Ovo secure smart meters

klee88

Hi can anyone tell me what energy companies use the 'secure' smart meters other than Utilita.

I want to leave Ovo but I don't like the sound of Utilita either.

Thanks

matelodave

Why do you want to know - it's unlikely that a smart meter, even if identical, will work with another supplier's network. The comms, protocols, databases and billing systems are different and incompatible.

About the only two companies who's smart meters will work with each other are British Gas & Sainsbury's and that's because BG supply Sainsbury's and do their billing.

Terry98

Ovo used to say which suppliers could use their smart meters but they don't now. I contacted a couple of them and although the meters were the same they had different ways of using them as matelodave has explained.

This is Ovo's latest advice https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-answers/topics/smart-technology/smart-meters/can-i-switch-energy-suppliers-with-smart-meter.html

House_Martin

Eon have taken the bait of a much cheaper to buy smart meter and switched from Landis and Gyr to these cut price rubbish things from Secure Liberty as well as a few of the cheapjack little suppliers such as Ovo , Utilita, First Utility
5000 Rupees (approx ) buys you the Secure liberty 100, about £55 , so big bulk buys will lower it even more.
Marge and Ken are going to be surprised to see a raft of leading noughts on this meter, 7 of them with a new meter which has 8 digits in all for the kwh reading ! and god help them with the KVaH reading the meter also displays. That will baffle them. It is a meter which is designed for small business use in India.
UK domestic electric meters have always displayed just 5 digits for the electricity reading.
This meter, Secure Liberty 100, is unsuitable for domestic use but its cheap to buy and thats what counts for hard up suppliers.
It is a business meter with business settings on it which will cause nothing but problems to many of its users, especially the more elderly or with poor eyesight.
Why is 8 digits and Kvah readings displayed on the meter ? and they have the bare faced cheek to display kwhs on the gas meter and iHD which is never needed for billing.Designed to confuse and its lousy to operate with its stupid little keyboard.
Just try scrabbling about with a torch in your mouth whilst propped up on your elbows at ground level.
Eon are just plain idiotic for buying these Indian rubbish meters
Eon have had major financial problems which is probably why they have given up on their customers and decided to go for the cheapest of the cheap.
I m a meter reader and I see plenty of these ex Ovo Indian meters in use with BG, Scottish Power, EDF etc. They do not need to be exchanged when used as a basic dumb credit meter and they do display Eco 7 readings on button 6, but they are no good for these suppliers in prepayment mode and they have to be exchanged.

thorganby

Your opinion that Secure meters are rubbish is not based on fact.

More suppliers like eon are using Secure meters because they offer better value for money and they enable a more cost effective rollout of smart meters which we are all paying having to pay for.

I'm sure that "Marge and Ken" will easily be able to cope with a few leading zeros, even it it confuses some dyslectic meter readers who drive cars with leading digits displayed on the odometer.

You failed to mention the large easy to read back lit displays.

The Secure Liberty 100 was not designed for small business use in India, it was specifically designed to meet the specific UK standards along with the EGV4 10 gas meter and is perfectly suitable for home use.

The comms hub can easily be interchanged without needing to disconnect or swap out the meter with a replacement.

The fact that Secure meters is an Indian company seems to ruffle your feathers, why do you feel it necessary to keep mentioning this.

Did you have a Robin Reliant or a Corsa Vauxhall because you always refer to them incorrectly as Liberty Secure meters.

House_Martin

These meters are not at all easy to read. They are bloody awful ! I don`t think you have ever seen one set in a domestic situation in say, a cupboard under the stairs or deep in the pantry, high up over the door. You are just some outsider amateur who has viewed them on a website when you are playing about on laptop gawping at your screen. Thorganby or whatever you are calling yourself nowadays, only the other week you were !!!!!ing on here about Secure gas meters IHD displaying gas Kwh. Well they display it on the smart meter too
I have many years experience of listening to complaints from the "Ken and Marges " about these appalling cheap meters with a miniscule keyboard.
Most of the ones I see are set on a fast scroll where it will run through a variety of screens when only one is needed.
Just one screen of 5 big digits is all that is ever needed from any electric meter .Why EIGHT digits ? and why would a domestic electric meter, designed YOU say for our market need to display Kvah ?.
I see plenty of these meters with 8 digits but only on large users of business electricity maximum demand meters, where also KvaH and Kvarh are needed and displayed. KVaH is ONLY used in industry, so what is it doing on a UK domestic smart meter
I m sure KVah is a useful reading for Ken and Marge because that reading appears on one of the screens too, then Ken will send that reading off by mistake often enough but mainly the Ken and Marges and the Waynes and Sharons as well just give up with the reading altogether.
Most of the time these cut price s**t meters are in dumb mode so its very important just to get the kwh reading and nothing else. Whats wrong with just 5 big digits in kwh s only. ? no other screens are needed whatsoever on any domestic electric meter. Its just complexity for the sake of it.

Secure also manage to completely muck up the gas smart screen with a prominent display of kwhs as well as well as cubic metres (m3 ) which has been causing nothing but trouble on both the meter and the IHD as well .We have had a surfeit of moans on here already over this huge mess up.And YOU Thorganby, (or Cameltoe, Espresso, Sosumi, Rubidium etc ) was moaning about it only a few days ago.

Ideally a simple digital display of just 5 digits is all that is needed for both gas and electric digital meters with. no buttons to press, no fast scrolling.
They are a recipe for disaster and I implore Eon to think again and abandon them ,even if they are a hard up big 6 supplier who nearly went bust a couple of years ago and need to cut costs. The head of EDF was predicting they would go bust along with their German mates Npower. but somehow they are hanging on.
They will end up losing customers hand over fist.
The first time I saw a Secure meter must have been 7 years ago with a young woman with an Ovo prepay meter who was heartily sick of the thing had switched back to British Gas to get shut of it.

