Smart Meters Installed- Octopus

[Brian]

As previously posted, we were scheduled to have Smart Meters installed by Octopus just over a week ago.

The installation went very smoothly- the chap was very professional and more than happy to answer questions etc.

We had the choice of a 'table top' display or an interface which we could access via an App. As, with either, there is also an App to access our data from Octopus and the table top one doesn't need your phone etc to hand, we opted for that.

It took a couple of days for System to register our meter etc and, while the local display is (more or less real time), the website lags.

One niggle, the in house display only shows total electric kW (or £), not Hi/LO if you have economy 7. To get those details, you need to read the meter itself.

We only had one installed due to loss of the 198kHz time signal.

[Jethro_uk]

May be worth looking around your account to see if there is a curl to read data from their servers.

[alan_m]

Request an Octopus mini for free https://octopus.energy/blog/octopus-home-mini/ This will interface with the phone app and give near live electric consumption (30 to 60 seconds update rate

[Andy Burns]

I assumed the interface he'd chosen to not have /was/ an octopus mini?

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

I don't think an either, or - you can request the mini, even if you have the IHD. There is a rather long wait for them, though.

[Roland Perry]

In message <urfmp3$1ttt7$ [e-mail], at 15:36:03 on Sun, 25 Feb

2024, Brian [e-mail] remarked:

I've recently swapped to Octopus, and am eagerly awaiting them deciding they need to replace my dual fuel British Gas smart meter which has been broken for about two years now.

[alan_m]

You can have both. I have both.

The mini talks to the electric meter, sends data to Octopus, and in turn displays the results on a smart phone app. The app shows my live electric consumption to a resolution of 1 minute.

The app (without the mini) shows daily consumption to a resolution of 30 minutes (but a day behind)*, weekly consumption to a resolution of a day, monthly consumption to a resolution of a day and yearly consumption to resolution of a month.

The stand alone display only gives the ongoing total for the day or month (a single figure)

• The only slight gotcha is the data is cleared down at midnight and then for the next 24 hours you get a usage graph updated every 30 minutes. Similarly the weekly data is reset midnight Sunday and the monthly data reset on 1st Jan.

The above assumes that you haven't turned off the permission for Octopus to collect 30 minute data from the DNO. For those who wear tin foil hats Octopus give the option of obtaining the data weekly or monthly.

[alan_m]

It may depend on who made the meter. My wait was around 4 weeks.

[NY]

One thing to check (we found out by chance).

The gas meter needs to communicate with the electricity meter, and the electricity meter sends data for both meters to the Octopus servers.

Check that the gas meter uses *both* communication frequencies. I'm not sure whether this means both 2.4 and 5 GHz. We had problems after a couple of months where the gas meter only communicated with the electricity meter (and hence the servers and the IHD) once in a blue moon. Until a certain day, everything had been fine.

When a second fitter came out to investigate, he found that an old type of gas meter had been fitted, which only communicated over a frequency that had a shorter range. Unfortunately he needed to replace the whole meter, rather than just a comms board, to give the ability to talk over the longer-range frequency.

It sound as if the older type uses 5 GHz (only) whereas the new one uses both 5 and 2.4 GHz (with 2.4 GHz having a longer range because it is attenuated less by walls etc. Or an equivalent concept for whatever frequencies the two meters use for meter-to-meter comms.

Sorry that all this sounds a bit woolly and vague, but I'm repeating as much as I remember of what the fitter told me, and he may not have understood everything. Real Chinese whispers stuff ;-)

The single/dual frequency thing may only affect some people. Our elec and gas meters are about 20 metres apart, with four thick stone walls in between, because that part of the house was built in the 1800s. No nice simple brick and breeze-block cavity walls in those days ;-(

[Brian]

Both meters seem to be working fine ( ie sending data to Octopus), after the initial ‘set up’ delay, which I was warned about.

Our meters are side by side, within 0.5 m of each other or so.

The electric one has a large antenna, stuck inside of the meter box.

The installer mentioned he’d chosen the type for our location.

[Brian]

It may be worth giving them a nudge. While they are very good customer service wise in my experience, I gained the impression they are doing a lot of Smart Meter installs, possibly due to the Economy 7 time clock issue.

( As you may know, the time signal embedded in the 198kHz BBC transmission is ending soon. It is used by the older Economy 7 time switches.)

[me9]

Is it? I gather that teh reported demise of 198khz is just teh amalgamation of R4LW programme with teh main R4 programme and the transmission from Droitwich carrying the teledata will continue.

[Andy Burns]

The radio teleswitch service will be around until at least March 2025

step 1: Get people used to not needing to listen on LW

step 2: Stay schtum for a while

step 3: Stop broadcasting on LW

[alan_m]

How many people actually listen to LW? I haven't had a radio with am/lw capability for more than 25 years

[Andy Burns]

god-fearing, politics-loving, cricket-buffs?

[Chris Green]

It's handy in Europe still, with a decent receiver you can get a listenable signal over quite a wide area. Even my car radio gives me reasonable R4 LW reception in Northern France (and presumably much of Belgium and the Netherlands).

[The Natural Philosopher]

It has the longest range of all BBC transmitters. People in Eastern and Southern Europe and the North Sea and the Atlantic could all pick it up. And did. That's why it has a shipping forecast.

[charles]

A great many years ago, I listened to the Light Programme along the shores of Lake Geneva.

[Pamela]

Broken in what way?

[Roland Perry]

In message <XnsB1248F397FB8C5D4AM2@135.181.20.170>, at 14:04:46 on Mon,

26 Feb 2024, Pamela [e-mail] remarked:

Not sending readings back to the supplier. Failing to pair with the local consumer display. Pretty comprehensive fail!!