[NorwegianBlue]

Hi Everyone,

I hope someone can help.

My first post on this forum. I normally prefer to talk directly to people but having spent over 9 hours and 5 weeks on the phone trying to arrange for my smart meter to be fitted, I am reluctant to go down that route again.

I have an SMET IHDL SMARTVIEW 2 that has just stopped working. It hasn’t been moved from where the engineer installed it at the end of March but it is suddenly really unhappy. The function keys only work occasionally, making shutting it down impossible. If you ever get offered shut down or restart and make that selection nothing happens to the display and the device freezes. You are unable to operate the function keys. On the occasions that I have been able to access my history, here isn’t any for at least 4 days. If I leave the device, when I return all I see is a dark screen with a lightning blot in the middle, underneath that is an underscore and underneath that the word Today. The light at the bottom is orange. From this starting point, I f I press the up keys it says 34.4 p/hr, below, dash Today and click up 1.67kw dash Today. This hasn’t changed in 3 days, no matter what is/isn’t running. Then I try to shut it down does not do as asked and it freezes again.

I tried to run the battery down to see if that would help re-sync but it did not. The light at the bottom turned blue but the display, when the keys worked still showed the same figures. I have even sat it in the under stairs cupboard next to the meter, for a couple of hours and this has made no difference.

I am at a loss as to what to do. I know I struggle a bit due to my disabilities but I can usually work my way around most things.

I have sent an email, I don’t do twitter.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice.

[theunknowntech]

Hey there! You're through to the evil genius theunknowntech, how may I assist you today with your evil plans for world domination? XD

Sorry, I couldn't help the joke. I might only be a forum volunteer, but I've a lot of experience with these things and I'm backed up by my friends if I need their help.

I'm afraid I have some really bad news for you. It sounds to me as if your IHD is basically a bricked paperweight and I can't think of any possible way to recover the device or get it working again at all. The best advice I can give would be to have it unpaired from your meters and order a replacement IHD. Personally, I think an Accessible In-Home Display (AIHD) such as the Geo Trio II Accessible might be more appropriate for you and you should be able to request one from customer service. It should be free, so you won't need to pay for it.

Once the new IHD arrives, you'll need to get it paired up - customer service should be able to walk you through that process.

I've warned people many times about the IHDL SmartView/SmartView 2 IHDs being unreliable and it seems you're just the latest person to encounter that. Both me and my friend Blastoise186 have had this exact IHD (branded as the SSE Smart Energy Tracker) and had the exact same issues that you describe with at least two of them. We eventually gave up on them and put them in a cupboard.

I'm really sorry this might not be the news you wanted to hear. But I hope it helps either way.

[NorwegianBlue]

@theunknowntech

Thank you for your input. I pretty much worked out it was a bit on the dead side, the date hasn’t changed. I just dread having to sit on the phone for hours trying to get Eon, now Eon Next, to assist. I know I need to talk to them to get this sorted. A job for Monday afternoon me thinks!

I really appreciate you taking the time to respond, even if I have to face the grim and grisly task of hanging on the telephone waiting for assistance..

[theunknowntech]

No worries.

I really don't like to recommend replacing the hardware if I don't have to - as I much prefer less drastic options wherever possible. But my own personal experience with the SSE specific "SSE Smart Energy Tracker" variant of the SmartView/SmartView 2 left a sour taste after giving me and several of my friends a horrible user experience that was never able to be fixed.

As much as I hate to admit defeat, this is one of the very few times I have to accept that a replacement IHD is the only solution I can recommend. If you get stuck with customer service, feel free to ask them to read through this thread and it should clear up any possible confusion. I don't know which AIHD you'd be provided with, but I'm pretty sure most suppliers can get hold of them without too much trouble. I also know this much too - IHDL does not offer any AIHD at all, so you wouldn't be stuck with another SmartView 2. 😁

[NorwegianBlue]

My problem is they now can’t find my meter. I have received a bill over Christmas with smart meter readings on it but apparently that doesn’t count. I am really unhappy about all this. It was hard enough getting a meter and now they can’t find it. I have supplied my pre Eon Next account number. I now have to wait further developments 😶

[theunknowntech]

They can't find the meter? Seriously? Wow, that's a new one on me.

Clearly someone hasn't heard of my toolkit.

Hey Beki, could you do an ECOES and Xoserve lookup, to see if the meter(s) has been registered correctly on those databases please? Obviously, I'm not interested in any personal info - just whether this mysterious Smart Meter is actually registered as the current one. And if that's not the issue, maybe give the next engineer a torch and one of those fancy maps that can uncover pretty much any lost items?

[Beki]

@theunknowntech We have checked and the MSN matches, but there was an issue with the flows that didn't send the meter technical details and so the meter is not registered as a SMETS2, therefore not allowing us to poll reads atm. We are in the process of requesting the flows and MTDs to be updated so that we can go about business as usual.

@NorwegianBlue - I hope going into this much detail doesn't worry you. it's all very common and 100% fixable, so please don't worry. 🤗 @theunknowntech just speaks our language (even more fluently in most cases!)

[theunknowntech]

Yeah, that's not too bad actually. Shouldn't take too long to fix - and this should then be fixed for you permanently. Simply fix that flow and run it again. Easy. And maybe next time, don't let the server gnomes take lunch breaks halfway through a job?

Reminds me of the time that Blastoise186 managed to break even more than that by somehow having two electric meters registered at once on the same supply (the old removed one, and the new one). Honestly, give that guy a sledgehammer and he'll destroy literally anything and everything...

[Beki]

@theunknowntech haha server gnomes. I prefer Energy Elves 😅

It's more common than you'd think! @NorwegianBlue. We are looking into this and I've popped a reminder on your account to have a look later on this week.

[NorwegianBlue]

Originally Posted by Beki

@theunknowntech haha server gnomes. I prefer Energy Elves 😅

It's more common than you'd think! @NorwegianBlue. We are looking into this and I've popped a reminder on your account to have a look later on this week.

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