[Granpa]

Hi,
We were converted to smart metering in October but the IHD has never connected. Reported this though phone, email, etc but to no effect so trying to move it forward myself.
The electric meter is showing three green lights every 5 seconds, that's SW WAN and MESH. There is no light at all on HAN or GAS. I interpret this as there is no home network signal for the IHD or gas meter to connect to, therefore no readings on the IHD.
1. How do I get the HAN switched on ?
2. When the HAN is working, can I then connect the IHD and gas meter myself ?
Any help gratefully received,
Thanks

[retrotecchie]

@Granpa

The gas LED will usually just flash when there is a transaction taking place between the gas and electric meter. All the data to the supplier goes via the electric meter. Gas meters usually only update half hourly so I would only expect to see the occasional flash every once in a while.

No HAN light indicates there is no communication between your IHD and the meters. You cannot 'enable' this yourself, it is an 'always on' feature.

What it is most likely to be is a poor signal between the meters and the IHD. Maximum range is usually of the order of 15 to 20 feet but this can be affected by obstacles, thickness of walls, etc.

Best advice is to simply switch the IHD off, or let the battery run flat. Wait a couple of hours, take the IHD to within six feet of the actual electricity meter, preferably in line of sight and then power it on again. This should force the IHD to reconnect to the meter, update itself and then re-establish HAN communications.

Are both meters sending smart readings for both gas and electricity? If so, then no problem with the meters themselves.

[despairingcustomer]

Better thing to do is to go to the resolver.co.uk website and use that to raise a complaint. Quicker and easier than trying to get EON.NEXT

[despairingcustomer]

Re this statement "Maximum range is usually of the order of 15 to 20 feet but this can be affected by obstacles, thickness of walls, etc." If this is known on the forum then why oh why did the EON NEXT installer (not an engineer as they do no design work) install my meters at least 10Metres away from our house. the signal also has to pass through 3 double walls!

Better news is that they are coming back to update the smart meters...

[retrotecchie]

@despairingcustomer

Where were your existing meters prior to the install. Have the smart meters been installed in the same location as the originals?

[Granpa]

Hi,
thanks, I appreciate both of you responding.

Neither meter was moved but they sit on opposite sides of our house - probably 20 feet apart with three interior walls between them.

I tried draining the battery on the IHD and leaving it dead for two hours then plugged it into an extension lead and put it inside the electric meter box. It still said "waiting for meter readings" three hours later. I can't get any closer.

And for the gas meter, I went through the menu options to re-connect to HAN. It checked for a minute - "please wait...scanning networks" - and then showed " Network not available".

To my uneducated eyes, it still seems that we have no HAN. Is there another way to check for it ? Will it show up as a phone network like EE ?

Thanks,
Granpa

[retrotecchie]

@Granpa

No. I can scan for HAN networks because I happen to have some very specialist hardware to scan and monitor ZigBee signals as I use ZigBee for specialist military and police applications, but there's isn't anything an ordinary punter can do. The HAN is present, but the gas meter is way too far away from the electric meter and comms hub for it to connect.

You have a HAN as it is a function of the comms hub, but because of the very low power of the radio signals, the effective range is around 20ft or so from the IHD to the hub and probably only ten feet or so meter to meter.

In theory, your IHD should pick up the HAN. However, strangely enough if it's too close to the meter it can sometimes struggle.

It will also depend to some extent on the construction of your house. A smart meter will rarely connect to an IHD successfully through a single cavity wall if foil backed insulation batts have been installed at time of construction. Rarely a problem in pre-1995 properties, but many newer properties have issues. Another killer is single skin brick or block walls with the interior skin made of studwork and plasterboard as is very common these days. The foil-backed insulation or foil-backed plasterboard effectively blocks most radio frequencies above a couple of hundred megahertz. My parents recently moved to a new build and they had to get me to install an external FM antenna as their hifi and radios couldn't even pick up signal unless they were in front of a window!


What you actually need is a system called AltHAN which the energy companies will start installing in 'difficult' properties from this year. This uses special 'repeaters' that connect into the existing comms hub/electric meter and convert the ZigBee signals into something that can be fed into the wiring of the house. A transceiver then plugs into any socket and converts back to ZigBee to talk to the IHD.

AltHAN is a consortium involving all the energy companies and I believe E.On Next are part of the consortium so should be able to provision this in difficult cases such as yours.

[despairingcustomer]

I am having a dual band comms hub fitted today so we will see if this improves things in my house. Sitrep - both meters about 11m from kitchen and signal goes through 1 double brick wall, then garage doors then kitchen windows. Signal on IHD is one dot.

[despairingcustomer]

@retrotecchie Hi yes the new meters went where the old ones were. dual band comms hub being fitted today...

[retrotecchie]

@despairingcustomer

Let us know how it works. 👍