OVO Smart meter

[Bill Stewart]

I am getting one next week - complete with wi-fi connection to my router. Does anyone have such, and any comments on it?

[Dave Liquorice]

They want to use your WiFi and presumably net connection? Is this for the meter operators useage upload and control of the meter?

F. that for a game of soldiers. If their system needs a 'net connection they can jolly well provide their own or pay me £40/month to piggy back on mine...

Even if it's only so you can see a pretty web page of useage WiFi APs aren't free and your firewall/router will need a config change to deny the the meter net access. You don't know how to do this (do you...) so you are going to have "call someone out": £75 call out charge (inc first hour and 50 miles travel) then £25/hour in 15 minute increments rounded up. Shouldn't take 'em more than a couple of hours.

Only 1/4 in jest...

[Bob Minchin]

Is this a fully smart meter ie one that lets OVO read it when they want to or simply one to inform you of your personal consumption visa your home network?

I used to be with OVO but got out when they wanted to charge me £60 to change to one of their newer tariffs. The charge was the same to move to another supplier and £30 cashback when I moved. Plain daft marketing strategy on their part IMHO.

[Bob Minchin]

HA! so if these are fully smart meters, then they can cut you off remotely. Having done so (maybe in error?) then there will be no wifi connection to enable them to switch you back on! Brilliant-- not!

[Nick Odell]

Apart from the privacy concerns which, if they haven't been done to death in this group have been elsewhere, I recently found out that if you decide to switch suppliers you almost certainly will need to switch smart meters too. It's a degree of hassle (and possible expense) that in practice locks customers in to one supplier and effectively knocks competition on the head.

Nick

[Andy Wade]

AIUI a wi-fi connection is optional, for the LAN-side only - remote display / on your tablet, etc. The meters phone home using GSM/UMTS/LTE, appropriately enough.

[whisky-dave]

But why is that ? Are yuo sure the hardware is dedicated to one supplier ? Doesn;t seem to make much sense.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Interesting. Mate wanted one fitted (not sure what supplier he uses) and was told he couldn't as they couldn't get a mobile phone signal where the old one was situated.

[Nick Odell]

It doesn't make sense in a free market but it makes a great deal of sense to a company wanting to lock their customers in. I've read about it in various "money" page articles in places like the Grauniad, Indie and Telegraph on line.

Nick

[Theo Markettos]

It makes sense from a support point of view. Since smart meters aren't standardised and are much more complex than simply reading the numbers off a variably-shaped box, they don't want to take responsibility for whatever piece of junk your past supplier fitted. That includes not wanting to get involved in whatever connectivity the past supplier arranged - the old supplier contracted with some mobile network, but the new one won't have any arrangements set up and would have to re-make them piecewise.

Really the meter needs to be provided by the infrastructure company (National Grid or whatever) who take care of backhaul and maintenance, but that isn't how the electricity market works. That would also result in a one-size-fits-all approach, which isn't necessarily a good idea when the technology isn't anywhere near mature.

Theo

[whisky-dave]

It makes sense to a company that doesn't want to expand in the future, which seems strange to me. Which implies no one will ever change their supplier.

Do those journos know what they are talking about when it come to this is what I wonder.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Sounds a very short sighted way to go. It depends on your system being up and running when they want a reading or whatever - assuming you even have one installed, as plenty don't these days. With a mobile phone type connection, it will still work even with the house CU turned off.

[Peter Johnson]

Mine, gas and electricity, were installed in May 2014 and the changeover was completed in May this year; they say they installed a lot of meters last year. I have today emailed for the second time to complain about the lack of month-by-month data, which apparently they have, because they rolled up a year's charges into a single bill, and to ask for an explantion about last month's bill being estimated. I did get 3% interest on the credit balance, of course, which was higher than if they'd billed me monthly.

They also gave me a little wireless (not wifi) display that shows consumption remotely but is useless for any practical purposes. The cost estimates on it are way out as well. If the router link is to an app or a web page then it would probably be an improvement.

[puffernutter]

We have an OVO Smart Meter on the electric and gas. Uses it's own WiFi. Hap py with OVO, so no idea what hassle it will be if we ever decide to change.

The initial hassle was that after they had done the electric, but before th e gas (they needed a different interface to the meter) was that their billi ng system wasn't seeing our meter. We paid them, but they didn't charge us ! It took them 9 months and their engineer finally fitting the gas interfac e (long story) to work out that somewhere in Cumbria an installation engine er has misread the meter number and there were two meters with the same num ber on their system. We pay monthly, so it wasn't a big issue, in fact they pay 3% interest on positive balances so as they didn't take make any charg es for 9 months, we ended up with a healthy interest payment as well!

Cheers

Peter

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 12:24:16 on Wed,

1 Jul 2015, Theo Markettos remarked:

Don't be daft, there are millions of meters and only a dozen or so mobile networks (assuming you count MVNOs as well). Every energy company having some sort of deal with every mobile network is trivial in the grand scheme of things.

[Bill Stewart]

It is a fully functional Smart Meter. Having the connection to my wi-fi was an option which I chose. I understand that *all* smart meters have the facility to use mobile phone network for transmitting half-hourly data back to base. I don't know if it will use my internet connection to transmit meter readings or the phone network. I am not actually bothered: it is not costing me anything (despite what some seem to be wanting to claim). I was hoping that someone had one and could tell me what facilities it provides to the user. OVO web pages are very sparse on such info. (I personally think that they are a total waste of time and money: I really do not believe that they will save people money. The companies are having to fork out millions for buying and installing them so that everyone has one by 2020 (I think it is) : I can't guess who is going to pay those costs)

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 13:47:45 on Wed, 1 Jul 2015, Bill Stewart remarked:

What facilities does it have for doing things like switching off your deep freeze temporarily when there's very high demand elsewhere, or only powering up the dishwasher overnight?

Do functions like that require a "smart appliance", or have they sent you some "smart plugs" to put in between the relevant appliances and the sockets they are plugged into.

[Dave Liquorice]

That would make sense but still assumes there is a GSM/UMTS/LTE signal where the meter is loacted. There isn't here, something to do with the meters being in the boiler room with two sides 18" stone walls the other two block but interior with the exterior walls being

18 thick stone. Also the signal is poor in the first place, reliabel phone calls can only be made upstairs by a window on the right side of the house... If they want to start drilling holes, running cables etc for an external anntenna they can pay rental for the support services. £50/year may be?

[Dave Liquorice]

Bugger all I expect that would require rewiring fro thos circuitsa nd switching module or similar. So knowing how well (not) this smart meter roll out has be thought about and implimented such function will require the meter to be replaced again...

That would avoid the rewiring/switch module problem but probably not the meter change one. Apart from E7 E10 etc I don't think there are any dynamically variable rate tariffs. Even if there are does the current Smart Meter technology have a means of telling the meter what the rate is going to be in each of the 30 min blocks for the next

6hrs? It needs that information so it can pick the best time to turn things on or off.

[whisky-dave]

I've not seen anyhting with this functionality built in and I doubt it'd be worth doing on a deep freeze anyway. Maybe on 2KW+ kettles. I doubt they'll bother with fridge freezers as they'll be little power to save by doing this.

why would you buy a smart plug if all it does is switch off the appliance it's connected too, I assume few would eb that stupid. If they are inbuilt I would expect there be some indication on the device. Smart kettles exist but I don't think they can be turned off by smart meters.