Octopus Tracker

BootsMullery

masonic said:

t0rt0ise said:

I asked via twitter about this. I said all my half hour readings were there so why would it be smoothed out across the month. They said something about as well as half hour readings they get a midnight daily reading and that is sometimes missing. Presumably we can't tell via apps if that is missing. Anyway they pulled readings and redid the month to find it would cost me a few pence more so left it as was.

Within the app, you will see a daily consumption figure in a separate tab to the index readings. This is probably what is being referred to. It isn't just calculated based on the sum of the half hour consumption for that day, as I have a missing value for 27th, but have a full set of HH consumption values for that day.

If you go to the Day tab and then select today, it does show the half hourly consumption so far today, so this cannot be using a midnight reading. I have always thought that the data used by the Day tab is being supplied by my Octopus mini. I have at least one day of missing data in my gas usage in my online account, every month but the Day tab has always had a full days data for those days.
I actually left Tracker for a fix mainly because I was fed up with reporting the missing data but still getting averaged bills even though they mostly recovered the data. They actually sent me £120 compensation for all the trouble i had for the year, £10 for each month that I had a problem.
Since I went to a fix, I have continued to monitor the half hourly usage and the gaps have continued regularly every 20 days. Electricity has had no problems at all.

masonic

BootsMullery said:

masonic said:

t0rt0ise said:

I asked via twitter about this. I said all my half hour readings were there so why would it be smoothed out across the month. They said something about as well as half hour readings they get a midnight daily reading and that is sometimes missing. Presumably we can't tell via apps if that is missing. Anyway they pulled readings and redid the month to find it would cost me a few pence more so left it as was.

Within the app, you will see a daily consumption figure in a separate tab to the index readings. This is probably what is being referred to. It isn't just calculated based on the sum of the half hour consumption for that day, as I have a missing value for 27th, but have a full set of HH consumption values for that day.

If you go to the Day tab and then select today, it does show the half hourly consumption so far today, so this cannot be using a midnight reading. I have always thought that the data used by the Day tab is being supplied by my Octopus mini. I have at least one day of missing data in my gas usage in my online account, every month but the Day tab has always had a full days data for those days.
I actually left Tracker for a fix mainly because I was fed up with reporting the missing data but still getting averaged bills even though they mostly recovered the data. They actually sent me £120 compensation for all the trouble i had for the year, £10 for each month that I had a problem.
Since I went to a fix, I have continued to monitor the half hourly usage and the gaps have continued regularly every 20 days. Electricity has had no problems at all.

Octopus only pull data from the meter once per day (for the previous day), so anything for the current day comes from the mini (and it will also fill in any other recent missing days in the day tab). None of that data can be used for billing. The day tab otherwise uses the half hour data from the meter, while week and month views use daily totals.

What is interesting is that some people have found changing supplier made their problems go away, as different suppliers use different adapters to interface with the data, with some being more tolerant of communication errors.

In situations where the meter has reported all 48 half hours but failed to report the daily total, it is surely not beyond the system to add them together. It's going to give the same result to within about 1 Wh. Yet averaging is the outcome.

Slinky

Don't know why OE have decided to issue is with an averaged gas bill for June when their app shows full data for the whole of the month. We were on holiday for 2 weeks when the prices went up so have lost out through the averaging. I'm also a little concerned that their app, and Octoprice, appeared to show some small amounts of usage when the boiler was off (no pilot light), and I'm wondering if we may have a small leak on the house side of the meter. Having an accurate bill with the daily readings may give us some insight.  I've asked them to sort and re-bill.

Telegraph_Sam

As a relatively low user I can't say that I have checked to see if at any point in the past I have been averaged [having to do this for Agile is one of the reasons that have put me off switching to Agile up to now]. I wonder sometimes just what difference being averaged makes to the average bill, whilst accepting that for high users it would be worth close scrutiny and making a fuss where appropriate.

masonic

Telegraph_Sam said:

As a relatively low user I can't say that I have checked to see if at any point in the past I have been averaged [having to do this for Agile is one of the reasons that have put me off switching to Agile up to now]. I wonder sometimes just what difference being averaged makes to the average bill, whilst accepting that for high users it would be worth close scrutiny and making a fuss where appropriate.

It can make a big difference if you have load-shifted into the cheaper days and avoided use on the more expensive days, which is the essential premise behind the tariff.

There is no averaging on Agile. Missing data means you cannot be billed. If data is irretrievable, then specific days would have to be charged at the Flexible Octopus rate, but this is very much a last resort after attempting to manually pull the data. You won't get a bill automatically on Agile if there is data missing, whereas for Tracker it seems the system happily averages at the first sign of trouble.

Telegraph_Sam

Useful and interesting info tks. Large scale load shifting must have limited rewards for low users. I don't know if "averaging" is a reason for preferring one tariff over the other.

pfpf

Slinky said:

Don't know why OE have decided to issue is with an averaged gas bill for June when their app shows full data for the whole of the month. We were on holiday for 2 weeks when the prices went up so have lost out through the averaging. I'm also a little concerned that their app, and Octoprice, appeared to show some small amounts of usage when the boiler was off (no pilot light), and I'm wondering if we may have a small leak on the house side of the meter. Having an accurate bill with the daily readings may give us some insight.  I've asked them to sort and re-bill.

i remember i got the "averaged" bill several times when on tracker. as with you the app had no missing data, or so i thought.
if the missing data is in a slot where to you there was no usage therefore the app says zero usage OE still may not have that slots data.
there is a website where you can pull up actual data and i saw a missing 30 min slot where usage was zero to me but OE averaged the bill. someone may be able to provide that website link?

Telegraph_Sam

I can't remember off hand which web site is/was able to plug the data gaps but would be keen to be reminded.
With averaging is it not a swings & roundabouts (or a zero sum game?) situation where the peaks are balanced out by the troughs? OR if one is put onto Flexible for the periods of missed data then there is bound to be a loser? A special interpretation of "averaging" ?

KTF

Slinky said:

Don't know why OE have decided to issue is with an averaged gas bill for June when their app shows full data for the whole of the month. We were on holiday for 2 weeks when the prices went up so have lost out through the averaging. I'm also a little concerned that their app, and Octoprice, appeared to show some small amounts of usage when the boiler was off (no pilot light), and I'm wondering if we may have a small leak on the house side of the meter. Having an accurate bill with the daily readings may give us some insight.  I've asked them to sort and re-bill.

I have the same issue when we go away. Absolutely no gas usage whatsoever but they still record usage for those days and average it accordingly.

I really have no idea why they do this as they can get the data every 30 minutes.

Every year I complain to them about it and still no change in how it works.

JerryW

I'm on tracker and have never had an averaged bill. Each bill contains a list of all of the days in the month and a cost calculation for each day. That and the Kwh used are then totalled and the bill includes a statement of the average consumption and cost. But the bill is calculated from the daialy figures not the average. Wondering if some are misreading their bill? 

If your bill has the list by day, what you pay has not been averaged.