Skip to main content

I moved across to a smart meter on 22 July 20.  The IHD is a Chameleon display, and it was all working fine for the first few weeks barring the odd blank screen which having read around the threads was expected as some work was done in the background to commission my meters etc. 

I came home from work late Friday night, 21 Aug, to find that while the meter was still functioning, pretty much every single bit of data was now showing up as blank, this after it had been working for the first few weeks.  It’s not a communication issue - it’s on the kitchen window ledge, something like 6 feet from the pantry where the meters are, and it has been working fine until now.  Having checked the meters themselves they seem to be working ok and have readings on them that look sensible.  
 

Any ideas on the IHD?  I’ve attached a couple of photos to show what I mean.  Thanks in advance.

 

 

Thanks for all the advice.

The IHD6 has been connected to wifi since day 1 so I would hope its got all the updates as they happen. 

The IHD6 normally lives on my desk well away from the Coms hub so I don't think its getting swamped/interference from the meter equipment.

Anyway, roll forward to this morning and its now all functioning again as it should without any input from me.

I can confirm that the S/W version has changed overnight though..

S/W

IHD6-CAD-PPMID 1.4 CAD 1.9

Would this have fixed it?

Many Thanks

 

Andy

 


@Blastoise186 wrote:

it ultimately looks like your IHD6 has somehow unpaired itself from the electricity meter, but not the gas meter. Weird…

That would be impossible. The IHD is paired only with your WNC Communications Hub, which sits on top of the Aclara electricity meter.

The electricity meter doesn’t operate on the Home Area Network (HAN). Its commands and data are passed to & from the Comms Hub via the Intimate Hub Communications Interface (IHCI) - a physical connector which also supplies 12v power.

 

Aclara SMETS2 electricity meter

 

@Andy302wrote:

the S/W version has changed overnight though.

I’m not sure that it has. The software is still 1.4, but it’s now also reporting the CAD firmware version. This is probably as a result of you following what @Blastoise186 recommended yesterday to connect the IHD to your home WiFi. It’s just “awakened” the software which was there all along.

 

We are soon hoping to implement a new system to communicate faults like this to the relevant technical staff. We need better feedback to understand what’s happening. Some faults get resolved by a single command being sent by the Smart Metering team. Others disappear when SMETS_commands get sent overnight by the new Billing System software.

In neither case do we know if there ever was an actual fault which got analysed and fixed, or whether an engineer simply sent a low-level Reset command which resolved the issue. If it’s the latter then there will an ever-growing tide of customers reporting issues with Smart Meters which keep reappearing.


Well, here's another twist to add to the case file.

Having said earlier that it was all working again this morning I returned to the office after lunch to find that this time it was only displaying the electricity information. Gas was now gone, exactly the same situation as before in that only one meter info was shown when checking meter info, it was as if we only had a Gas smart meter.

I turned to my PC to start a new reply to this thread , when I turned back and looked at the IHD6 it was showing both Gas and Electricity again. Very strange…..

I’ll keep a log of when I notice it happening and what, if anything, i do to get it back to normal.


This obeys Sod’s 2nd Law:

The propensity for a device to operate as required is inversely proportional to the number and status of the people watching it.

If you really want it to keep working, insist that OVO send a couple of field engineers. It will operate impeccably for the duration of their visit. :wink:


@Blastoise186 I had similar issue to @Andy302 and ohers, which I reported in this thread, to which you’ve contributed.

About 4 weeks after installation, IHD stopped diplaying data and was seeking connnection. A day or two later it returned. The only cause I could atribute was that it was linked to “gas meter intialiation” message. All seemed to be fine, but on reappearance of data it looks as if electricty reading interval reset to monthly - it was set to daily on instalation.

Still an unresolved issue, but looks like there’s an underlying theme and not just a one off for me.


Reply