Would my smart meters cause interference with my wi-fi signal?

Updated on 04/01/23 by Emmanuelle_OVO

Although it is rare that a Smart Meter will interfere with your wifi, the advice below explains what to do if you do notice any intermittent issues with wifi or Smart devices following a Smart meter installation. This was given in this topic thread about smart meter installations.

One issue which might occur when you have a Smart Meter installed is poor WiFi performance. Sometimes it can fail altogether.

WiFi can operate in two frequency bands. The earlier standard, still most commonly used, is called IEEE 802.11b and runs at 2.4GHz. The same frequency is used for other wireless domestic products such as door-bells and some remote controls. However, the software protocols for all these devices is different, which is why there is little perceptible interference when two or more are operating simultaneously.

The Zigbee network which connects your Smart Meters and your IHD is another 2.4GHz standard, properly referred to as IEEE 802.15.4.

Unlike doorbells and remote control units, both WiFi and Zigbee are continuously live. Whether they clash or not depends on the channel number which each one uses.

In the UK, WiFi is assigned 11 overlapping channels. In order to avoid degradation of the signal, we normally employ one of channels 1, 6 or 11 because these have no overlap. You can select this manually by logging into your router.
 

Zigbee has 16 channels, which carry much less data and can therefore be non-overlapping.

In the USA there is a convention that any new Zigbee device will be configured to use either channel 15 or 20. These have frequencies which neatly sit in-between the commonly-used WiFi channels.

In the UK there is no such convention, and it's possible that a Zigbee device could use any of the allocated channels. So if your router happens to be sited close to your new SMETS Meter, there is the opportunity for interference to occur.

All is not lost however. Firstly, you could login to your WiFi router and change the channel it uses.

Failing that, Zigbee itself has an inbuilt Channel Agility. Once it recognises that its frequency has a sufficient level of interference that data is being lost or corrupted, then it will switch to an alternative channel.

This process isn't immediate. Both of your SMETS Meters and the IHD will all be using the Channel Agility protocol to find a common channel which suffers least interference. It might take an hour or so before everything gets sorted. In the meantime, don't switch off your WiFi router because this will halt the automatic Agility process. When the router is next re-powered, the interference will start all over again!

Note that there is nothing which OVO's Installation Engineer can do about such problems beyond noting on the job-sheet that WiFi was lost when the Smart Meters were powered up. Zigbee self-allocates channels (eventually) and the Installation App doesn't have a facility for manual channel selection.

Nor are Installers trained or permitted to start logging into your router and manually changing its channel. And you should have it password protected anyway!

Want to connect your IHD to your WiFi check out these instructions below: 

How to connect a SMETS2 IHD to the Wi-Fi

When you get your smart meter installed the engineers will try to connect the IHD to your Wi-Fi when, but sometimes they can't. Here’s how you can do it yourself at home: 

Setting up Wi-Fi on a IHD6 or IHD7

1. Press Menu (the 6 white boxes in the bottom right corner)

2. Scroll right (use the white arrow) and press Settings

3. Press Wi-Fi

4. Press On to turn the Wi-Fi On

5. If their router supports WPS Push:

   1. Press WPS Push

   2. When prompted, press the WPS button on the router

6. If not:

   1. Press Scan to show available networks

   2. Select the network they wish to join

   3. Enter the password and press Join

7. The device will connect to the Wi-Fi and show Connected when successful

Benefits of connecting IHD to Wi-Fi

Have you heard of our OVO Energy Tracker? It’s free to all OVO customers, giving you personal energy insights about your home! It works better for members with smart meters and IHDs that are connected to Wi-Fi allowing them to:

• See their live energy use, minute-by-minute

• View a week-by-week, category-by-category breakdown of how they use energy

• Compare their energy use and carbon footprint to similar homes

• Check the Carbon Forecast for the best times to use energy

• Access specific tips and advice to cut carbon and bills