I had to laugh this year when there was a Secure meter in an outside box low down on a grass verge 100 yards from the house in a rural area. The bloke in the house said he could nt make head or tail of it, and he was an electrician !

I m with Eon now for another 10 months and I will tell them where to stick their dismal cheap tat meter if they dare to suggest fitting it in my property.

thorganby

Do you always have to be so argumentative? This is another pointless rant full of insults, crazy assumptions, lies and miss quotes! I really have no idea who these other posters are that you think that I am but you are completely wrong about this and you are obviously insulting these other posters as well by posting your wild, libellous, unfounded notions. You will be informing me next that I should have a TV license.

You state that I am "just some outsider amateur", fine if that is what you believe but it is obvious that while you may read meters daily, you actually know very little about the technical aspects of smart metering e.g. you post about "over the air updates" to bring meters up to the latest standard and this will simply not happen, due to the amount of data and the maximum available data transfer rate on the network! Meters that do not have easily interchangeable comms. hubs e.g. like the the Secure "cut price s**t meters" that you detest, will simply be replaced.

You obviously resent being corrected when you post incorrect information and resort to your usual habit of posting insults e.g. recently you stated:

House_Martin wrote: »

i do have a hatred of the American Liberty Secure meters which give too much information.Typical Yanks !
It might be acceptable for the odd weirdo s who are techno geeks..............

Now you are posting that Secure meters are cheap Indian rubbish.

You seem to be rather confused yet again because you state that "These meters are not at all easy to read. They are bloody awful !" and then in the same post you state "Secure also manage to completely muck up the gas smart screen with a prominent display of kwhs as well as well as cubic metres (m3 )"

How can they be "not at all easy to read" and "display prominently"?

I have never "moaned" as you put it that Secure meters provide the gas reading in kWh and cu M, what I did post is that not all IHD's display the volume gas reading in cu M.

This is what I actually posted:

thorganby wrote: »

It is good to find out before installation, exactly what features the various different suppliers smart meters provide.

I have read that not all in house displays show the actual volume meter reading from the gas meter in cubic meters. This is important for those with disability issues who want to periodically record their actual meter readings from the in house display and not some useless kWh approximation which will not be used for billing.

If the in house display does not show the actual meter readings then smart meters are useless as far as I am concerned. I am certainly not interested in a high, medium, low traffic light type display or silly CO2 figures.

You don't like Secure meters, we all get that but your opinion does not make them rubbish and the suppliers that have chosen to install them are certainly not interested in your misguided, uninformed opinions, so dream on if you think that they will listen to you!

:rotfl:

Raxiel

I have to agree with HM about the difficulty in reading the secure meters.

My issue is, the frame is too close to the display, and the viewing angle of the LCD is poor, making it easy to misread at any angle other than square on.

The leading zero's don't bother me, but trying to read off the two rates on one set up for E7 is more of a chore than it needs to be. They don't spend long enough on the actual reading, but take too long between them.

klee88

matelodave wrote: »

Why do you want to know - it's unlikely that a smart meter, even if identical, will work with another supplier's network. The comms, protocols, databases and billing systems are different and incompatible.

About the only two companies who's smart meters will work with each other are British Gas & Sainsbury's and that's because BG supply Sainsbury's and do their billing.

So basically i'm stuck with Ovo? I read somewhere that if I switched to a supplier that didn't use the Secure meters then my smart meter wouldn't work, and so I wouldn't be able to pay via prepayment anymore.

What would happen if i tried to switch to another company - would they install a new compatible smart meter?

Raxiel

The answer to your first question, other than OVO and Utilita, E.ON use those meters.

klee88 wrote: »

So basically i'm stuck with Ovo? I read somewhere that if I switched to a supplier that didn't use the Secure meters then my smart meter wouldn't work, and so I wouldn't be able to pay via prepayment anymore.

What would happen if i tried to switch to another company - would they install a new compatible smart meter?

They wouldn't remain 'smart', in that they wouldn't continue to communicate directly with the supplier.
For credit meters, that just means you have to submit readings manually, just as in the days before smart meters.
For pre-pay, it's not something I'm deeply familiar with, but the secure liberty meters allow you to enter the vend code from the paypoint receipt via the keypad. How do you top up now?

If you switch, OVO may well put the meter into credit mode, which would be a good thing since it would let you choose cheaper tariffs.

House_Martin

klee88 wrote: »

So basically i'm stuck with Ovo? I read somewhere that if I switched to a supplier that didn't use the Secure meters then my smart meter wouldn't work, and so I wouldn't be able to pay via prepayment anymore.

What would happen if i tried to switch to another company - would they install a new compatible smart meter?

My very first experience of a Secure prepay meter over 7 years ago was someone switching from Ovo back to British Gas because she hated the meter and was sick to death of problems with it and it was nt any cheaper, so she returned to British Gas. The early Secure meter said "made in USA " which I assumed was the origin of the country who owned them.
These meters are designed for Indian small businesses. They display Kvah readings which is suitable for a country with a variable electricity supply, like India, and a more reliable pricing for actual energy used.
Certainly not suitable for the UK
BG cannot use Secure meters at all in prepayment mode and they have to install a Landis and Gyr electric key meter.
Only suppliers who also use Secure Liberty 100 meters can use these meters in prepayment meter mode. That is Utilita, First Utility and recently Eon ( I think Utility Warehouse may also use them )
All the others will have to exchange the meter to either key or card dumb meters or possibly they will install their smart meters. BG now install Landis and Gyr and Siemens gas meters in smart prepay mode.