’ve found is that they are for Internal use only and should never be placed outdoors.

However, a T3 Aerial can be used outdoors and are weatherproof (but try to avoid absolutely drenching them with a garden hose if you can!) but for obvious reasons, it’s for external use only. If you try to use the T3 Aerials indoors, there’s a small risk you’ll be microwaved by it and no-one wants that to happen. These have to be specially ordered and DCC only gives them out if they agree that it’s appropriate. You won’t normally get one on the day of the meter install.

These aerials can’t be purchased by anyone other than DCC and only authorised engineers can install them.

However, you can usually ask OVO to see about getting one installed if needed. Have a chat with the Support Team and they should be able to help.

Luke might still stop by if he’s around.

Hey @vegas22,

Got an update on your query from one of our Smart Meter experts:

‘Sounds like this customer has a WAN issue so we've gone out and fitted a T2 aerial... the T2 aerials (there are 2 types) are IP54 rated. Meaning it can withstand 'some' water but not much... so not designed to be fitted externally. We do not 'supply' them. The DCC provides them to us and we fit them. The same applies to all other companies, they obtain the aerials from the DCC.

Based on the response it looks like we've initiated the ‘Install & Leave’ process but, if the WAN light is on, that means we have initiated the commissioning but the WAN is not strong enough..  an Incident should have been raised to the DCC to see what the options are.

As for the IHD, sounds like it may not be paired and joined correctly, wait 7 days but, if the meters aren't commissioned, it's likely the HAN (Home Area Network) might not be set up to enable the IHD to read correctly but it depends..’

When you contact the Support Team about the IHD you’ll need to ask for it to be ‘paired’.

Hope this helps. 

Thank you for this @Emmanuelle_OVO  And @Blastoise186 

I spoke to someone today at ovo who is going to call me back tomorrow after looking into it. They couldn't find anything on there systems regarding a T3 aerial or how to request an install of one. Any ideas what to ask for other than a t3 (regarding an outdoor aerial)?