Howdy @Primusm , welcome to the OVO Forum!

I’m Blastoise186, one of the forum volunteers around these parts. It’s good to see a new face. :)

No worries about having trouble with search, we can help you out anyway. If you ever have trouble finding an existing thread for a question, feel free to create a new thread as we can always merge it with an existing one later if needed.

I can definitely tell you that you’ve got a Chameleon IHD6-CAD-PPMID right there, which is a SMETS2 IHD so works with any supplier. It looks like it’s got a healthy connection to the Comms Hub on top of your electric meter as well, so that’s a good sign.

By the looks of things, I’d say your IHD is currently showing demo data for your gas meter, as the real gas meter is probably still setting itself up at the moment. How long has it been since the meters were installed by any chance?

It can take up to six weeks for newly installed Smart Meters to fully commission once they’re installed and it’s normal for things to be a bit unstable during that time. Once that’s all done, you should start to see actual data replace the demo data on your IHD and things should begin to look a bit more realistic. Don’t worry though, this won’t affect your bills since OVO’s billing platform doesn’t rely on your IHD to get meter readings and actual bills are generated from that side. You can check MyOVO anytime you’d like to see what the current bills are too.

It’s also worth noting that gas meters only wake up and perform a heartbeat roughly once every 30 minutes, so as not to drain the internal battery too much. This means you can’t get real-time gas usage and your IHD will only be able to show half-hourly snapshots. It can also take up to an hour after you fire up the IHD before it can show anything from the gas meter once it starts working.

I don’t think there’s any obvious faults though, which I think you’ll be glad to hear. So you won’t need an engineer visit or a replacement IHD. The best solution I can give right now would probably be to keep an eye on things over the next few weeks and see what happens. If you still don’t get any luck by the end of this year, the Support Team will be happy to take a look for you.

Hi Blastoise186 and thanks for the reply.

I should have mentioned in my original post that we’ve had our smart meters since 2019, so I don’t think that’s the problem. I had to request a replacement IHD once before, and it was working for a while. But for the last few weeks the gas usage data seems to have been intermittent at best, and the budget data gone altogether.

Sounds like I’ll need to contact the support team then? Thanks for your help though.    

Oh ok, that’s understandable. In that case, I think the Support Team will want to take a look and see if they can do anything. It’s quite likely that they’ll ask you to submit a Smart Meter Health Check, so here’s a guide with most of the questions that are usually included.

If you have any trouble at all with filling one out, feel free to stop by again and we’ll be happy to give you a hand. :)

...

 

I’m pretty sure there’s some kind of problem, but wouldn’t know if this could be “demo” data. Note that energy is “so far today” and the clock says 12:11. I happened to learn recently that typical gas supplies, are often rated “U6” which means the flow of gas they can deliver is a volume which is “only” about 6 m^3 per hour, and the energy in this gas depends on calorific value but can’t be much more than 64 kWh per hour, which works out to a limit of 780 kWh “so far today”. Your IHD is therefore indicating an average flow of over 12 m^3 per hour.

The next rating up, I think, is U16. But is your consumption really over ¾ of the limit for a larger than usual gas supply, I wonder?

That does look odd, @Primusm.

As @Simon1D’s mentioned that’s not even a feasible amount of gas to have used in a day, so something’s certainly amiss!

Do keep us posted with any updates from the Support Team, it’s possible that there’s some communication issues which are causing this, as our community volunteer, @Blastoise186 has already identified. A great place to check this would be the usage pages of your online account or OVO app (download for Android or iOS). Are you noticing any erroneous usage data there too?

Hi, thanks for the replies. I’ve contacted the support team to see what they say. I’ve looked at the usage pages but I’m not really what sure what I’m supposed to be looking for - the data looks reasonable, as far as I can tell.

If there’s no obvious discrepancies on the usage pages, you could also check that the meters are communicating by checking the latest reading we received on the ‘meter readings’ page.

If there are intermittent signal issues you may be asked to carry out a smart meter health check. Find out more about these check by viewing the guide for your meter type below:

The SMETS1 Secure Smart Meter Health Check 

The SMETS2 Smart Meter Health Check

 Keep us updated when you hear back from the Support Team, @Primusm. Will be interesting to hear what’s behind this tech bug.  

Any update on what was causing the strange gas usage figures you were seeing, @Primusm?

Unfortunately no, still having problems. The support team tried to make changes at their end, and I switched the meter off and on again, But no luck!

Today’s scary looking figures!

Sounds like they’ve attempted to get things sorted remotely which looking at that daily gas cost hasn’t quite done the trick!

If restarting the device after 24 hours hasn’t worked it’s magic, I would get back in touch with them to check the next steps. If there’s no communication issues with the meter itself and all other trouble-shooting fails we’d be able to send out a replacement IHD so it’s worth chasing this one up.

In the meantime, are you seeing more realistic daily usage figures on your online account or OVO app?

Hi Jess, yes, the daily usage figures in my online account seem much more realistic! The support team have told me that a replacement IHD is on its way to me, so let’s hope that sorts it out. Thanks again for your help.

My IHD shows the vast majority of the info you'd expect, but it doesn't display the gas tariff/charges. It does display the gas meter reading though. It only seems to show a 10p daily standing charge. My online account appears to have accurate daily usage figures, despite the meter reading page saying it's not had a reading since 16th Dec (when I joined OVO). My IHD was doing the same under my previous supplier (EDF). I've attached pictures of my meters, IHD and account usage stats. Any idea what the issue is with the IHD?

?

If you check your meter readings (view reading history) @AmyP  they might say estimated rather than actual. The graphical view would still show in that case. 
For the IHD, how far is the gas meter from the electric meter? It is the electric meter that has the communication hub to connect with the supplier and the IHD

Thanks for your reply @BPLightlog . My gas meter is about 1 meter away from the elec meter, see pic. I've just checked the meter reading on the gas meter itself and it is showing the exact same reading on the IHD so I thought that would mean that communication route was fine. It's just the IHD/gas meter doesn't seem to have the connection to the supplier's details hence doesn't show the tariff and cost at all, it only shows the gas meter reading. You're correct that my ovo account doesn't show any actual gas meter readings on the history, it only shows smart readings for the elec. I'm confused that the account shows the daily graphs though. They seem to tie up with my actual usage

It’s worth trying to get the meters connected first. You can try this guide 

Your ‘local’ communication doesn’t mean they are connected to the data hub unfortunately 

My IHD keeps switching from a daily to weekly reading. I can switch it back but why does it keep doing this?

It also repeatedly loses the reading for the gas. It's fine after resetting it but I'm having to do this multiple times a day in order to see how much gas I'm using.

I've had this IHD for less than a year. Is there something I can do to make it behave or is it more likely that I need a new one? If so, am I going to have to pay out for it or will OVO replace it? 

Hey @MangoandMelon ,

Sure thing. Could you show us photos of everything please? It may help make things easier.

Hi @Blastoise186

Sorry it's taken awhile to get back to you. Typically my IHD stopped misbehaving once I made the first post so I couldn't get photos at the time. 

The first image is how the IHD looks after I've reset it and the 2nd shows how it was when I got up this morning. 

If you look at the second image @MangoandMelon you can see ‘Weekly budget exceeded’ at the bottom. When this happens the display switches to show that. You can adjust your budget levels in the settings menu

Thank you @BPLightlog . That's really helpful.

Amy ideas on why the gas reading keeps disappearing? 

Might be a flaky connection. Mind showing us photos of both meters? We might be able to check the signal strength with you

I just wanted to update this thread with the outcome of my issue - the support team confirmed I need to have new gas and electric meters installed