Octopus Energy - has anyone here managed to make a smart meter appointment?

^^^^^

However this WASN'T.....

Home unoccupied at the moment, a similar variety of loads, and we are recording a similar consumption.

Boiler is on standby, whilst we are away, in case of frost - set at 12C, but it hasn't needed to fire, at any time.

The mini is much better than a IHD, the mini provides near instant consumption.

Always worth getting one fitted, when they fit a new meter - It makes subsequant work on the consumer unit, much more straight forward.

I have both but probably have not even glanced at the IHD in a month or two.

I look at my consumption (updated via the mini) on my smart phone and the Octopus App.

I always leave the boiler on for the same reason although I can also control the heating and hot water when away from home. If needed I will turn on the heating and hot water before I travel home.

For a while they worked OK communicating with Scottish Power and the IHD, but after a while the IHD kept displaying “awaiting communication with your meters”. Soon after we kept getting requests to submit gas readings as Scottish power could not get gas readings.

After a few of these and getting on to SP about the inconvenience I was told a fix was in the pipeline. I think it was about a year before they got back with instructions to fix the software which involved a number of key presses on the meter and I got the impression this was a download.

Again things worked for a little while before the same happened. After once more haranguing SP I this time got a man with a van and he downloaded some sort of fix from a hand held device. Once again it worked fine for a while before the same old problems re-emerged. I again contacted SP suggesting after all these unsuccessful attempts to fix the issue I wanted the meter replaced. This was duly done but when he ran tests on the old meter it turned out a battery that should have lasted at least 10 years was the issue.

Richard

I think it’s very likely it won’t help. I’ve been told already that my meter will automatically go through reconnect steps if it loses its connection.

The trouble is, “script says we must power cycle the meter” before for advancing to the next stage. So I’m stuck waiting for a simple power cycle that almost certainly won’t work.

Tim

Get a Gazunder

Told to me by an actor who frequently used "theatrical digs": Sign in bedroom "If the chamber pot is used do NOT replace under the bed lest the vapours rot the springs"

I've not bothered with the IHD, since getting the mini, the mini is so much more useful.

We are due back home tomorrow, the heating and hot water was preset to come on, ealier today, all ready for us to walk in tomorrow.

That wont help. The contents still has to go somewhere.

The installers said they coldn't get the meter to "Phone home". Opened a ticket. Agent couldn't get it to phone home eiher. This is a 19th Century sandstone building and I am assuming the meter is using 4G data (No one at Octupus can tell me how it works (Natch), they have escalated it. I await developments.

It depends where you are. The South and large parts elsewhere use 4G, while the North-West and presumably other areas, uses the dedicated Arquiva network.

I you're "oop north" it'll be on the arqiva smart meter network, otherwise it'll be on O₂, they're the only operator who hasn't switched off 3G yet, but they're starting next year, so the meter will then have to dropback to 2G. The smart meter 4G rollout is supposed to start next year.

Not yet, they don't ...

Isn't it just an upgrade of the communications hub part of the smart meter that needs upgrading, or are they going to swap the whole meter?

Dave

Theoretically.

It deep ends. Most modern meters have a separate communications hub gubbins alongside the meter. Older ones like mine have it built in so the meter will have to be changed.

Fair enough. I knew that they'd stated an inability to upgrade all existing meters to 4G by the 3G switch-off deadline, but thought that they were switching to installing 4G meter for new installations.