Hi Kev

The latest SMETS2 meters must have already been loaded with the firmware allowing reverse current. Mine also shows that, so it is quite good to be able to compare the FITS generated readings with what I export as shown on the SMETS2 meter. It would be good if OVO also displayed that on my usage page. @Tim_OVO - is that a feature we might expect sometime? At the moment, we just get a hint of it when power used goes down to zero during the day.

Tony

That screen’s not particularly entertaining is it?

Possibility one: Distance

The symbol at top-left indicates whether there is a signal connecting your IHD to the Communications Hub which is bolted on top of your Electricity Smart Meter. Move your IHD closer to the electricity meter to see if this symbol indicates the signal getting stronger. 

Possibility two: No WAN or HAN

Since you do have a connection established, the next step is to look at the Comms Hub and see if all the LED indicators are displaying the slow-flash pattern.

It’s OK if the MESH indicator doesn’t flash at all. This is only used if the Comms Hub is a SKU2 device, most commonly found in very rural areas (such as mine!). If there’s no flashing WAN (wide area network) the comms hub isn’t communicating with OVO. If there’s no HAN (home area network), the comms hub isn’t communicating with any other meters or your IHD. For no WAN or HAN, please reach out to OVO’s Support team for them to diagnose.

Possibility three: firmware issue

There might be a firmware issue with the IHD or smart meter, that’s causing connectivity issues. See this guide for a possible fix for this issue. if this doesn’t work, reach out to their Support team for this (details above).

Hello. I have a similar issue with my IHD not displaying anything useful. However, none of the LED indicators on the Comms Hub are flashing and my newly installed smart gas meter display is showing nothing (the electricity one is showing a reading). How is this all resolved, please?

Hi @Cmhammer69 and welcome to the Forum.

We could do with a bit more information about when your Smart Meters were installed. There’s quite a lot of off-site commissioning which goes on after the engineer leaves site. During this time all sorts of changes will occur on your meters. It doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s any fault.

Please complete your Forum Profile page too. Thanks.

A: Your gas meter has an internal battery which must last 10 years+. To conserve energy the display is normally blanked. You can wake it up by pressing any of the three red buttons.

B: Having no flash patterns on any of the Comms Hub indicators suggests a failure of the internal processor. (Nothing working in an electronic device of any type is generally a power-supply problem). Did you see the flash patterns operating when the Installer was working on-site?

What do you see if you go to your My OVO page online and click the button to show your Usage?

There’s a whole load more information over here in a topic about SMETS2 Meter Installation.

Thanks @Transparent. Both the two new “Smart” meters were installed on 10 July and the IHD was working fine until yesterday. I am truly gobsmacked that the Comms Hub internal processor should have failed after less than a month’s use and look forward to hearing when Ovo will replace it. 

I had grave misgivings about these meters in the first place, so remain unconvinced of their real value and deeply cynical about their longer term purpose.

Let’s not jump to conclusions yet @Cmhammer69. Just because the processor doesn’t appear to be running, doesn’t mean it’s broken. It’s possible that the problem is merely the lack of power being fed from the electricity meter below it.

As you can see from this photo, the electricity meter has two connectors which will mate with the Comms Hub that gets bolted above it.

Two pins on the right-hand connector supply 12v DC to operate the Comms Hub electronics.

It’s entirely possible that the Comms Hub just needs re-seating and it’ll be fine.

Did you check the Usage on My OVO? Has this been receiving data from your Smart Meter?

What about the SMETS2 Gas Meter? Do the buttons wake up the display?

Some great support here, @Transparent 

I’ve actually combined an older topic to this one, and tweaked your ‘best answer’ as I think it will help hundreds of people a week. I think we can make it one of the go twos for this IHD issue. Please have a look at the changes and leave a comment/amend if you think I’m wide of the mark anywhere. 

@Transparent, thank you for waking me up to the fact that I am paying to provide my meter readings. What a wonderful innovation! For whoever is billing me for gas and electricity.

As far as I can determine, the Comms Hub is correctly seated and, since it worked fine until Saturday, I feel it is entirely reasonable to conclude that there is a fault, which was your suggestion. Perhaps I missed an earthquake here overnight Friday into Saturday?

Kindly advise me when Ovo propose to remedy this situation.

Erm @Cmhammer69 I can’t respond on behalf of OVO. This is an open Forum whose members are ordinary consumers like yourself.

I can try to help diagnose what’s going wrong, based on my knowledge of Smart Meters. But I’ll need a bit more information about whether readings are still being delivered to OVO and shown on your My OVO page where the Usage histograms can be viewed.

Yep, this forum isn’t best placed for concrete remedy implementation promises, @Cmhammer69 - but there’s decent customer generated advice if you know where to find it. 

If you think your IHD has a fault needed CS support (such as those listed in @Transparent’s ‘Beat answer’ (at the top), please reach out to our support teams: we’re on Facebook, Twitter and our Help Centre has online chat!

My IHD (SMETS1 Chameleon) is showing Waiting for current data message. It has been like that for some time now but as we are getting closer to winter I want to keep an eye on my energy usage in real time so need to get this fixed.

I read the tutorial and multiple threads with the same issue so I think I covered the basics.

