NPower Duet2 unable to connect

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  • Phil's Avatar
    Level 1
    Hi,
    I was originally an NPower customer and have been moved to EonNext several months ago.
    My NPower Duet 2 IHD has stopped working since last week and now only shows the message "Connecting to smart meter". It had been working fine up to that point.
    Power off/on makes no difference and moving the IHD to beside the meter doesn't help either.
    On the actual SmartMeter, all the LEDs (WAN etc) are green.
    Could the IHD have been deactivated due to the EonNext move, even though this was months ago and had been working fine since then?
    Regards
    Phil
  • 24 Replies

  • Best Answer

    theunknowntech's Avatar
    Level 80
    Best Answer
    Ok, after even more button pushing, I think I can safely say that the tool you found is completely broken by the looks of things.

    Both myself and Blastoise have attempted to put our respective MPANs and Postcodes in to see if it could pick up our S2 meters - which are definitely communicating just fine - but the tool instantly spat out the "meter not found" error for both of us. We noticed it was returning a result incredibly fast - perhaps too fast, so we decided to try some tricks.

    Chucking in completely impossible combinations yielded some rather interesting results. Unfortunately for us, the tool immediately rejected XM4 5HQ as an invalid postcode (d'oh!), despite the fact that it actually is a valid postcode... It just has a very special purpose. I guess Citizens Advice don't recognise Santa's Grotto or Reindeerland as being a thing in the UK!

    Anyway, playing about with it some more and using examples like an MPAN of "1" - which obviously can't be a valid MPAN as it doesn't match the format at all - and a Postcode of W1A 1AA which is a special case postcode assigned to BBC Broadcasting House, I also got the generic "meter not found error" immediately. This suggests the tool may well be completely dead, as I wouldn't expect it to return a failure in under 0.1 seconds if it was to actually query DCC properly and wait for a response before coming back to me with an answer. It would have probably also spotted that the MPAN was totally invalid and that the postcode in question does not have any addresses on it that can qualify for a Smart Meter of the type that the tool is designed to search for. Businesses can get Smart Meters, but it's a lot more complicated and runs in a slightly different way. I doubt that a tool designed for personal use would be able to look up a business.

    If the tool was properly designed, it would have detected that the MPAN was totally invalid and asked me to enter it again before attempting to look it up, not afterwards - and it probably would have spotted that the two postcodes I mentioned here are special cases that cannot possibly be assigned to a domestic customer. On top of that... I find it rather curious that it correctly boots out any postcode starting with X, since none of those are technically valid for the purposes of energy supplies (they can be valid for other stuff though!), but fails to spot the special cases assigned to high profile organisations. Whoops...

    Oh, and it's definitely only booting out those that begin with X - I tried one that starts with BX and it accepted it (but obviously failed to get a result afterwards).

    Ultimately, my current opinion is that I can't recommend the use of that Citizens Advice smart meter check tool at this time, since it appears to be broken and non-functional. Maybe it did work fine when it was first created, but for some reason it's no longer working properly. It could be that DCC has terminated the API Key for the tool, it might be that the API changed on the DCC side of things or something else entirely. But whatever the cause, I would advise against relying on the tool at this time, until it gets fixed properly. The most up-to-date information is likely to be available via ECOES (for electricity) or Xoserve (for gas). You can ask your supplier to do a lookup anytime free of charge, but there's no self-service option that can do this.
    Just another guy passing by... The unknown tech way...
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  • Phil's Avatar
    Level 1
    In case anyone else comes across this thread and has the same issue as me, the below may be useful...

    I eventually managed to speak to EonNext customer services via Facebook messenger (as none of my emails were answered and I got bored of waiting over 20 minutes in phone queues every time I tried calling, and DM'ing customer services on this forum went unanswered). 4 hours after starting the Facebook chat I got a response. I explained the situation I was having with the recent loss of connection with my Duet2. I was told to try moving it closer and power it off/on, but I have already tried that and it doesn't work. So I asked if an engineer could be sent out, however the response I received was:

    "I'm afraid we only send out engineers if there is a fault with the smart meters not the In-Home Display. The In-Home Display is an incentive that gets sent out with the smart meters. We do not stock IHDs at the moment, we are hoping to update our website and app to have this feature. Sorry for any inconvenience"

    So that's that then. I have a smart meter that isn't so smart (seems a common thread on this forum I have found). I personally found it very useful to see my realtime energy consumption (is that sad?). It made me more aware of my energy usage - which was kind of the point of smart meters. Now I don't get any real benefit of a smart meter. It means that people who read the meters are no longer needed, but doesn't directly benefit me.

    The moral of the story then is to make the most of your IHD, as once it's gone it's gone. Oh, and if you want to talk to customer services - Facebook messenger seems to be the only way.
  • nil's Avatar
    Level 1
    @Phil I too have same problem. Can I check - have you got any solution/pointers on this yet? I tried getting customer support no to call on but looks like Eon are very shy to talk to their customers!

    Regards,
    Nil
  • Phil's Avatar
    Level 1
    @nil - No solution really. Several days after emailing EonNext I got a standard response of powering the IHD off/on and moving it closer. Seems to be a standard template email to be honest. But, just to confirm, I checked the signal strength on the IHD (in Settings | Advanced | Signal) and it reports to be between -26dbm and -37dbm. Apparently anything around -30dbm is an "excellent" signal strength. (For reference, the more negative the number is the poorer the signal. -67dbm would be considered "very good"). Perhaps compare that to your IHD's reading, but signal strength is not my issue.
  • Landmark's Avatar
    Level 29
    @Phil I too have same problem. Can I check - have you got any solution/pointers on this yet? I tried getting customer support no to call on but looks like Eon are very shy to talk to their customers!

    Regards,
    Nil
    Try this person who is expert on smart meters. Go to https://community.eonnext.com/privat...o=newpm&u=2153
  • SimonQ's Avatar
    Level 1
    Did you have issues with meter readings too?

    I had the same problem with my older npower duet2 stopping working 2-weeks ago, but also found out today no automatic Smart reading was sent in September, just not sure if the two are linked.

    My Smart meter seems to be working ok and took a manual reading today, and there was also signal it would seem. Cannot bare the idea of having to use multiple means to contact EON just to check status mind! Urgh
  • Landmark's Avatar
    Level 29
    Did you have issues with meter readings too?

    I had the same problem with my older npower duet2 stopping working 2-weeks ago, but also found out today no automatic Smart reading was sent in September, just not sure if the two are linked.

    My Smart meter seems to be working ok and took a manual reading today, and there was also signal it would seem. Cannot bare the idea of having to use multiple means to contact EON just to check status mind! Urgh
    Twitter is all you need. Let us know you you got on, and if not why not?
  • Beki's Avatar
    @SimonQ Hey there, thank you so much for posting on our Community. I am confused as to if it was your In Home Display having issues or your actual smart meter?

    Would you be able to give me some more information!

    Sending positive energy to you,
    Beki - Digi Ops Team Leader & Sustainability Enthusiast

    Everything & everyone powered by sustainable energy. 🌍
  • ALM's Avatar
    Level 1
    I have the exact same issue - NPower Duet II says "Connecting to smart meter...". It is right next to the meter (signal strength -12dBm), and restarting makes no difference (and it is on mains power, so no battery issues). The Gas Meter and Elec Meter pages both say 'paired' but the date and time are dashes if that helps.

    This has been the case for over 2 months, and (coincidentally?) for the last two months I have had a human meter reader come and take the reading off the smart meter itself - I'm guessing because it is not sending anything to E-ON either.

    So my smart meter is now a rather expensive dumb meter. Any timeline on when this will be resolved as it seems quite common?