Smart meter not communicating - how long will I be waiting for a fix?

I had a smart meter fitted in early September.  The IHD worked immediately and everything worked perfectly for about 6 weeks with it sending half hourly electricity and gas readings, until it just stopped sending readings.  Customer services and the smart meter team could not get it working again so I had a replacement smart meter fitted on Thursday.  Since this meter has been fitted, the new IHD has not updated and still shows waiting for data, also my Ovo App and online account still show the old meter ID and readings.  All the right lights are flashing at the right intervals and connectivity looks OK - as it all did on the previous meter that stopped working - Any ideas or will it rectifiy itself? Thanks

Hi @Shaunh and thanks for flagging this. 

We always recommend that it can take up to 6 weeks from a meter exchange to get the meter, the In Home Display, and the online account updated with the correct details and functioning. 

If you don’t see any change within 6 weeks, complete the smart meter health check outlined here. The form can be found there and it gets sent directly to the right team. 

This is a follow on to my previous post on the subject smart meter not working and meter readings. OVO have asked for me to give manual readings. The reason I wanted a smart meter when I joined OVO was because of my poor eyesight, and I have Discalculia. This was made clear to OVO at the time. It’s all getting rather tedious why am I being asked to do OVOs job? so another month of estimated high readings. I’m quite happy and prepared to keep up with technology and at nearly 80 I can't understand why OVO thinks it doesn't matter that not everyone has the ability to carry what might seem a menial task is a problem to someone else. Getting very disillusioned with OVO.

Hey @Pegasus,

I’m really sorry to hear this.

You’ve mentioned you have poor eyesight. My advice would be getting added to the Priority Services Register (PSR), this will mean that you can request for OVO to send out meter readers in the meantime to ensure your bills aren’t estimated.

The first thing we need when a smart meter stops communicating is a smart meter health check:

If you are unable to perform one, due to your eye sight, contact Support who will book one in for you as part of the PSR.

Hope this helps. 

Thank you the reply. I have just signed up for PSR very helpful, also I have carried out two health checks on the meters in the last couple of months on OVOs instructions but nothing seems to come to anything the situation just continues.

Hey @Pegasus,

Great to hear you’ve got the ball rolling.

Our site support team will attempt to fix the issues with your meters remotely, if they’re unable to do so they will contact you back to book and engineer appointment. 

I was changed over from a SMETS1 (that was no longer communicating) to a SMETS2 on 15th November 2022.

According to myOVO account it is reporting meter readings but perhaps not at the 30 minute update rate that was set. I suggest this because the website cannot show me the “Daily Usage”.

The Home Display has never connected and displayed the expected information even though I have tried the “Connect” option a number of times.

Any suggestions on whether I can fix this or do I need to get an engineer to visit?

thanks

PhilipJ

Can you show us photos of everything please?

OK

On the meter, the SW WAN and HAN Leds flash green about every 2 seconds.

A Red Led next to where it says “1000 imp/kWh” flashes about once a second

The IHD is attempting to “Join Network” because I tapped that “button”. All the rest of the time it sits there showing example data. I have tried “Join Network” many times since the meter was fitted but it never succeeds.

Any other info you need?

PhilipJ