Octopus Energy

Yes, they are there. No detail, but no less than without a 'smart' meter.

I nether have, nor want, a 'smartphone'. I do have a tablet, though, I might try that.

When you say connect the Mini to the router, which router? There isn't one in the flat in question, internet service there is piggy-backed off the neighbour's, with his permission, of course. Occupation of the flat is not continuous.

I live mostly some miles away, could I connect a Mini to my router here? The meter's comms. unit cannot connect to an IHD in the flat, due to too much building between the two locations. The good news is that the display has now woken up, and displays a reading.

Eon does the same - with the rider that the request should be ignored if you have a smart meter. For some reason their system doesn't seem to be able to send out communications tailored to their users.

Octopus had said this also, but it was several weeks between my reading it in the blurb, and them asking for the reading. It did not survive the time delay in my memory. As with Eon, why can't they sort this out, it's not rocket science? Octopus never told me that my meter had started to send readings, so I naturally tried to send a reading when they requested one.

The meter displays are normally blank, until you wake them up by pressing an option button. The red LED, will be flashing regularly, if you are consuming power. Even if the signal will not reach the IHD, with the IHD plugged into a socket - the IHD can have batteries installed, so you can carry it around with you, free of the mains.

The meter is now displaying, thankfully. Despite the instruction manual saying that it always scrolls through the four displays without intervention.

The idea of an IHD is that it can sit in the home and be watched at any time, surely? Carrying it around outside the flat sounds as useful as trying to get a mobile signal in a rural area!

You can send Octopus a manual reading, whenever you like and as frequently as you like, even if the smart meter is sending the data. It will trigger a snapshot bill within 12 working hours.

With a working Smart meter you will receive a bill once per month.

If your smart meter is not sending its data, Octopus will send a request for a manual reading every month.

So you worked out how to wake the display up? Hallelujah!

You’re missing the point. The idea is that you can walk around your house and turn appliances on and off and see the immediate effect on consumption. Can be useful to find out what devices are consuming in real time.

Tim

The mini connects to the meter in the same way as the IHD. If you positioned the mini in the same location as your non connecting IHD it's likely it also would fail to connect BUT....

If you position the mini closer to the meter it would probably connect. It needs a mains socket for the mains to USB type wall wart.

The mini then connects to a (local) router via wi-fi. The set-up requires a device running the Octopus App and with bluetooth capability (only for the one time set-up). https://octopus.energy/octopus-home-mini-faq/#ohmsetup. The meter data is then sent directly to Octopus via the Internet and you can see it remotely on the Octopus App (smartphone or tablet??) or logging into your Octopus account web pages to view on a PC or laptop. You need the same login info for both Octopus App and the web page based account. With the mini the electricity data will be updated approx once per minute and gas once per 30 minutes.

The mini effectively bypasses the the official (third party) meter data collection service but I believe it's not been officially approved for billing purposes.

I seem to remember I got similar reminders too, until the meter readings were getting through. Now, I sometimes just visit the site, provide the readings, and then you are offered a couple of free spins on the twirly thing - see how many points you win. A side effect of sending manual readings, is that each time I do - the system issues a bill specially, in addition to the usual monthly bill I receive.

Thanks. I think I'll stick with what is there now. At least I can log in on my laptop and see what they have billed me.

I have no intention of wandering around the flat, there is almost nothing consuming power anyway. And if it can't connect from the nearest room to the meter, it won't work anywhere else! My reference to 'outside the flat' was because that is the only way to get the IHD closer to the meter than it would be now, if there was one.

You should also be able to log on via the laptop and see the usage figures albeit a day behind (for the last day, for usage in the current week, usage in the current month, usage in the current year).

The mini will only give you a more up to data figure, electric usage in the last minute, gas in the last 30 minute reporting slot.

Okay, maybe no use to you. Just trying to explain why it’s a mobile device and how people can use it.

Meter pairing is a dark art. If it ever does pair the range is usually quite good.

Tim

So far, I have only been able to find the total amounts recorded for the first two periods, one of which was almost zero, presumably the first partial period while it was still trying to get communication, then the next one was a reasonable reading. I have not yet delved deeper into how to display any more detail, but any guidance would be appreciated, to speed things up when I try again.

Somewhere in your online account there should be a setting to change your meter reading frequency. I think initially it's set as monthly, to mimic paper billing. You can change it to daily or every 30 minutes so you get a finer granularity of readings sent. If you change to 30 mins you should get

Theo

At 30 minutes interval, I should see 48 readings per day, surely? But I will see what I can find, but not today, very busy day. More later,

Not necessarily. My Octopus IHD is mains only. The plastic housing clearly has a bump on it which is about the right size for an AA battery, but the cover is glued in place.

Chris

Does it die immediately when unplugged? Some models have a small built in rechargeable battery that keeps them alive for a while. TBH, I thought they all did but I could be wrong.

Tim

Log on to your (web) account On the top line of the page there should be a menu option

Menu/meter readings/ Then select "My Energy"

You will find some usage graphs with options to select the time period.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you will find the option "Review my smart meter data preferences". Set this to every half hour. I believe this is a configuration for how the third party data meter collection service reports your consumption to Octopus (if you don't use the Mini) so setting 30 minutes gives more data. If you don't select 30 minutes then Octopus can only provide information to a resolution of a week or month.

For electric consumption the "My Energy" page has an option to download a .csv file showing your consumption for each 30 minute period. This file can be loaded directly into a spread sheet. Note: if you select a start period of more than a few months the "download" button may be inactive for a long period while the information is retrieved, and before you can download it. A month of data is 1394 lines of data and a file download of 105k bytes