1. restarted the IHD, no change,
2. moved it closer to the smart meter, no change,
3. checked the signal strength, 4 bars,
4. checked the WiFi signal strength, 4 bars,
5. checked the smart meter, 4 lights flashing,
6. MyOVO usage is up to date,
7. checked time on the IHD, it is correct,

Unless anyone has any other idea, looks like I will have to contact the support team so they can send a reset. Does this mean I will lose my self service reward? 

Here is an idea to OVO support team: how about you add an option in myOVO so that users can send a reset without contacting the support team. This seems to be the most common way to fix the IHD.

Amazing work with this diagnosing, @csty - this is really helpful for us to make sure we’re not wasting your time suggesting things that aren’t relevant!

It seems to have WAN, it seems to have HAN, it seems to be paired….. maybe this is a firmware update delay? Similar to the topic here

As you mentioned, there’s nothing ‘on the ground’ that is telling us the issue, we need to get our Support team to check things behind the scenes. You won’t lose your self service reward for this, as it’s not something you can do yourself (you’ve already tried, very hard as outlined above).

Can you let us know how it’s left when you reach out?

@cstywrote:

 how about you add an option in myOVO so that users can send a reset without contacting the support team.

I can see where you’re coming from with this idea, but it would breach the security envelope for the SMETS system, which has been developed by the NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre - a division of GCHQ).

If there is a method of automatically generating a reset command from a site on the open internet, then it creates a loophole whereby any other SMETS command could be sent.

The roll-out for SMETS2 was delayed 6 months whilst the security was tightened up and tested. It’s vital that there is no back-door through which the UK's energy supplies could be threatened by malicious intent.

Overall the best strategy is for us customers to ensure that OVO’s engineers are provided with adequate (and accurate) feedback, thus enabling the bugs to be fixed.

Many of these flaws won’t be within the scope of a solution by OVO themselves. They will need to resolve issues in conjunction with meter manufacturers, the Data Communications Company and Utilita, who maintain the uSmart software interface used by OVO.

@Tim_OVO , I spoke to the support twice in the last few days, but they were not able to fix it. Apparently  sometimes IHD can unpair and refuse to pair back to the smart meter. It seems that the only option is to replace the IHD. Apparently there is a backlog so it might take some time to get one. 

@Transparent , I recognise the security aspect, but I believe it is possible to provide a limited access to the system without compromising on  it. I hope that this will one day be possible as it would open a host of new services around home automation. Online banking used to be very limited in features because of security risks, I hope that SMETS will also evolve this way.

I’ve had a lightbulb moment @csty 

Given the propensity for our Comms Hubs to ostracise our IHDs, why couldn’t OVO send a SMETS_reset signal every night when they retrieve the previous day’s data?

It’s a crazy thought… but what harm could it do?

Now I’ll go and hide before @Tim_OVO  lobs something large and heavy in my direction….

It was working fine yesterday. Today the WiFi symbol is flashing and it won’t connect to the WiFi. Every few minutes it reboots and shows a welcome message before it goes back to saying waiting for data and the WiFi symbol flashing

ive tried turning it off and on again. I’ve unplugged it and tried to reconnect it to the WiFi but nothing works. 

Any ideas before fore I throw it up the garden?

Hi @EmmaJo , welcome to the forums.

That’s not good! Sorry for the trouble. Could you take a few photos of your In-Home Display and your Smart Meters please? If you could also fill out your profile for us, that would be really helpful.

Once you’ve done that, I’ll be more than happy to try and help you out with this.

I’ve updated my profile  

Perfect! Thanks for these photos. This helps a lot. 

I see you’ve got a SMETS2 capable Aclara SGM1412-B Smart Energy Meter, which actually helps me even more. You’ll notice you’ve got two buttons on the front, the blue one is A and the orange one is B.

With your IHD powered up and sat near the meter, could you wake up your meter by pressing the orange B button, then press B a couple of times until you get a screen about signal strengths - this screen will scroll through various readings, similar to the meter readings in sleep mode. The one I’m looking for is IHD Signal Strength here and the numbers will have dBm on the end. Could you tell me what it says please?

Sorry was supposed to attach a photo 

it wont attach a photo  Reading is -28dBm

No worries. It happens to me sometimes!

Thanks.

That confirms the signal is definitely strong enough then. The check I had you do was to see whether the In-Home Display was talking to your Smart Meter at all, since it would only show something if it was connected and communicating.

Don’t worry about the meter being stuck on that technical menu. After about 30 seconds of inactivity, it will go back to sleep and return to the usual meter reading screen cycles. It’s one of the features I really love about my Aclara SGM1311.

As for your In-Home Display, I get the feeling that it’s either attempting to do a firmware update or it’s somehow managed to brick itself. Since the office is closed right now, I can offer a temporary fix here.

Would you be OK to leave the In-Home Display turned on, plugged into a power socket and kept close to your smart electricity meter overnight? Sometimes that might do the trick. But please let us know how things are looking in the morning.

If that works, you should be good to go. But if it doesn’t, we’ve got some other solutions and options we can try with you. I can also get help from Tim if needed.

It’s -28dBm