Why are OVO disabling the real-time smart usage features!?

Thanks Cassie,

I appreciate you taking the time to respond and I understand how it would not be cost effective to continue running the current service when it won't work with the newer meters anyway.

I would however, ask you to respond to the original question about re-using the smart gateways that we already have linked to our existing smart meters (I assume you won't be replacing existing smart meters in the short term?). It would seem fair to let us use these for our own local monitoring before your new product is available. If nothing else this could save them from going into landfill! I would not be expecting any support in getting this up and running, simply the username and password for the admin interface.

Chris

Hi @chrissfoot,

Your question about re-using the smart gateways is an interesting one. I'm investigating - I'll respond here when I have a definitive answer.

Thanks

Cassie

@Cassie_OVO, thanks for taking the time to explain the decision.

With that in mind, I’d like to ask for your help in shaping the product that we’re currently building. In the next couple of months, we’re looking for early adopters to try out the new online experience - which will provide an up-to-date view of your energy charges - and provide feedback. If you’re interested in this, please let me know either by PM or by commenting on this thread.
If the new online experience will include access to current/historic data in a format that I can use to perform my own analysis, visualisations etc (i.e. kWh numbers that I can feed into something else), then count me in. If all you're proposing is a 'view', then I won't bother thanks.

This is also something I would be interested in.
Hi @chrissfoot,

Your question about re-using the smart gateways is an interesting one. I'm investigating - I'll respond here when I have a definitive answer.

Thanks

Cassie

In light of your explanation - my immediate response is WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU TELL US THAT SOONER??? It might have stopped my blood pressure going through the roof.

I now understand your rationale for the decision to turn off the real-time smart usage service and, in the future, would rather work with you than fight you.

Therefore, I'd like to know more about what becoming and early adopter would involve.

Barry

@Cassie_OVO So what are these other factors? Get rid of all the other stupid meanless algo's and put it back to what it was 3 years ago and everyone back happy. Cannot see anything to do with GDPR or maybe interpretation is all wrong. There must be a way to keep this. Oh hang on probably costs a small amount of money to run.

many thanks for your update Cassie. It was useful. As BazPraz says it would have saved an awful lot of anguish had ove come clean with this rational at the beginning

That said I am more than happy to work with ovo in "shaping the product that we’re currently building. In the next couple of months, we’re looking for early adopters to try out the new online experience - which will provide an up-to-date view of your energy charges - and provide feedback. If you’re interested in this, please let me know either by PM or by commenting on this thread"
Joss.

Have I missed something I have not read anything that makes me "understand" the decision other than the 1% statement (Scalability of numbers). Didnt even give us enough notice of the change. I am currently fine tuning new boiler logic that is now impossible to see the effect of my changes. Had around a weeks notice that was not long enough to finish up what I was doing especially when you dont live at the property.

Looking around the responses to this issue on other Forum Threads, I think there was an email sent out giving 2 weeks notice of the intention to remove Live Usage Updates.

However, the email was sent to those Customers who OVO believed had Smart Gateways and IHD's with WiFi connections (in addition to the Zigbee link to the meter).

Those who had other IHD's weren't sent the email, even though they might have a particular need for that Live Usage stream.

That might be an over-simplification, but it largely fits the responses I've seen.

Received from OVO complaints Department 23rd May 2018.
I didn't formally complain, but this was escalated from their smart metering support team who at the time were poorly informed of the rationale behind the decision making process.
My contact with the company has been professional, responsive and readily acknowledges the anger and frustration that I expressed with the withdrawal of the live usage and Smart Gateway HUB. This is the response I received. I am pleased to see that they will waive early exit penalties. This loss of functionality is particularly galling as I re-signed up less than a month ago, so I was very annoyed at the short notice. As others have said the data is particularly useful in conjunction with open source smart home set ups like Open HAB and Samsung SmartThings. Without access to the Home Area Network, a login and password it is difficult to see how the Home Gateway Hub can be re-purposed and is a shocking waste of scarce rare minerals that it contains to simply end up as electrical scrap. Shame on OVO.
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Good morning Mr **********,



My name is David and I work in the complaints team at OVO Energy. Ryan is currently helping with another department today so I working your complaint in his absence.

I have tried to call you to discuss your complaint but unfortunately you were not available. I have left a voicemail message.

Ryan was in discussions with our Head of Product for some answers to why we have removed our OVO Live services. On the back of your complaint we have released a statement on our online forum. I have included the information below, but you can also visit our forum here.

“We’ve been getting complaints about the service being incorrect or unreliable for a while now. In the normal course of events we’d fix it rather than turning it off. However, there are other factors that influenced our decision. We’re in the process of building a new online experience for customers to manage their energy, and our aim is to roll this out to all smart meter customers before the end of the year. The existing OVO Live data service is incompatible with this, and it has built up what’s known in software development as technical debt. Additionally, it would have needed considerable extra work to be compatible with both SMETS1 and the new SMETS2 meters that are going to be installed starting later this year.

We appreciate that it is frustrating to receive the message that we’re turning this off “to bring you something better”, when we’re removing a service that you find useful and not immediately replacing it with anything else. Although OVO Live customers make up fewer than 1% of our users, you are some of our most engaged customers, and we did not take the decision to turn off this service lightly.“

This information has also been given to all our customer service agents so they have more information to be able to answer questions similarly to yours.

From your complaint notes I can see that you are looking to switch providers as a result of these services being removed. I am sorry this is how you feel. If this is still the case we will waive your exit fees to allow you to change provider without these charges as a resolution to your complaint.

If you are happy with this information and offer as a resolution to your complaint you do not have to do anything, we will close your complaint in 5 working days.

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Hope this helps other forum users