Undocumented Smart Meter IHD settings 'Night Mode', etc.

Having started looking in to the settings on the IHD, I noticed a couple that are not as self-explanatory or intuitive as I thought. They are not detailed in the pamphlet that came with the installation. Is a full manual available somewhere?

'Night Mode' - does this dim the display or mute the budget alert under certain circumstances - particular hours, whether the charger is connected? I have tried to work it out to no avail.

'Ambient Light' - seems to just enable or disable the traffic lights below the display - is there something else going on?

Hi.

I think I know what you mean there. If you're talking about the (extremely cheap STi Electronics Philippines manufactured) SmartView or SmartView 2, then I'm afraid there isn't one. They're pretty much identical to the SSE Smart Energy Tracker though which is also manufactured by STi. They're not so much proper IHDs as they are just random boards from a prototyping company, so there isn't a proper user manual like you'd get with an IHD from Chameleon, Hildebrand or Geo.

I used to be supplied by SSE back in the SMETS1 days (I'm supplied by OVO these days on SMETS2) so I know enough about these devices to try and help you out a little. If you have a photo of your IHD that you're happy to post on here, I can try to adapt my advice to more accurately target the one you have.

Firstly, Night Mode primarily just dims the display and sets it to a dark theme overnight. I don't know the exact hours, but it's either a case that the IHD will flip to Night Mode between say 10pm and 7am, or you can manually flip the switch whenever you want. Some IHDs also mute alerts, but others don't. Not that the alerts are very loud anyway...

Ambient Light does exactly what it says on the tin. It's merely a setting that turns the traffic lights on/off and does nothing else of interest.

So, no real surprises in your answer, I have attached a photo of the IHD if you want to add anything specific.

In terms of my preference, I would have liked to have the display turn off and just have the traffic lights showing, but I see that's not an option.

Ooh ok, this is actually good news for you then. You're in luck - this is a Chameleon IHD3 by the looks of things and Chameleon Technology is a proper IHD manufacturer, so they know what they're doing. I know these devices well, even though I use the Chameleon IHD6 myself as I help people out a lot. In this case, I can definitely give you the original user guide directly from Chameleon Technology. It's not much, but I hope it's better than nothing. https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/chameleontechnology.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/IHD3-CAD-PPMID-User-Guide-1.pdf

I've also got this one as well. It's a little older and might not cover everything, but I think the two guides combined should be enough to give you most of the answers you're after. If you need more though, some Google-Fu will almost certainly uncover even more useful tips that people have written - and some other "unofficial" guides as well. Including some stuff that I've contributed to a few times.

I'm afraid you can't turn the display off completely though and still have the lights on, even via Night Mode (unless you power down the entire IHD). The best you can do is lower the brightness and configure Night Mode so that it's a little less distracting. The Chameleon IHD6 does away with the traffic lights though as everything is on the main display - for which you can really lower the brightness quite a lot even without Night Mode being turned on.

@theunknowntech great help! Many thanks.

The technician who installed it claimed that it 'adapts the guage to your usage', but clearly the user has to set the budget to get useful tailored results. The little booklet I was given had next to no detail on this, either. (A bit more focused on the prepay features, not applicable to my account). The built-in tutorial had some better hints on this, too.

I suspect someone less technically minded than you or I would not be getting the best out of it based on the supplied text, chat or built-in tutorial.

Strictly speaking, there's no easy way for any IHD to adapt the gauge automatically like that. It has no idea where it's been installed after all! So it can't exactly tell the difference between being installed at a 1-bed flat and a giant mansion. I generally recommend setting the Budget based on your preferences, since this will adapt the gauge and traffic lights accordingly - as long as the correct tariff data has been downloaded. Clearly you weren't told that by the installer, which is disappointing. Some IHDs do have the option to manually change a setting that tells the IHD whether you're a low, medium or heavy energy user and this would adapt the gauges. But generally, the budget feature is probably easier anyway.

The only part of the gauge that automatically adapts is when it's showing you how much energy you're currently using (on the Now view) and how much you've used during the selected period - and this is primarily represented as being against your specified budget. While more bars obviously indicates more use, that doesn't match up to someone claiming the IHD will "learn" your patterns and figure out how to adjust the thresholds by itself. Because it definitely won't do that.

The Tutorial on my two Chameleon IHD6 IHDs does hint at this - and the Budget option is easily accessible in the menu and it's fairly obvious on the display as to how much of said budget you've used so far. Unlike the IHD3, the IHD6 removes the traffic light LEDs since the display itself is capable of replicating that feature. But yeah, the original guides from Chameleon combined with the built-in Tutorial, simply trying out the device for yourself and looking up guides elsewhere will often tell you more than the guide you get from the supplier.