More smart meter stupidity

Aug 20, 2026 Last reply: 1 month ago 12 Replies
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As our existing fixed energy tariff with EON was coming to an end, we've opted to switch to another fixed one from the same company called "Next Smart Saver Fixed 12m V38" (however do they think up these snappy names?). This comes with a higher peak electricity rate for 1600-1900 and a super off-peak rate at night. I estimate that we might make a small saving overall as we rarely do much cooking before 1900.



Adopting this new tariff requires us to have a smart meter, which we do, and to having its readings taken every 30 minutes - I thought they already were but apparently not. We have a display unit in our kitchen which shows the electricity consumption in W/kW updated every 10 seconds, which I occasionally glance at and find useful. This has never worked for gas, for reasons unknown.



Remarkably, EON also says that after switching to the new tariff our home display unit will stop working. I simply can't imagine why. Since nearly everything else that energy companies say about smart meters is false, this might be too. We'll find out in a week or so.



It will possible stop displaying the correct price of the electricity you are using.

Since smart gas meters are battery powered, they only transmit readings every 30 minutes, the electric meters are mains powered so transmit every few seconds.

When I switched from EdF to So.Energy they said the same thing, it hasn't stopped working, I just think it doesn't necessarily show the accurate cost figuers for the different time of use, but the instantaneous watts and summed kilowatt-hours usage still work properly.

12 Month Fix, Tariff Version 38. Obvious really.

Yes, it is obvious. If you accept their premise that they really need to have 38 different tariff versions then the name is not quite as stupid as it seems. Though I've still no idea what the "Next" at the start of the name implies.

But an update: the new tariff came into operation a couple of days ago and fortunately it hasn't so far prevented the internal display unit from working. It may be that the tariff information that it uses to show costs is no longer correct, but as we used it just to see the current rate of power usage in watts that hardly matters. So that was just another tiny bit of mis-information from the company, as I suspected.

It's a marketing thing ... after e.on swallowed Npower they migrated the existing e.on customers and NPower's domestic customers to e.on Next as a single brand, but kept nPower as a business-only brand.

I'm on their 'Optimise' something tariff and the IHD still works in the sense that it shows consumption and meter readings but, as you guessed, the tariff info is incorrect.

In fairness they did in fact say that it would no longer work when I transferred.

Its just the 38th version of the Tariff. The fixes change to reflect market forces so they just bump the number each time. In a few weeks (or months) depending on the gas futures market, you won't be able to by V38 and they will have moved onto V39.

The "Next" means its managed using the software that Octopus wrote and sell as through their Kraken subsidiary as "Next Generation". E.ON bought this to manage its customers, so for a while there were "Legacy" customers on "Legacy" tariffs and "Next Generation" customers on the new tariffs. There were also two web sites for users to use "eon.com and "eonnext.com" so having "Next" in the tariffs helped users to get the correct web site.

I suspect as far as OFCOM is concerned its "not working" so thats what they tell you

Dave

brain fog, OFGEM of course

Dave

If so does that mean that I can complain to OFCOM that it's not working

- as much of their literature claim it should?

I expect the reason they told you it wouldn't work after the switch is to absolve themselves of any issues with the IHD, not just the incorrect tariff. ie if tomorrow your IHD turned into a brick, they could get out of fixing it on the basis that they told you the IHD wouldn't work after the switch. Even though it might currently be displaying the correct kWh but incorrect amount of money, they no longer guarantee to maintain that status quo.

Theo

I expect you are right on that. (And I too meant OFGEM not OFCOM. Easy to confuse as they seem to be equally useless.)

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