"Jack Harry Teesdale" <
noreply49...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:uesgm3$21bbs$1...@dont-email.me...
> I would not be averse to having a SMETS2 smart meter to be able to take
> part in Peak Save and other cost reducing tariff options but to date BG
> show no interest in offering me one.
Can I ask about how well people have found that smart meters communicate
with the In Home Device (console) and the central database (for the
company's app and web site)?
We had a smart electricity and smart gas meter fitted in June. To begin with
they both gave complete records (no missed readings) but after a couple of
months the gas meter stopped communicating with the IHD (*) and the
app/website or only updated once every couple of days. The Octopus app often
lists "we are waiting for today's results" or some such wording - and some
days those readings *never* arrive, or else they are partial - usually the
bar chart is complete for the first few hours after midnight but no
subsequent readings.
Octopus have done something remotely (maybe forcing something to reboot)
which cures the problem for a few days but it then comes back again. They
are sending someone to investigate, but I wondered whether anyone else had
experienced this?
In general, how long should it take for a day's midnight-to-midnight elec
and gas reading to show in the app? I find that usually by about 10 AM the
previous day's elec reading shows up, but sometimes nothing gets updated
until maybe 16:00-19:00. In the meantime I usually see two readings for
00:00 and 00:30, but nothing more - and then eventually the whole day's bar
chart readings are there, together with the midnight-to-midnight daily
usage.
Would you normally expect that a day's midnight-to-midnight usage figure
from the app should agree fairly well with a 10:00-10:00 (or thereabouts)
reading of the meter's own LCD display? Do smart meters tend to under-read
on the midnight-to-midnight usage results? I realise that it is the
cumulative reading every week/month that the elec/gas companies use for
working out the real bill, rather than using the sum of consecutive
midnight-to-midnight readings that the app might report.
My general impression of smart meters has been rather underwhelming: I
expected both the IHD and the app/web to give continuous up-to-date meter
values and usage so far today, rather than the app/web reading only being
updated once per day, and often a loooooooooong time after midnight when the
previous day's reading has ended.
(*) The IHD has a "Meter" menu option which reports the cumulative elec /
gas meter reading which should be the same as the readings on each meter's
own LCD display. For elec there is good agreement; for gas the IHD may
report the same value for several days and then suddenly jump up as if it
only occasionally gets an update.