[sirbillynomates]

My gas meter isn’t sending readings but my electricity meter is working fine. I’m not an expert hence I’m on here looking for help but I am led to believe that the gas meter is a slave to the electric meter and needs to connect to this to send the readings. I have been told that the electric meter firmware is out of date.

Is it correct that the gas meter is a slave to the electric?
Could the firmware be the problem and how can I get the firmware updated?

On a separate issue I live in a new build and the friendly installation company never left me an IHD can you purchase these separately?

[meldrewreborn]

@silverfox55

I don't have any axe to grind with eon next over smart meters and their in house displays. I've never had either!. But the smart meter initiative stems from government, having been initiated in 2011. See this link:
UK smart meter rollout – bungled, woeful, promising or successful? (smart-energy.com)

The rollout is nowhere near complete and opinion on the benefits are being actually realised (rather than theoretical models) is mixed. Businesses and organisations like Local authorities are apparently enthusiastic.

But according to this link we only installed smart technology to the 10 millionth household in November 2021. Remember there are 28 Million UK households!!!
The UK connects 10 millionth household to DCC's smart meters network (smart-energy.com)
To quote:
"In addition to the 10 million households connected to the network, 41 million devices including smart meters, in-home displays, communications hubs, and smart energy control devices are connected to the network.A total of 16.3 million smart meters are using the system for data telemetry of which some 6.4 million are first-generation and 9.9 million are second-generation smart meters."

It seems to me that the real key to realising benefit from smart meters is when differential pricing is introduced where users are on tariffs which penalise peak consumption use, and promote load shifting to cheaper periods. A simple example of discretionary use might be the washing machine which is in use for probably less than 10 hours in the average home per week, but has a wide range of acceptable times when it is actually in use. Why would this be good? Well at peak load periods expensive standby generation is bought into use to meet demand. Apart from some very large energy users that are under contract and can be temporarily suspended , the Grid has virtually no means to cut demand and so just has to bring this expensive power source into operation. If load can be spread more evenly throughout the day the expensive generating cost can be avoided and savings made.

It remains to be seen whether consumers will go for such tariffs without an absolute guarantee that bills will never be higher than they would be on a standard tariff. Its interesting to note that Government appraisals of the programme use complex economic theory in identifying the costs against benefits. in such appraisals the data from early years is more important than later years because the value of money goes down. In the smart meter programme the costs are front loaded and the assumed benefits come later. Its clear that the programme is way behind schedule so the benefits keep sliding off into the future while the costs just keep mounting up.

[theunknowntech]

I've never known any property have a built-in IHD and searching the Certified Products List over on the ZigBee Alliance website hasn't produced any results either. They've always been portable for as long as I can remember.

With that being said, I can already diagnose a lot of potential issues. My first guess is that this is a read schedule issue so I'll summon @PeterT_EONNext to take a look. As for the firmware, it's impossible to be outdated unless the meters aren't communicating at all. Automatic firmware updates are always enabled by default and the meters will process them when they become available. It can take a few weeks in some cases for such updates to rollout though and the meters will restart/reboot as part of the firmware update process. There's nothing you need to do - and nothing you can do - in order to force an update through. If it keeps failing, the supplier is notified.

As for the IHD, you can't just buy these from anywhere. If you have SMETS2 meters, your best bet is the ivie Bud, while for SMETS1 you'll want the SMETS1 variant of the Hildebrand Glow, assuming it ever comes back into stock. E.On Next has been very... Difficult... About supplying new IHDs and their default choice of the IHDL SmartView 2 is a horrible IHD.

If you're unsure what meters you have, I can identify them for you if you post photos.

[meldrewreborn]

Hi You need @theunknowntech to explain this. But as he has pointed out to me the Gas smart meter has a battery to support its operations and sends its data to the communications unit attached to the electricity meter.

Some newbuilds have the in house display permanently fixed in the wall , rather than as a separate unit.

[silverfox55]

So why does it "fail" when the company changes to eonnext ?????

Sounds a very fishy reply to me.

Surely all of this must have been noticed during testing. If my experience in testing is anything to go by then it will have been kicked to the long grass and dealt with some other time.

[meldrewreborn]

The data from the meters goes to a device near your meter which sends it over something akin to a low grade (2G in some cases) mobile signal to the DCC a company set up to handle the data. The DCC then makes the data available to your energy supplier. Once all the necessary protocols are in place the Energy Supplier has the ability to collect data from the meter(s) and send data (such as tariff information) down via the communications hub to your in house display.

But there are lots of different types of smart meter installed by different supply companies with different in house displays. So when you switch from supplier A to Supplier B the new supplier has to deal with meters that they didn't install and very possibly have less expertise in. I've seen on this forum advice that some functionality takes 8 weeks to re- establish! It seems to me that what in essence is a very simple thing in the handling of a comparatively small amount of data has been massively over complicated, and few really understand it as it all operates in the background away from the user / customer. Except its the customer that is inconvenienced when things don't work as originally advertised. While this works brilliantly well for Apple and the iPhone it doesn't seem to for smart meters.

But even with the iPhone, time moves on and the updates to the operating system render older software products obsolete and functionality gradually eroded.

I don't have the answer but a complaint to you MP might force our representatives to recognise that all is not well with the smart meter programme.

[silverfox55]

3 months to establish a gas connection but straight away with electric !!!!!!!! As for different suppliers...... So, going by you, eon cannot supply info and tech to a different eon company without taking months to sort.

This makes the situation even worse froma implementation and testing perspective.

Looks like you have dug a deeper hole for eonnext with your reply

[sirbillynomates]

@meldrewreborn

Thanks for your reply and suggesting that @theunknowntech can help out. How do I loop him into this feed?

I do live in a new build (good guess) but definitely don't have a built in IHD.

[meldrewreborn]

he'll see this post as he's mentioned in it.

[sirbillynomates]

@theunknowntech Thanks I really appreciate your reply!

I used the Citizens Advice Bureau Smart meter checker database to check which type of smart meter I have. I would expect it to be SMETS2 as the house is only 2 years old. It shows my Electricity meter is an SMETS2 meter but it says it can't find my gas meter and quotes:

• there was something wrong with your details - try entering them again
  
• your meter isn’t on the smart meter data network, which connects your smart meter to energy suppliers
• you don’t have a smart meter - ask your supplier if you’re not sure

I definitely put in the right details (copied and paste from my bill) I'm sure it is a smart meter and I am not sure what to do about the second!

I was told the electricity meter firmware was out of date and asked for proof so they sent a screenshot (will upload)

I have been trying to sort this out for months now and keep getting different answers from different people. So really appreciate your help and your recommendation of a IHD!